Abstract
This work analyzes the état de l'art of literature about the transformation of party participation produced in the last few decades. Two main goals will lead our discussion: on the one hand we will aim to provide a reference overview that can contribute to developing further research on this matter; and on the second hand, we will try to mitigate the segmentation that characterizes the different analytical streams. Reviewing papers published in journals, but also Anglo-Saxon and French books, we get to compare their research problems, their underlying theoretical issues, as well as their specific methods. We will thus identify the structures of two fields in Political Sciences production that barely communicate between each other. First, the mainstream “Political Science” tradition, whose studies favor a systemic and comparative approach, relying on a fundamentally statistical demonstration. On the other hand, a Political Sociology tradition, developed in France and whose analytical perspective is little known at an international level. Influenced by the interactionist paradigm, this kind of research employs the socio-ethnographic method and redirects the focus of analysis to social meso and micro levels. Making a critical assessment of the main contributions of both strands, we point some current trends observed by scholars and we especially insist in the heuristic potential offered by research developed in Political Sociology to add new elements for understanding this phenomenon.
KEYWORDS:
political participation; militancy; Cartel Party; Political Science Approach; Political Sociology Approach