Beyond the European void? Reflections on Peter Mair's legacy

• Author: Christopher Bickerton
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• Date: 01 September 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12287

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Beyond the European void? Reflections on Peter

Mair's legacy

Christopher Bickerton*

Abstract

Peter Mair was one of the world's leading scholars of party politics. Though he wrote at some length

about the European Union, there has been no systematic exploration of the implications of his com-

parative work on political parties for European integration. His writings on the EU have generally

been studied in isolation from his wider oeuvre, with the result that we have missed the important

analytical and logical connections between Mair's work on parties and his writings on the EU. This

article argues that Mair's path‐breaking middle‐range theoretical and empirical work on the decline

of party democracy can form the basis of a radical reappraisal of the project of ‘ever closer union’.

The article studies Mair's arguments against the backdrop of more recent empirical evidence and

evaluates the normative implications of his work for the future of the European project.

1|INTRODUCTION

Peter Mair devoted much of his career to a strictly academic study of the comparative politics field. His contributions

ranged from celebrated empirical studies of the Irish party system to path‐breaking works on societal cleavages, the

phenomenon of electoral volatility, and transformations in political parties and party systems.

1

Venturing outside of

the academy, Mair published in 2006 an article in the New Left Review entitled ‘Ruling the Void: The Hollowing Out of

Western Democracy’.Much‐discussed and cited, this article became the basis for a longer book‐length exploration of

the theme of the crisis of representative politics in advanced democracies.

2

*

Reader in Modern European Politics, Cambridge University, UK

1

Peter Mair, The Changing Irish Party System: Organization, Ideology and Electoral Competition (Frances Pinter, 1987) and Stefano

Bartolini and Peter Mair, Identity, Competition and Electoral Availability: The Stabilisation of European Electorates 1885–1985

(Cambridge University Press, 1990). On parties and party systems, see Peter Mair, Party System Change: Approaches and Interpreta-

tions (Oxford University Press, 1997). For the long‐standing collaboration with Richard Katz, see, inter alia, Richard S. Katz and Peter

Mair, ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy’, (1995) 1 Party Politics,5–28 and a revisiting of the cartel party

argument in Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair, ‘The Cartel Party Thesis: A Restatement’, (2009) 7 Perspectives on Politics, 753–766. For a

very brief summary of his scholarly work and contribution to comparative politics, see the obituary by his co‐author, Richard Katz, in

Party Politics: Richard S. Katz, ‘Peter Mair, an Obituary’,18Party Politics,3–6.

2

Peter Mair, Ruling the Void: The Hollowing Out of Western Democracy (Verso, 2013). Mair himself had published previously two arti-

cles in the New Left Review, both focusing on British politics. His 2000 article entitled ‘Partyless Democracy’outlined some ideas that

were taken up in his later writings but the focus remained on the UK, and New Labour in particular. See Peter Mair, ‘Partyless Democ-

racy’, (2000) 2 New Left Review,21–35, and Peter Mair, ‘The Question of Electoral Reform’, (1992) I/194, New Left Review,75–97.

DOI: 10.1111/eulj.12287

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