It is evident to any serious observer that the practice ofgovernance in Western democracies is increasingly divergentfrom traditional theoretical and conceptual models. In West-ern Europe, traditional models of parliamentary democracyno longer accurately describe reality. The neocorporatistliterature of the 1970s and 1980s pointed out the key role oforganized interests and their (often formally recognized)privileged relationship with the state, creating arrangementsthat bypassed or subverted usual parliamentary processes.