3. What Innovative Destruction? Changes in Parties and Party Systems

The radical transformation of the party system in the four cases of South European democracies in the light of institutionalized participation and of competition are analysed starting since the early 1990s. The attention is directed to the analysis of the decline in voter turnout and party memberships, the electoral volatility and party fragmentation, the electoral radicalization, the re-shaping of cleavages, the left/right cleavage included. The changes in all these dimensions are conceptualized as outcomes of a process of the format and mechanics of party systems of South Europe. The analysis of the pattern of change singles out three main paths: alienation and partisan continuity, movement mobilization and stabilization, immediate party stabilization. In these patterns, we also see the success of new protest or neo-populist parties, which is closely associated with the recessive economic situation and the growing dissatisfaction of the national public opinion.