Rethinking Party Reform

Rethinking Party Reform addresses a question of fundamental importance to contemporary representative democracies: How could political parties reconnect with society? This question is important because parties are widely mistrusted and seen as out of touch with citizens, but also occupy key positions of power, being the main organisations that connect citizens to parliament. The book makes the case for reforming parties by making them more deliberative . This means that, instead of putting one’s hopes on plebiscitary mechanisms, parties must institutionalise mechanisms that enable them to enter a genuine dialogue with their members and the wider citizenry.