This essay was written for The Hansard Society's 'Democracy Series' of publications in 2006-7. It starts by summarising the major findings on party performance in democratic countries, before proceeding to outline the evidence of popular disaffection with parties. It draws attention to the way in which attitudes towards parties can be affected by the observer’s normative idea of ‘democracy’, especially emphasising the differences between various types of participationist and representative democrat, before setting out a proposal for a research agenda.