1	Functions of Parties (Wattenberg) For nearly a century political scientists have written of the potential of political parties to establish effective popular control over the government. In a system designed to fragment political power, parties have been held to be the one institution capable of providing a unifying centripetal force. The functions that parties have been said to perform in American society are impressive and diverse.
2	Functions of Parties 1. Generating symbols of identification and loyalty. 2. Aggregating and articulating political interests. 3. Mobilizing majorities in the electorate and in government. 4. Socializing voters and maintaining a popular following.
3	Functions of Parties 5. Organizing dissent and opposition. 6. Recruiting political leadership and seeking governmental offices. 7. Institutionalizing, channeling, and socializing conflict. 8. Overriding the dangers of sectionalism and promoting the national interest.
4	Functions of Parties 9. Implementing policy objectives. 10. Legitimizing decisions of government. 11. Fostering stability in government.
5	Democracy and Parties Given all of these functions, many political scientists have accepted E. E. Schattschneider's famous assertion that modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties. Not surprisingly, then, the various indications that political parties have weakened in recent years have been met with a great deal of alarm among commentators on American politics. David Broder, for example, has stated flatly, "The governmental system is not working because the political parties are not working."
6	Special Interests Rule Perhaps the most frequently cited consequences of the decline of parties are the growing importance of special interest groups and the dwindling of the principles of collective responsibility. The result, as Morris Fiorina has written, is that we now have "a system that articulates interests superbly but aggregates them poorly."