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This study traces the development of party law from its first appearance in the early 20th century to its re-appearance in post-transitional Latin America and demonstrates how legislators frequently use party law to legally validate the participation of political parties in the electoral process. Through an analysis of instances of cartelising party laws and party deregulation, this article shows that the cartelising use of party law is often followed by a backlash when society and new elites contest parties’ monopolisation of representation. The legal validation of political parties is hence not sufficient for the legitimisation of the political status quo in terms of party. Instead, this article shows that elites that build their power merely on formal rules risk diminishing the political legitimacy of the system that these rules seek to uphold. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the process of Europeanisation of party politics by examining the regulation of political parties by supranational European organisations. Despite the increased relevance of the regulation of the activity, behaviour, organisation and finances of political parties in European democracies, the supranational dimensions of this phenomenon have hitherto received relatively little systematic scholarly attention. This paper adopts an interdisciplinary perspective, combining approaches from the Europeanisation literature with legal theory and party scholarship. For the purpose of this paper, the rulings and regulations of the European Union, the various organs of the Council of Europe, and the European Court of Human Rights are analysed. The paper highlights the horizontal and vertical patterns of norm creation and diffusion and demonstrates that, despite a certain convergence of European standards, conceptions of democracy and corresponding regulatory paradigms have not become so similar as to be virtually indistinguishable from one another. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]