Abstract: The theory of cartel party was raised by US Scholar Katz and Irish scholar Mair in 1992, which has witnessed consistent development and formed a relatively complete system in the following 20 years. The theory has explored the more closed relationships between the political parties and the state and pointed out the major parties have forged political cartel to monopoly the state power. The theory also analyzes the phenomenon that the leaders of a political party often obtain strong positions and the central organizations of the party are often strengthened. On the other hand, the theory noticed that local and grassroot organizations of the political party are subject to shrinking because the party is breaking away from the society and realize the crisis of the lack of legitimacy in the longterm development of a political parties. But Katz and Mair have not found a solution to overcoming these problems and crisis, which demonstrated the limit of their theory. To introduce and analyze the theory of cartel party, has provided a new theoretical angle for us to understand the nature of the changes of the western political parties and to evaluate their development tendency.

Key words: the cartel party , theory , Richard Katz , Peter Mair

摘要： 美国学者卡茨和爱尔兰学者梅尔于1992年提出了卡特尔政党理论，并在此后的近20年间不断对其加以丰富和发展，使之形成了比较完整的体系。该理论从西方政党与社会和国家之间关系的变化入手，一方面探讨了政党与国家之间的关系日益密切、主流政党结成政治卡特尔垄断国家政权、议会和政府内的政党领袖和组织日趋强势、政党的中央机构不断强化等现象，为政党的存在和发展提供了合理的解释；另一方面也注意到了政党逐渐脱离社会而导致的政党地方组织和基层组织萎缩、党员数量下降等问题，意识到政党在长远发展中将会面临合法性不足的危机。不过，卡茨和梅尔未能找到应对这些问题和危机的办法，体现出了其理论的局限性。对卡特尔政党理论加以介绍和评价，为我们揭示当代西方政党发展变化的实质并预测其未来的变化趋势提供了新的理论视角。

关键词: 卡特尔政党 , 理论 , 理查德·卡茨 , 彼得·梅尔