August 31, 2005

This conference has two broad goals. First, there has been a tremendous expansion of empirical research on political parties, especially research on new third wave democracies. These papers examine the characteristics of parties, electoral systems, and party systems across a wide range of democratic nations. Second, this conference should generate a new theoretical understanding of the relationship between parties and political development. If the expansion and institutionalization of parties has diminished in new democracies, what factors have produced these patterns? The conference was organized by Russell Dalton of UC Irvine and Ian McAllister of the Australian National University in collaboration with Ivan Doherty of the National Democratic Institute.

11:30 Welcome to the National Democratic Institute
NDI Conference Room

12:00 Participant Luncheon
Keynote Address: A 40 Year Retrospective on "Political Parties and Political Development"
Joseph LaPalombara, Yale University
(Reservations required for lunch)

1:00-2:30 Session I: The Social Integration of Parties

Chair: TBA
Papers:
"The Variability and Stability within Party Systems"
Scott Mainwaring, Notre Dame University and Mariano Torcal, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
"Partisanship and Party System Institutionalization "
Russell Dalton, University of California, Irvine and Steve Weldon, University of California, Irvine
"Parties as the Representatives of Social Cleavages"
Ian McAllister, Australian National University and Stephen White, University of Glasgow

3:00-4:30 Session II: Parties as Political and Governing Organizations

Chair: TBA
Papers:
"Party Mobilization"
Susan Banducci, Texas Tech University and Jeff Karp, Texas Tech University
"Parties and the State"
Ingrid van Biezen, University of Birmingham and Petr Kopecký, University of Leiden
"Parties and Government"
John Carey, Dartmouth and Andrew Reynolds, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

5:00 Closing Remarks

The conference will be held at the National Democratic Institute, 2030 M Street, NW, Fifth Floor, Washington, DC 20036-3306, Tel: (202) 728-5500 NDI Homepage

For further information on the conference please contact the conference coordinator at (949) 824-2904 or csd@uci.edu at the Center for the Study of Democracy or Hannah Arnold harnold@ndi.org at NDI.

The papers from this conference are published as a special issue of Party Politics (Forthcoming, March 2007).