Science at UM [S05-ep03]: The Decline of Partisan Organizations
This week on *A l’UM la science*, a in-depth interview to mark the release of the latest book by Alexandre Dézé, a political science researcher at Cepel, titled TheEnd of Parties : An Investigation into the Alleged Decline of Partisan Organizations. A program broadcast every Wednesday on Divergence.
April 23, 2017: As France waited to learn the name of its new president, a new political landscape began to take shape—one in which neither of the two ruling parties made it past the first round. In the subsequent presidential election, they would not even reach the 5% threshold.
Was this a fulfillment of Emmanuel Macron’s prophecy, who declared in November 2016 that “the parties are dead,” or of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s, who asserted in October 2017:“The old parties and antiquated structures will not help us get out ofthis”? Politicians aren’t the only ones who have danced on the graves of the old parties. The media, too, widely publicized the death certificate. And after all, why blame them? Pepe Grillo’s Italy, Podemos’s Spain, or even, on a local level, the citizen movement Nous sommes seemed to confirm this thesis of the decline of political parties. And political science itself has confirmed this trend by fueling the decline thesis in numerous studies.
But what exactly do we mean by “decline”? Where does this “collapsological” approach come from, and how did it come to dominate the discourse? This is the first epistemological step that Alexandre Dézé, a political science researcher at Cepel, invites us to take in his latest book, published in September 2025 and titled *The End of Parties: An Investigation into the Alleged Decline of Partisan Organizations*. In it, he examines the indicators used to analyze this decline and deconstructs all the major concepts developed since the late 1960s in the United States. Ultimately, he demonstrates how epistemology is the great unthought of this collapse-oriented approach and how the thesis of decline masks the great plasticity and resilience of political parties.
At UM Science, you’ve got the program—let’s get started!
Co-production: Divergence FM / University of Montpellier
Host: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interview: Lucie Lecherbonnier / Aline Périault
Production: Alice Rollet
Tune in to the show “A l’UM la science” on Divergence FM 93.9
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