Understanding the forms of government in foreign political science: The latest debate

Abstract

This article reviews the evolution of political parties in Germany over the last 30 years. The author comes to conclusion that the role of political parties, their relationship with society, methods of conducting election campaigns have changed dramatically.The partieshave abandoned ideology in favor of the image of their political leaders and political PR. They leave interaction with the traditional electorate for establishing contacts with civil society and turn from the expression of interests of definite social groups to intermediation between the society and the state. Thus, today's German political parties resemblemore and more the cartel party model, described by R. Katz and P. Mair.