Abstract

The author analyses two recent italian books on the transformations and the crisis of political parties. He discusses the notions of mass party, catch all party and cartel party and the possibility of a democracy without or beyond parties. He criticizes the idea of this kind of democracy as utopian or hazardous. At the same time he suggests that the cartelization of party politics in Europe represents a "back to the future". More precisely, to the american model of party politics described by James Bryce, Moisei Ostrogorski and Max Weber between the XIX and XX centuries.