The Legitimizing Role of Political Parties: the Second Austrian Republic

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Abstract
CAN PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS THRIVE IN COUNTRIES WITH little or no tradition in the habits of self-government? Is multiparty competition viable in states where compromise is not accepted as a political virtue? The questions are familiar and are asked whenever the advisability of exporting the Westminster model (or the Capitol Hill or Palais Bourbon model) is raised. The proposition to be examined is that a parliamentary and party system was transplanted into an initially unfavourable environment and eventually acclimatized itself. The ecological difficulties are familiar; indeed, they form the substance of the debate about the export of systems. In the Third World, at the point of decolonization it involves the former colonial power bequeathing liberal-democratic institutions as a device for legitimizing the new native regime.

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