Partidos políticos: un ejercicio de clasificación teórica

it is well known that in 1902 moisei ostrogorski wrote the first book on modern parties. in his opinion, parties had been successful in ensuring the governmental machinery performance, but they had "failed miserably" in upholding citizens' power (1964: 539). ostrogorski thought that parties must disappear, but they are still alive and have, since then, inspired a large body of literature. this article analyzes the international literature (on parties' definition, history, crisis and post-crisis). the result is a theoretical classification attempt useful to scholars and specialists.