Abstract

The growing threat to liberal democracy worldwide is, in many ways, a political party threat. Recent years have witnessed the rise of a range of authoritarian populist, illiberal, far-right, nativist, and extremist parties. Some have entered government in countries including Hungary, Poland, Austria, and Italy. Germany’s Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) is now the main parliamentary opposition. Beyond Europe we see democratic structures threatened or incrementally dismantled through the subversion of an established democratic party by an outsider (e.g. Donald Trump in the United States or Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines) or ascendance of the extremist wing of a right-wing party (e.g. India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)). Parties and party leaders occupying an ill-defined space on the political spectrum—a form of “far-right lite”—today generally present a much greater threat to democratic governance than overtly antidemocratic fringe outfits, such as Germany’s National Democratic Party (NPD). The ambiguity of such parties, their growing size, their entry into government, the subversion of “good” democratic parties by a “bad” leadership, and the rise of the “shadow party” and intensifying external control mean that contemporary political party threats seriously frustrate the possibility of remedial action afforded by existing public law and policy mechanisms. They also require us to reflect anew on crafting novel remedies and to revisit our deep assumptions about parties as creatures of central constitutional importance.

中文翻译：

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政党与民主：应对当今政党对民主统治的威胁

摘要

从许多方面来看，世界范围内对自由民主的日益增长的威胁是政党的威胁。近年来，目睹了一系列专制民粹主义，自由主义，极右翼，本土主义和极端主义政党的崛起。有些人进入了匈牙利，波兰，奥地利和意大利等国家的政府。目前，德国的主要反对派是德国的德国交替组织（AfD）。在欧洲以外，我们看到，外部人士（例如美国的唐纳德·特朗普或菲律宾的罗德里戈·杜特尔特）颠覆既定的民主党，或右翼政党的极端主义势力登峰造极，威胁或逐步破坏民主结构。印度的Bharatiya Janata党（BJP）。政党和政党领袖在政治频谱上占据着一个模糊的空间（一种“极右派”轻型组织），今天，通常比诸如德国国民民主党（NPD）之类的反民主边缘组织对民主施政的威胁要大得多。 。这些政党的模棱两可，规模不断扩大，进入政府，“坏”领导人颠覆“好”民主政党，“影子党”的崛起以及外部控制的加强，都意味着当代政党面临着严重的威胁。挫败了现有公共法律和政策机制采取补救措施的可能性。它们还要求我们重新考虑制定新的补救办法，并重新审视对政党具有重要宪法意义的生物的深刻假设。