Political parties in the epoch of postmodernity

The study proposes the author’s concept of transformations which traditional political institutions undergo, and first of all, the parties in a new epoch which is called postmodernity. The presented concept is based on the previous research related to defining such concepts as social subject, pseudo-subject and social substrate. The analysis of changes which take place in political institutions implies the use of an interdisciplinary approach when a party is considered as a unique social system having both a micro- and macrosocial structure. The study examines in detail these elements of a party and their evolution through various epochs. There are made conclusions that such transformations are similar to social mutations that party organizations underwent during the period of a postmodernity triumph at first in the Western countries, and later throughout the globalized world. The party-building in modern Russia is considered, there are identified its main features in the context of postmodern concepts of political simulacra. The study presents the analysis of the actual conflict in the core of the Western world, i.e., in the USA, connected with the lack of a bipartisan consensus on the crucial issues of domestic and external policy of the leading world power. The considered conflict is interpreted in accordance with the author’s concept of transformation of parties as systems in the conditions of collapse of classical institutions of the political system of the modernist epoch.