Parties

Daniel-Louis Seiler

The word party refers to one of the oldest concepts used in political science. Depending on the era chosen to determine the beginning of scientific analysis of political facts in the modern sense—for example, if one goes back to Arthur Bentley, James Bryce, Robert Lowell, or André Siegfried, that is, to the beginning of the 20th century—the concept of party can be older than that of political science. Its use in historical, philosophical, or polemical vocabulary appeared in the 17th century with the memoirs of Cardinal de Retz in France, Viscount Bolingbroke in England, and, above all, David Hume, who in the early 18th century initiated what was to become the analysis of parties. Nonetheless, the word has been used since the Middle Ages to refer to the opposite sides in a civil war, for example, York and Lancaster during the War of the Roses, and consequently has a party ...

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