RELEVANCE OR IRRELEVANCE OF «SMALL» PARTIES: THEORIZING, FEATURES AND MANIFESTATIONS

Abstract

The article structures and systematizes the approaches to understanding the phenomenon of «small» parties, and based on this theorizes and characterizes the features and manifestations of their relevance or irrelevance. Accordingly, the study is actualized by the attempt to answer the theoretical and methodological question important for the theory of party systems, whether «small» parties may be relevant ones or, conversely, they should be interpreted only as marginal ones, in particular depending on their understanding, and whether they can order various forms of inter-party competition at different levels of politics and governance. As a result, it is argued that there is still no consolidated position on the definition of the essence and understanding of the parameters, features and framework of the relevance of «small» parties in Political Science. Since, on one hand (depending on the context and approach to the definition), some of «small» parties are able to structure party systems, and some of them are not at all. On the other hand, the relevancy attribute is a barrier to the allocation (separation) or non-allocation (non-separation) of «small» parties. At the same time, it is generally stated that the relevance or irrelevance of «small» parties is not only an attribute of the party system, but also a characteristic of particular parties at different levels and stages of their life cycle. It is therefore stated that «small» parties may be both relevant and irrelevant, but irrelevant «small» parties may still be endowed (though not necessarily) with the potential for their relevance. This happens when «small» parties are able to mobilize the electorate for new socio-political cleavages and political identities, and therefore to correct the behavior and both ideological and political positioning of all other parties, especially mainstream and systematic ones, and thus the tactics and direction of inter-party competition in a particular party system.