In the literature on both the United States and comparative politics, there have been debates about the degree to which political parties are in decline, whether parties continue to play important roles in structuring society and/or legislative processes, and whether parties will adapt to the changing environment. Political Parties and Democratic Linkage provides a defense of the thesis that parties are still vital to democratic politics. While they acknowledge that voters hold parties in low esteem, Russell J. Dalton, Donald M. Farrell, and Ian McAllister provide evidence, based on the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) surveys and other data, that parties structure both voting and legislative organization. As such, parties “link” voters and representatives, which, they argue, is the basis of democratic governance.

The book is divided into three main sections, plus introductory and concluding chapters. The introduction outlines five main forms of linkage. The first section, “Parties and Elections Campaigns,” addresses the role of parties in structuring the electoral process. The first chapter of that section explains that the relation between parties and democratic states is strong, with the state providing financial support and a regulatory regime that helps in “protecting the genus of political parties as a species” (p. 30). As examples, there are regulations that limit independents and new parties and many state subsidies (direct and indirect). In the end, they generate a country-level analysis of the party centeredness of the electoral process (pp. 46–47), based on an index that measures the degree to which parties control selection of candidates, whether the system is party or candidate centered, whether there are free media ads for parties, how parties are financed, and several other issues. All countries in their analysis score between 2.0 and 5.0, except the United States, which scores just 0.5.

Chapter 3 takes a similar tack, arguing about the role of parties in mobilizing voters. Here, the authors look at parties' contact with voters and different ways that parties encourage voters to get to the polls. They discuss variability across cases, and develop a hierarchical model to predict turnout based in part on contact with a party.

Section II offers three chapters on electoral choice. The focus of Chapter 4 is on whether voters' ideological preferences are represented by the parties that they elect. On the basis of their finding a correlation between the left—right positions of parties and voters, the authors conclude that the representative process generally works. More important for their theory, they find that “partisanship is the strongest correlate” for the left—right position, and partisan identification helps voters in “interpreting the political world” (p. 100).

Chapter 5 continues the investigation of the relation between voters' judgments of party positions and the parties' policy preferences. Using the CSES survey, they find (Figure 5.1) that in most countries, over 80% of voters can identify a left—right position of the two largest parties. The survey question does not validate whether the answers are correct, but through several tests, the authors conclude that “the public as a whole appears to have a reasonable view of the party choices they face in an election” (p. 124).

Chapter 6 asks a slightly different question (p. 143): “To what extent do left-right positions shape voting choices and how [does] the level of left-right voting var[y] across nations?” The chapter discusses factors that affect the relation between voters' orientation and the vote, but generally they find that voters' policy orientation (again on the left—right scale) matches their party preferences. The relation is imperfect at the individual level, but at the aggregate, “the fit between party voters and their preferred party is extremely close” (p. 152). Dalton, Farrell, and McAllister use this finding to conclude that the literature on party decline and limited “abilities of democratic electorates” (p. 154) is overstated.

The final section considers how parties organize government. The first of the two chapters considers the shape of coalitions and the second looks at policy outputs. A first important finding in Chapter 7 is that both proportional representation and majoritarian electoral systems produce coalitions that represent the median citizen. An emphasis in the chapter is on developing a dynamic model of representation. The authors argue that the representative processes works if the congruence between voters and coalitions improves after elections, and their tests support the idea that elections do have this quality. But as they note in Chapter 8, governments do not always act as voters expect. They thus test whether social spending reflects the partisan composition of governments. A key chart illustrates increases in health, education, and social spending areas when left governments take control.

In the concluding chapter, the authors criticize the literature that emphasizes the crisis or decline of parties and then summarize their own findings: “[P]olitical parties remain central to the party government model.” They acknowledge the poor image and other limitations of parties, but contend that “like a slightly slow bus that takes passengers to work each morning, parties still perform a vital function and accomplish it with reasonable efficiency” (p. 216) and are “here for the long haul” (p. 213).

Overall, this defense of parties' continuing roles is a useful contribution. The book also shows the flexibility of the CSES surveys, and gives a broad picture of parties across several dozen countries. In general, however, the findings about parties suggest the need for more analyses that distinguish among types of parties. As an example, in the book's first section, the authors do not attempt to discuss which parties or types of parties are successful in the changing political environment, or how different regulatory environments advantage one type of party over another. A key point of Chapter 2 is that parties continue to be “the principal gatekeepers” in elections. While the authors show (Table 2.1) that legal systems around the world do require that candidates in most countries receive a party imprimatur—with 11 of 38 countries prohibiting independents—the data also show that it is easy for new parties to form in many countries. Future work, therefore, might consider whether particular rules (such as stringent party formation requirements or prohibitions on independents) have strengthened existing parties or limited the number of parties.

Chapter 3 also provokes questions about differences across parties. Specifically, how do tactics differ among parties? The authors note that campaigns are now reliant on media—but they do not show how different types of parties have adapted. To support the role of parties, they note that parties were the focus of 95% of the media coverage in the 1990 German elections and that parties were mentioned frequently as important actors in the 2009 European Election Study. But which parties (or party families) were advantaged by the media? The current analysis does not explain, for example, whether media-oriented campaigns help existing parties or support the rise of outsiders, a distinction that is vital for weighing the decline-of-party thesis.

To provide one last example, it would be useful to understand whether existing rather than new political forces are more successful in mobilizing voters. The authors' thesis is that parties are key to organizing and mobilizing voters, but the data do not discriminate among those who participate under a partisan role, those who participate in politics without the taint of parties, and those who might mobilize for protests. They do note that the places with lower involvement are also those countries where parties are numerous and weak (the postcommunist countries), but we are still left without a clear understanding of the extent to which parties are provoking, attracting, and mobilizing voters. Their regression analysis (p. 72) does show a moderate impact of contact with politicians on turnout, but to sustain a thesis about the strength of parties, it would be useful to understand whether extant or institutionalized parties are able to use such tools to fend off challenges from new and inchoate movements.

In sum, Political Parties and Democratic Linkage uses a wealth of data to provide a new defense for the continuing role of parties in structuring elections and the policy process. In so doing, it provokes new questions, which is the mark of a successful book.