Professor McAllister wins Brian Farrell book prize

The Political Studies Association of Ireland has awarded the 2012 Brian Farrell book prize to Ian McAllister, Russell J. Dalton, and David M. Farrell and for their 2011 book Political Parties and Democratic Linkage: How Parties Organize Democracy. Professor Ian McAllister is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science in the ANU School of Politics and International Relations and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

The prize is awarded each year for the best politics book published in the calendar year prior to the award, and named in honour of broadcaster and academic, Brian Farrell who was a distinguished professor of Irish politics at University College Dublin. The committee agreed that work represented an outstanding contribution to political research meriting this year’s book prize.

This comprehensive volume assesses the central role of political parties in representative democracies. Using data drawn from the cross national Comparative Study of Electoral Systems survey, the authors have examined how parties link the individual citizen to the formation of governments and then to government policies. The book is divided into three broad sections which explore firstly, parties and election campaign, second the role of parties in electoral choice and finally, parties in government. Decisively, the volume concludes that political parties are alive and well and continue to operate at the core of modern democracies, dispelling the idea of terminal decline in parties. The work presents compelling arguments that political parties are adaptable institutions which have evolved and reshaped in line with changes in political systems and the authors conclude that ‘modern democracy is synonymous with political parties.

Visit Oxford University Press for more information on this book.

Political Parties and Democratic Linkage: How Parties Organize Democracy
Russell J. Dalton, David M. Farrell, Ian McAllister
Oxford University Press, 2011