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Parties, Ideologies, and Issues Stability and Change in Fifteen European Party Systems 1945-1998
Abstract
The scope and intensity of the challenges currently faced by western European political parties is exceptionally large, threatening the viability of the manner in which they have traditionally operated and causing them to seek new behaviours and strategies. This volume brings together some of the foremost scholars of European party politics, whose evaluation of political parties in 'the new Europe' is organised under four broad headings: 'Parties and Society'; 'Parties as Purposive Organisations'; 'Parties and National Government' and 'Parties, the Nation State and Beyond'. The contributors review the latest empirical findings and provide a concise, critical review of the theoretical and methodological 'state of the art'. They also highlight the analytical challenges confronting party researchers and suggest new avenues for party research.
... Contrary to other party families, no significant variation has been found within left party families along the left-right dimension (Volkens & Klingemann, 2002). In fact, there is a great knowledge gap on the relative positions of RLPs in this dimension, which significantly increases the need to assess this empirically. ...
... first, because some literature already uses 10-year periods for the longitudinal study of party positions (e.g. Volkens & Klingemann, 2002); second, because these time intervals allow us to obtain at least two observations from each party for each time point of analysis. ...
The 2008 economic crisis brought an increasing support for some Western European radical left parties (RLPs) and renewed academic attention to this party family. Still, there is a lack of empirical knowledge on the ideological differences among RLPs – particularly across countries and regions. The present work conducts for the first time a systematic and direct cross-regional comparison of the ideological differences between RLPs from two different European regions (Nordic and Southern European countries). Manifesto and expert survey data are used for measuring and comparing party positions along several ideological dimensions and to evaluate to what extent a region-based ideological classification of RLPs finds empirical support. The results show that while some important ideological differences are found between Nordic and Southern European RLPs, these do not appear to be significant enough to classify them into two distinct ideological subgroups. Moreover, the results also suggest that, to compare the ideological differences between RLPs, we need more precise empirical instruments adapted to the study of its most characteristic ideological traits.
... It came about somewhat paradoxically at a time when defining of the main ideological orientations had become somewhat more difficult, with the gradual disintegration of the traditional socio-political milieu, changes in the historical cleavages, erosion of the hard lines between segments of the electorate, and last but not least changes in the political orientation of many parties. Moreover, after the Second World War new ideologies began to appear (feminism, environmentalism, etc.) that had a major impact on some parties (Mair 1997 andDalton, McAllister and Wattenberg 2002;Poguntke 2005;Volkens and Klingemann 2005;Siavelis 2006). a groundbreaking work on the concept of party families was Parties et familles politiques by Daniel Louis Seiler (1980), which made its widest mark in the Francophone social science environment. ...
... 4 for a summarization of post-beyme empiric research, which this general conclusion confirms, see Volkens and Klingemann 2005. same thing in a different national context. ...
... Fuente: Elaboración del autor a partir de los datos proporcionados por Volkens y Klingemann (2005). Izquierda: incluye a los partidos comunistas, socialdemócratas y ecologistas. ...
... Fuente: Elaboración propia a partir de los datos proporcionados por Volkens y Klingemann (2005) 34 Por identificación partidista se suele entender la predisposición favorable que los individuos sienten hacia un partido determinado por considerar que encarna unos principios o valores considerados como propios. Según esta explicación, la identificación partidista representa una "pantalla de percepción": el votante identificado con un partido tenderá a magnificar los aciertos de éste y a exculpar sus errores . ...
Estudios y Análisis del Gabinete de la Presidencia del Gobierno. En los últimos años ha estado trabajando sobre la adaptación organizativa de los partidos políticos de ámbito estatal a los procesos de descentralización política. Ninguna parte ni la totalidad de este documento puede ser repro du cida, grabada o transmitida en forma alguna ni por cualquier pro ce di miento, ya sea electrónico, mecánico, reprográfico, magnético o cual quier otro, sin autorización previa y por escrito de la Fundación Al ternativas.
... However, in the PR elections the decline is relatively secular, although the largest drop seems to be in the 1976-1985 decade. (For similar conclusions in an analysis of the manifesto data that does not include the post 1998 period, see Volkens and Klingemann 2002 and the graphs in Budge and Klingemann 2001.) ...
... 1 (For general discussions of the concept of party "families" on the European countries see Von Beyme 1985, Ch. 2 andGallagher, Laver andMair 2005, Ch 8; for the CMP classification see Budge et al. 2001, 192. Also see Volkens and Klingemann 2002.) The dark horizontal reference line is drawn at 50, the midpoint on the right-left scale. ...
Ideological congruence between median voter and the government changes substantially from one decade to the next, especially in the SMD systems of Western democracies. These changes are closely linked to changing levels of party system polarization. When the large parties are close to the median voter, any outcome creates congruent governments. When they diverge, governments are usually much further away. In the PR systems, too, depolarization of the party system contributes to greater ideological congruence, although the connections are more complex, and cross-system differences are more diverse than in the SMD systems. This paper describes the changing levels of party system polarization from 1946 through 2003, explicating the positions of political party families and tracing the implications for ideological congruence. Under conditions of relative ideological consensus, such as the social democratic orientation of 1956-65 or today's center-right orientation, there is little difference in the ideological congruence levels of SMD and PR electoral systems.
... Stalo se tak trochu paradoxně v době, kdy se definiování hlavních ideově -politických směrů stalo ve srovnání s minulostí svým způsobem obtížnější. Jednalo se o důsledek pozvolného rozpadu tradičních sociálně -politických milieu, proměny podoby historických konfliktních linií (cleavages), eroze pevných hranic mezi voličskými segmenty a v neposlední řadě transformace politické orientace mnoha stran Navíc se po druhé světové válce začaly objevovat nové ideologie (feminismus, environmentalismus aj.) nezanedbatelně působící na některé strany (Mair 1997(Mair a 2006Dalton 2002;Dalton -McAllister -Wattenberg 2002;Poguntke 2005;Volkens -Klingemann 2005;Siavelis 2006). ...
... K sumarizaci postbeymovských empirických výzkumů, které tento obecný závěr většinou potvrdily, vizVolkens -Klingemann 2005. ...
More than two decades have passed since the transition to democracy began in Central Europe. Today, West and Central European countries share a common political space - the European Union. This has created a fascinating opportunity for analysis of the similarities and differences between these countries. In this book, authors critically apply the party families approach to Western and Central European political parties. Special attention is paid to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. With chapters devoted to social democrats, greens, the far right and left amongst many others, this book charts the parties origins, ideologies, and international ties. The book was originally published by Ashgate Publishing.
... However, Dutch society gradually depillarized and voters became less loyal to political parties (Lucardie, 2008). This process was accelerated by the decrease in ideological distances between political parties (Volkens & Klingemann, 2002) and the disappearance of ties between political parties and media outlets (mainly through the introduction of commercial TV) in the 1990s (Lucardie, 2008). This opened opportunities for new populist parties on both side of the left and right side of the political spectrum (Thomassen, 2000), which also profited from discontent within society and voters that did not feel represented anymore by the traditional parties. ...
This study analyzes whether subjective well-being can explain the populist vote in the Netherlands. Using data on voting intention and subjective well-being for over 7700 individuals from 2008 to 2019—a period during which populist parties became well-established in the Netherlands—we estimate logit and multinomial logit random effects regressions. We find evidence of an association between decreased subjective well-being and the probability to vote for a populist party that goes beyond changes in dissatisfaction with society—lack of confidence in parliament, democracy and the economy—and ideological orientation. At the same time, we find no evidence for a relationship between subjective well-being and voting for other non-incumbent parties other than populist parties.
... Leftright distances decreased between the 1940s and 1960s, increased between the 1970s and 1980s and decreased again between the 1980s and 1990s. From the 1940s to the 1960s many party families moved leftward, whereas they moved rightward from the 1970s until the 1990s (Budge et al. 2001, Volkens andKlingemann 2002). However, regardless of the method used, the research does show that despite convergence there are still notable differences between the parties. ...
... There is a general understanding that ideology is central to the strength, viability, and solidarity of a party. It also distinguishes parties from each other in the political system [11,12]. The view above, a modern state with a written constitution, the people are sovereign. ...
... Although electoral programs have an almost encyclopaedic character as they cover a broad range of policy areas, they still provide information on a party's priorities because they address certain problems and issues in more detail than others, repeat certain claims or even place some issues prominently in the title or subtitle of the document. Numerous studies have shown that electoral programs indeed indicate differences between parties, in terms of their left-right positions (Volkens and Klingemann, 2002;Budge and McDonald, 2006), in their emphases of issues (Franzmann, 2011;Merz and Regel, 2013a;Volkens and Merz, 2015;Dolezal et al., 2014) and their electoral pledges (Thomson, 2001). ...
Diese Arbeit geht der Frage nach, inwiefern die Medien während des Wahl-kampfs über die Wahlprogramme der Parteien berichten. Die Wahlprogramme der Parteien enthalten Informationen darüber, was Parteien nach der Wahl vorhaben. Allerdings lesen wenige Wählerinnen und Wähler Wahlprogramme. Die vergangene Forschung über und mit Wahlprogrammdaten hat bisher angenommen, dass der Inhalt von Wahlprogrammen von den Medien verbreitet wird. Diese Doktorarbeit untersucht diese Annahme empirisch und analysiert, ob und wie Massenmedien während des Wahlkampfs über die Inhalte der Wahlprogramme berichten. Wenn Massenmedien nicht die Inhalte der Wahlprogramme verbreiten würden, hätten Bürgerinnen und Bürger kaum Chancen sich über das programmatische Angebot der Parteien zu informieren. In dieser Arbeit wird das Konzept des Manifesto-Medien-Links entwickelt. Das Konzept bringt Theorien des Parteienwettbewerbs und Theorien der Medienselektion zusammen. Der Manifesto-Medien-Link formuliert drei Bedingungen, welche empirisch getestet werden können. Diese sind: Erstens, Medienberichterstattung und Wahlprogramme müssen zumindest zu einem gewissen Grad dieselben Themen diskutieren. Zweitens, Journalisten müssen Sachfragen mit jenen Parteien verknüpfen, welche diese Themen in ihren Wahlprogrammen stärker betonen als ihre Konkurrenten, um Wählerinnen und Wähler über die Prioritäten der Parteien zu informieren. Drittens, Medien müssen die ideologische Orientierung einer Partei sowie Veränderungen dieser korrekt wiedergeben. Methodisch werden in der Arbeit Wahlprogramm- und Mediendaten kombiniert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Manifesto-Medien-Link relativ stabil ist. Außerdem wird gezeigt, dass es nur geringe systematische Verzerrungen zugunsten bestimmter Parteien gibt. Jedoch zeigen sich Unterschiede zwischen Qualitäts- und Boulevardmedien. Die Ergebnisse haben Implikationen für unser Verständnis von politischer Repräsentation und den politischen Wettbewerb.
... Para el Manifesto Project, esta escala ofrece un marco común de referencia permanente para electores y políticos. Los datos de MARPOR demuestran que la dimensión izquierda-derecha es dominante en los países de la OCDE (Volkens, 2007); que persiste en el tiempo una clara diferenciación en este eje entre los principales partidos de cada país (Volkens y Klingemann, 2005), y que, a largo plazo, no se observa una tendencia a la convergencia, sino ciclos de convergencia y divergencia. Las distancias entre partidos y votantes son menores cuando se miden en esta escala que cuando se calculan en relación con políticas concretas. ...
Este trabajo examina el proceso de incorporación de las democracias latinoamericanas a la base de datos del Manifesto Project –desde 2009 llamado Manifesto Research on Political Representation (MARPOR)–. Se discuten las implicaciones teóricas y conceptuales del estudio del funcionamiento de las cadenas de delegación en regímenes presidenciales empleando el enfoque de este proyecto. Particularmente, se analiza el significado de los programas electorales en sistemas parlamentarios y presidenciales. Asimismo, se explica la revisión del esquema de clasificación estándar y otros ajustes en la metodología de MARPOR introducidos con anterioridad a esta extensión. Finalmente, se comparte el protocolo seguido para recabar programas de partidos y candidatos en América Latina.
... " (Budge, et al. 2012, 91) In a more general way, a party's ideology addresses the question of " what parties are " (Mair and Mudde 1998, 220). It can therefore be considered as representing " the core identities of parties and provide blueprints of alternative solutions for current problems of societies " (Volkens and Klingemann 2002, 144). Regarding ethnic minorities scholarship mainly points to the emergence of so-called new politics parties (Poguntke 1987) or left-libertarian parties (Kitschelt 1988) such as the Greens in Germany. ...
... Most tests of programmatic convergence are negative (Lane and Ersson, 1998;Laver and Budge, 1992) or just moderately confirm the thesis (Volkens and Klingemann, 2002). Some actually report an increase in overall ideological polarization (Kriesi et al., 2008) and most analyses find that party elites continue to be more extreme than their electorates Laver and Budge, 1992;Warwick, 2004). ...
The article reflects on Peter Mair's work in addressing the claims of the decline of party thesis. The cartel party model is discussed, the relationship between parties and the state, the collusion of parties, the quality of representation provided by them, their organizational responses to environmental change, and their patterns of competition. Critical assessment of the theoretical arguments and a review of the relevant empirical evidence indicate that parties possess more autonomy and influence than suggested by the decline of party thesis and its attendant components, such as the dealignment model. Some of the commonly cited symptoms of party decline are corroborated, but the article highlights the adaptive organizational and social strategies of parties. These strategies, together with the success of parties in maintaining an essentially bipolar pattern of competition, contribute to the resilience of party politics.
... One possible answer is that new parties have more room for electoral competition because since the 1990s traditional parties have tended to move closer to one another in terms of Left versus Right differences (Klingemann and Volkens, 2002; Keman and Pennings, 2004). This would imply a convergence towards the centre of 'gravity' of these parties in the respective party systems. ...
... First, political parties are organizations with historically rooted ideological orientations (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967;Bartolini and Mair, 1990;Marks and Wilson, 2000: 434). These value preferences constitute an enduring touchstone of identification for party elites, members and voters, as well as the basis upon which a more pragmatic policy package is developed (Volkens and Klingemann, 2002). Moreover, party ideology provides a framework for interpreting and responding to new issues as they arise. ...
This article examines the different dimensions of, and different factors affecting, minority nationalist party attitudes towards Europe. The article draws on evidence from minority nationalist parties in two different contexts—Plaid Cymru in Wales and the Bloque Nacionalista Galego in Galicia—to argue that minority nationalist party attitudes towards European integration are more complex than is usually asserted in the existing academic literature. First, even though minority nationalist parties converged around the idea of a Europe of the Regions during the 1980s and 1990s, the nature of, and motivations for, this support differed widely from party to party. Secondly, there is evidence that, in recent years, minority nationalist parties have become increasingly critical of Europe, although they have not yet abandoned their normative aspirations for a regional Europe. At the same time, however, the salience of the European integration issue has declined markedly in the political projects espoused by minority nationalist parties in Wales and Galicia. The article concludes by arguing that whilst minority nationalist parties may not have turned their back completely on the idea of a Europe of the Regions, a new pragmatism drives these parties' strategies and tactics for meeting their short- and long-term goals.
... Political institutions affect the preferences of political parties (Cox 1997;Lijphart 1994;North 1990;Rae 1971). Parties are entrepreneurial, and competition with other parties shapes policy preferences, whether by calculation on the part of leaders or by internal factionalism (Adams and Merrill 1999;Budge and Farlie 1983;Feigl-Heihs 2004;Volkens and Klingemann 2002). This competition is conditioned by political institutions, because institutions favor some strategies over others. ...
Most scholarship on immigration politics is made up of isolated case studies or cross-disciplinary work that does not build on existing political science theory. This study attempts to remedy this shortcoming in three ways: (1) we derive theories from the growing body of immigration literature, to hypothesize about why political parties would be more or less open to immigration; (2) we link these theories to the broader political science literature on parties and institutions; and (3) we construct a data set on the determinants of immigration politics, covering 18 developed countries from 1987 to 1999. Our primary hypothesis is that political institutions shape immigration politics by facilitating or constraining majoritarian sentiment (which is generally opposed to liberalizing immigration). Our analysis finds that in political systems where majoritarianism is constrained by institutional “checks,” governing parties support immigration more strongly, even when controlling for a broad range of alternative explanations.
... Not only (social) scientific theories refer to paradigms, also other social contexts or factors can be understood as being based on paradigms: we can speak of ideological paradigms, or of policy paradigms [63]. Another example would be the long-term competition and fluctuation between the welfare-state and the freemarket paradigms (with regard to the metrics of left-right placement of political parties in Europe, see [113], p. 158). ...
The traditional Triple Helix innovation model focuses on university-industry-government relations. The Quadruple Helix innovation systems bring in the perspectives of the media-based and culture-based public as well as that of civil society. The Quintuple Helix emphasizes the natural environments of society, also for the knowledge production and innovation. Therefore, the quadruple helix contextualizes the triple helix, and the quintuple helix the quadruple helix. Features of the quadruple helix are: culture (cultures) and innovation culture (innovation cultures); the knowledge of culture and the culture of knowledge; values and lifestyles; multiculturalism, multiculture, and creativity; media; arts and arts universities; and multi-level innovation systems (local, national, global), with universities of the sciences, but also universities of the arts. The democracy of knowledge, as a concept and metaphor, highlights and underscores parallel processes between political pluralism in advanced democracy, and knowledge and innovation heterogeneity and diversity in advanced economy and society. The "mode 3" knowledge production system (MODE3KPS; expanding and extending the "mode 1" and "mode 2" knowledge production systems) is at the heart of the fractal research, education and innovation ecosystem. MODE3KPS universities or higher education systems are interested in integrating and combining mode 1 and mode 2. The concept of open innovation diplomacy (OID) encompasses the concept and practice of bridging distance and other divides (cultural, socioeconomic, technological, etc.) with focused and properly targeted initiatives to connect ideas and solutions with markets and investors ready to appreciate them and nurture them to their full potential. In this sense, OID qualifies as a new and novel strategy, policy-making, and governance approach in the context of the quadruple and quintuple innovation helices.
... Our data show that voters are usually given meaningful choices. The breadth of programmatic supplies declines somewhat in many of the longterm democracies when the post-World War II period is compared with the 1990s (Volkens/Klingemann 2002). But there was no long-term trend of convergence between positions of parties. ...
"This handbook describes a specific approach to content analyzing multilevel party manifestos, building on a methodology that was originally developed in the context of the Manifesto Research Group (MRG). Since 1979, the MRG has been collecting and coding election programs with the aim of estimating policy preferences of political parties. The second phase of the project started in 1989. In the context of its 'Comparative Manifestos Project' (CMP), the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) provided resources for updating and expanding the MRG data. Since then, country experts were hired to collect and code national election programs according to a handbook that describes how to identify the coding units and how to apply the classification scheme of policy preferences under central supervision. The CMP is solely concerned with national election programs. However, in decentralized political systems, parties also publish local and regional election programs and, in times of globalization, transnational party federations increasingly produce joint programs. Comparing these multilevel manifestos can provide additional answers to questions of multilevel governance. This handbook, elaborated in collaboration with the Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados de Andalucía (IESA-CSIC, Spain), presents a classical content analytical approach to identifying parties' multilevel preferences. It instructs coders on how to apply two combined content analytical classification schemes: first, the CMP classification of policy preferences developed for party manifestos at national levels and, second, a classification of cultural and authority claims on multiple levels of governance. This double classification scheme is then applied to regional party manifestos in Spain, providing examples of multilevel analysis for training coders and testing their grasp of the complex concepts of parties' multilevel preferences." (author's abstract) "Der vorliegende Ansatz zur Inhaltsanalyse von Parteiprogrammen in politischen Mehrebenensystemen basiert auf einer Methodologie, die im Rahmen der Manifesto Research Group (MRG) entwickelt wurde. 1979 begann die MRG Parteiprogramme zu sammeln und zu analysieren, um politische Positionen von Parteien komparativ anhand eines klassischen inhaltanalytischen Ansatzes zu messen. Seit 1989 stellte das Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB) im Rahmen des 'Comparative Manifestos Projects' (CMP) Mittel zur Verfügung, um die Daten der MRG zu aktualisieren und zu erweitern. Seither werden Länderexperten damit beauftragt, die Wahlprogramme unter zentraler Begleitung und Kontrolle zu kodieren. Dabei erläutert ein Handbuch die Identifikation der Kodiereinheiten und die Anwendung des Klassifikationsschemas der politischen Positionen. Das CMP befasst sich ausschließlich mit Parteiprogrammen zu nationalen Wahlen. In dezentralisierten politischen Systemen geben Parteien aber auch lokale und regionale Wahlprogramme heraus; transnationale Parteienzusammenschlüsse verfassen in Zeiten der Globalisierung zunehmend gemeinsame Programme. Ein Vergleich solcher Programme für verschiedene Ebenen kann neue Einsichten in Governanceprobleme von Mehrebenensystemen ermöglichen. Dieses Handbuch wurde in Zusammenarbeit mit dem spanischen Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados de Andalucía (IESA-CSIC) zur Identifikation von Parteienpositionen in Mehrebenensystemen verfasst. Es beschreibt, wie Coder zwei inhaltsanalytische Klassifikationsschemata anwenden können, die miteinander kombiniert sind: einerseits die CMP-Klassifikation politischer Positionen und andererseits eine Klassifikation von kulturellen und politischen Autonomieansprüchen auf verschiedenen Ebenen von Governance. Diese doppelte Klassifikation wird auf spanische Regionalwahlprogramme angewendet. Beispiele spanischer Regionalprogramme dienen auch der Ausbildung von Codern und der Überprüfung ihres Verständnisses der komplexen Konzepte von Parteipositionen in Mehrebenensystemen." (Autorenreferat)
... Answering this question requires one to consider the third factor that, as argued above, impacts upon minority nationalist party attitudes towards European integration, namely party ideology. Ideology is an enduring component of party identity that provides a prism through which realworld developments are perceived and understood (Freeden, 1998;Volkens and Klingemann, 2002). With specific regard to European integration, there is growing empirical evidence that basic ideology constitutes the broad parameters of a political party's attitude towards Europe, and that this influence is enduring over time (Marks, Wilson and Ray, 2002;Marks and Wilson, 2000;Hooghe, Marks and Wilson, 2002;Hix, 1999;Hix and Lord, 1997;Gabel and Hix, 2002;Ladrech, 2000). ...
[From the introduction]. This paper argues that even though in the current climate of European integration, the prospects for a Europe of the Regions are dismal indeed, it is too soon to herald the end of minority nationalist support for European integration. The paper draws on evidence from two case studies – of Plaid Cymru in Wales, and the Bloque Nacionalista Galego in Galicia – to argue that minority nationalist party support for European integration is much more complex than a simple assessment of whether European integration is moving closer towards, or further away from, the Europe of the Regions ideal. The argument proceeds in two steps. Firstly, the basis of minority nationalist party support for a regionalist Europe in Wales and Galicia is examined; it is demonstrated that, even though both Plaid Cymru and the BNG had adopted the rhetoric of a regionalised Europe by the mid 1990s, they did so for very different reasons. As well as developments in European integration during the 1980s and early 1990s, minority nationalist party support for a Europe of the Regions was also driven by a basic ideological commitment to European co-operation (in the case of Plaid Cymru) and the specific dynamics of party competition at home at the time (Plaid Cymru and the BNG).
This dissertation provides an empirical, systematic and detailed analysis of programmatic change in European radical left parties (RLPs) since the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989). In particular, it seeks to understand the programmatic development of the party family since this important critical juncture and the factors that have driven changes in their policy platforms since then. In short, it addresses the question of how and why RLPs have changed programmatically over the past three decades.
Although the history of ideologies is traced back to the ancient times of human history, it is actually a phenomenon of modern times. The concept was first systematically studied by philosophers in the Age of Enlightenment. With the development of political parties in the 19th century, the concept of ideology was intertwined with political parties. In the modern era, political parties try to get the votes of their voters by aligning their identities on the right and left spectrum. This study aims to evaluate whether or not the expressions “left” and “right” are meaningless today. If they are still meaningful, what are their meanings? The study examines ideological convergence in Western countries using the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) data. The research results show that although the concepts of left and right still make sense, they have eroded over time. The results also demonstrate that right and left do not have the same meaning in every country.
Even though much has been said about the populist feature of the contemporary radical right and some scholars have focused on the discourses disseminated by independent media outlets committed to a nativist and authoritarian agenda, the hallmark of contemporary radical right, little has been done in terms of the far-right politics of
truth. Contrary to conventional approaches that tend to oppose populist practices to news and scientific knowledge as if the latter were exempt from affective investment, this chapter illuminates how the far right has managed to channel hate towards official institutions and immigrants through discourses that are socially accepted as ‘truth’.
We argue that by producing discriminatory discourses under the guise of truth, far-right media outlets and institutions have managed to legitimise discrimination. Through a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) of news pieces produced by the German AfD Kompakt and the British institution Patriotic Alternative, we explore some of the
‘truths’ produced by these far-right actors, exposing similarities in terms of legitimation strategies and discourses. Albeit different in nature and located in different countries, we observed a convergence in terms of ‘truths’, especially when it comes to the supposed ‘replacement’ of white/western individuals and the alleged refusal of governments in power to serve the interests of the ‘native’ people
Despite the recent academic literature widely focused on populism research, the development of populist parties’ ideologies remains one of the least explored factors. As such, this chapter provides two different approaches in examining populist parties’ ideologies in Western Europe. More specifically, it namely investigates: (a) the causes behind their ideological flexibility in the long-term and (b) the electoral consequences of their ideological ambiguity (or issue blurring) in the short-term. The first topic will be explored comparing the ideological flexibility of The League and the National Rally with regards to the new transnational cleavage. While the second topic will be analyzed comparing the impact of the ideological ambiguity of Italian populist parties (M5S Party, The League and Brothers of Italy) to their electoral performance at the national and subnational levels. Through the deploy of multiple quantitative methods, including secondary data analysis (from the CMP and CHES databases) and manual content analysis, the central finding of the first case study is that both The League and the National Rally have been ideologically flexible – whilst in different ways – with regards to the new transnational cleavage regardless of their party reputation on the European (EU) issue. For the second case study, the core finding is that the M5S Party has suffered a severe electoral decline since the 2018 domestic election. The main factor behind this electoral performance is due to its ideological ambiguity. By contrast, The League and Brothers of Italy Parties have adopted clear positional stances. The results from both case studies are important as they demonstrate the development of populist parties’ ideology, alongside underlying as the research has much to debate about both the nature and impact of populist parties’ ideologies.
The 2008 economic crisis brought new scholarly attention to Southern European radical left parties (SERLPs). Yet, important aspects of these parties remain empirically unexplored, such as their programmatic development. Using empirical data from party manifestos, this article examines the programmatic evolution of SERLPs during the 2010s-a decade full of crises (economic, migration, climate). Despite their different trajectories on various policy dimensions , the results suggest that these parties were able to adapt their program-matic appeals to capitalize on poor economic conditions and growing discontent with the EU, while showing signs of being attentive to the emergence of new issues on the public agenda-such as anti-growth concerns. Moreover, they also provide support for a moderating effect of government participation (and proximity to power) on RLPs.
This chapter sets the scene by providing a novel comparative exploration of similarities and differences in the individual background characteristics of prime ministers in Europe. It investigates prime ministers’ socio-demographic composition, their political experience, their partisan background, and their duration in office over the past seven decades. The descriptive analysis shows that prime ministers in Europe are not an internally coherent and homogeneous group of politicians, as previous research has claimed. On the contrary, prime ministers differ remarkably across European democracies in regard to their individual background characteristics and their duration in office.
The 2008 economic crisis brought unexpected electoral success and renewed academic attention to Southern European radical left parties (RLPs). However, despite the growing literature, important aspects of these RLPs remain to be empirically explored, such as the impact of some important historical episodes-and increasingly salient themes (e.g. climate change)-on their programmatic profile. This paper seeks to assess the impact of the 2010s-a 'Decade of Crisis and Resilience'-on the programmatic change of RLPs from Southern Europe by examining their evolution along several policy dimensions, using empirical data from party manifestos. The results suggest that Southern European RLPs have adapted their programmatic appeals in early 2010s, temporarily radicalizing their positions on socioeconomic issues and Euroscepticism earlier in the decade, and more recently increasing the attention given to environmental issues.
Knowledge does matter: but the question is when, how, and why? Moreover, with the advancement of economies and societies, knowledge matters even more and in ways that are not always predictable or even controllable (e.g., see the concepts of strategic knowledge serendipity and strategic knowledge arbitrage in Carayannis et al. 2003). The successful performance of the developed and the developing economies, societies, and democracies increasingly depends on knowledge. One branch of knowledge develops along R&D (research and experimental development), S&T (science and technology), and innovation.
Wahlkämpfe gelten als unverzichtbare Spielwiesen der Demokratie und als Hochzeiten politischer Kommunikation. In ihnen verdichten sich in periodisch wiederkehrenden Abständen die routinemäßig ablaufenden Interaktionen zwischen Parteien, Massenmedien und WählerInnen. Eine Veränderung erfahren diese Austauschprozesse durch das zeitlich befristete Hinzukommen von politischer Werbung und wahlkampfspezifischen Kommunikationsereignissen wie TV-Duellen. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes widmen sich den vergangenen Bundestags-, Europa- und Landtagswahlkämpfen in Deutschland in konsequent vergleichender Perspektive. Zum einen handelt es sich um Zeitvergleiche, die Veränderungen der Wahlkampfkommunikation überprüfen. Zum anderen werden die Wahlkampfkommunikation und deren Wirkungen, wie sie sich auf verschiedenen politischen Ebenen realisieren, in Bezug zueinander gesetzt. Dadurch wird die populäre Annahme, Haupt- und Nebenwahlkämpfe würden von Parteien, Massenmedien und WählerInnen unterschiedlich angegangen werden, auf den empirischen Prüfstand gestellt.
Elections provide voters not only with an opportunity to decide who will govern the country but also with a chance to express how they view politics as a whole. Just before the 2012 presidential election it appeared that Korean party politics was at the crossroads as public dissatisfaction with the existing party politics was prevalent. Many people wanted an extensive transformation of politics, and some hoped for the possibility of “new politics.”
Their nature and functions make political parties central to democratic governance especially in the new democracies of Africa that face the challenge of building strong and enduring democratic institutions. It is accepted that the existing trend in most of these democracies of one big party dominating the political space weakens democracy and undermines its prospects for consolidation. Big parties—usually the ruling ones—exhibit tendencies such as absence of internal democracy that are antithetical to democratic governance. While observations such as these are incontestable, there is little understanding into the nature, character, ideology, and internal structure of big parties generally. In this article, I attempt to address this concern. Specifically, I examine the nature, structure, and ideology of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria’s ruling party at the federal level with considerable strength at local level between 1999 and 2015. Relying on data obtained from multiple sources, I investigate the process of its formation, the nature of its ideology, internal organization, its electoral strength, and how absence of internal democracy contributed significantly to its defeat in 2015 general elections.
Zentrales Merkmal von Europawahlen ist ihr Nebenwahlcharakter, vorrangig bezogen auf das Verhalten der WählerInnen, auf die Wahlkampagnen sowie die Medienberichterstattung. Mit Rückbindung an Reif und Schmidt (1980) zur Nebenwahlhypothese werden in diesem Kapitel Nebenwahleffekte auf das programmatische Angebot von Parteien in den Mittelpunkt gestellt. Dafür wird ein systematischer Vergleich von Bundestags- und Europawahlprogrammen deutscher Parteien der Jahre 2013/2014 durchgeführt. Basierend auf den abgeleiteten Merkmalen „Ressourceneinsatz“, „Dominanz nationaler Themen“ und „ideologische Distanz“ kann gezeigt werden, dass das programmatische Angebot deutscher Parteien einen schwachen bis moderaten Nebenwahleffekt aufweist, welcher sich durch einen geringeren Ressourceneinsatz für Europawahlprogramme sowie die größere ideologische Distanzierung zwischen den Parteien ergibt.
Politischen Parteien wird in allen modernen Demokratien eine zentrale Rolle bei der Aggregation und Artikulation von Wählerpräferenzen (Webb et al. 2002) und der Umsetzung der Wählerinteressen in politische Entscheidungen (Pierce 1999; Kitschelt 2000; Montero und Gunther 2002; Lawson und Poguntke 2004) zugesprochen. In dieser Delegationskette kommt den Wahlprogrammen der Parteien eine besondere Bedeutung zu. Nur wenn die Bürger programmatische Angebote vorfinden, die ihren unterschiedlichen politischen Präferenzen entsprechen, können ihre Interessen im Parlament repräsentiert und, bei gegebenen Mehrheiten, von Regierungen umgesetzt werden. Und nur wenn das programmatische Angebot klar formuliert und sichtbar ist, können die Bürger das ihren Präferenzen entsprechende Programm identifizieren. Das Gelingen des repräsentativen Prozesses setzt daher auf der Angebotsseite demokratischer Wahlen voraus, dass die Parteien klare programmatische Alternativen anbieten.
The fall of the communist regimes in central and eastern Europe was a shattering event for the western European radical left, causing many parties to change their names and strategies. Despite prophesies pointing to the death of radical anti-capitalist politics, radical left parties (RLPs) still exist in all parts of Europe, and in many countries they have even been able to increase their influence. This paper seeks to provide a comparative mapping of the policies and policy positions of western European RLPs before and after the fall of communism. The results of the examination indicate that although leftward trends can be observed in many RLPs in the early 2010s, the general, long-time, trend shows that the radical left family – and especially democratic socialist parties – has become less radical with regards to the core left–right dimension. Moreover, the study also shows that many RLPs – and, again, especially democratic socialist parties – have become more interested in other, non-socioeconomic, issues. Despite the rise of new left issues, the radical left is, however, still distinguishable from other parties mainly through their comparatively strong emphasis on old, traditional, left issues.
Developed and developing economies alike face increased resource scarcity and competitive rivalry. In this context, science and technology appear as an essential source of competitive and sustainable advantage at national and regional levels. However, the key determinant of their efficacy is the quality and quantity of entrepreneurship-enabled innovation that unlocks and captures the benefits of the science enterprise in the form of private, public, or hybrid goods. Linking basic and applied research with the market, via technology transfer and commercialization mechanisms, including government–university–industry partnerships and capital investments, constitutes the essential trigger mechanism and driving force of sustainable competitive advantage and prosperity. In this volume, the authors define the terms and principles of knowledge creation, diffusion, and use, and establish a theoretical framework for their study. In particular, they focus on the “Quadruple Helix” model, through which government, academia, industry, and civil society are seen as key actors promoting a democratic approach to innovation through which strategy development and decision-making are exposed to feedback from key stakeholders, resulting in socially accountable policies and practices.
Party system polarization has large effects on individual behaviour and on election consequences. For example, when the large parties are close to the median voter, any outcome creates congruent governments. When they diverge, governments are usually much further away. However, we know surprisingly little about the causes of party system polarization. This paper explores the relative influences and relationships between international ideological trends, domestic voter diversity and party system left-right polarization in Western democracies. Citizen self-placement data from the Eurobarometer, World Value and CSES studies, and party position data from the comparative manifesto project and CSES, are used to analyse these dynamic movements and their consequences from the mid-1970s through 2005.
Parties need to adapt their policy platforms in order to win elections, yet this is not without risk. Policy shifts can reduce credibility and foster intra-party conflicts. As a result, parties tend to proceed with caution when programmatic changes are made. In this article two risk reduction methods are formulated as hypotheses and investigated. First, we claim that parties will prefer making changes to the amount of attention issues get in a manifesto than to the positions they defend. Second, we argue that the amount of change is related to the ideological and electoral importance of the issue. In other words, we assume that parties are less likely to make positional changes on issues they own because this can possibly bring about loss in credibility and contradicts with the fact that politicians and party members are policy driven. These hypotheses are examined with new data gathered through the content analysis of the party manifestos of the Belgian Liberal party and the social-democratic party for elections held between 1961 and 2010. The article concludes that parties make smaller positional changes as opposed to changes in the issues they emphasize. Only weak evidence was found for the fact that the positional flexibility toward an issue correlates with the ideological and electoral importance of an issue.
Gerry Stoker concludes his recent book Why Politics Matters by affirming: ‘Achieving mass democracy was the great triumph of the twentieth century. Learning to live with it will be the great achievement of the twenty-first’ (Stoker, 2006: 206). Like Stoker, a whole series of scholars at the beginning of the new millennium have argued that the pillars of representative liberal democracy — in particular, parties and popular participation — are creaking (Pharr and Putnam, 2000; Diamond and Gunther, 2001; Dalton and Wattenberg, 2002; Crouch, 2004). In fact, apart from the euphoric period surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall and the seemingly inexorable move towards a united, peaceful, harmonious and liberal democratic Europe, there has long been a tendency to focus on the negative aspects of how Western European democracies function. Indeed, as we can see from even a brief glance at The Crisis of Democracy (Crozier, Huntington and Watanuki, 1975), in the past the portents have been worse and the prophecies far gloomier. For example, in the opening paragraphs of that landmark volume, under the heading ‘The Current Pessimism about Democracy’, we find the comment by the former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt before leaving office that ‘Western Europe has only 20 or 30 more years of democracy left in it’ (ibid.: 2).
'Mode 3' allows and emphasises the co-existence and co-evolution of different knowledge and innovation paradigms: the competitiveness and superiority of a knowledge system is highly determined by its adaptive capacity to combine and integrate different knowledge and innovation modes via co-evolution, co-specialisation and co-opetition knowledge stock and flow dynamics. The 'Quadruple Helix' emphasises the importance of also integrating the perspective of the media-based and culture-based public. What results is an emerging fractal knowledge and innovation ecosystem, well-configured for the knowledge economy and society.
Parteien sind das zentrale Bindeglied zwischen staatlichen Institutionen und der Gesellschaft (Sartori 1976: 25). Die genaue Ausgestaltung dieser,Linkage, so der angelsächsische Begriff (Lawson 1980), hängt in erheblichem Maße von deren organisatorischen Eigenheiten ab. Folgerichtig ist die vergleichende Parteienforschung seit ihren Anfängen immer auch in besonderem Maße Parteiorganisationsforschung gewesen. Von frühen Einzelstudien mit komparativem Anspruch (Michels 1989) und grundlegenden theoretischen Arbeiten (Weber 1980: 837–51) über die klassischen Studien der 50er und 60er Jahre (Crotty 1968, Dahl 1966; Duverger 1964, Epstein 1967, Eldersveld 1964; Neumann 1956; Kirchheimer 1965) bis zu den theoretischen und empirischen Arbeiten jüngeren Datums (Panebianco 1988; Katz/Mair 1994; Katz/Mair 1995; Lawson/Merkl 1988); Morlino 1998; Poguntke 2000; Harmel/Janda 1994; Harmel/Janda 1982) hat ein erheblicher Teil der Parteienforschung organisatorischen Fragen besondere Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet.
For better or worse representative democracy is virtually unthinkable without political parties. It is the competitive interactions of multiple parties in a wide range of electoral, parliamentary and governing arenas that generates much of the business and the high drama at the heart of representative politics. This course focuses on political competition amongst parties. Topics will include; parties as organisations; changing cleavage structures; electoral systems and strategic interaction; party system change and classification, and coalition governance. The primary focus is Western Europe, though reference will also be made to other competitive democracies.
This article looks at ideological convergence within party families in 30 European countries. Its goal is to assess the degree of left–right convergence over time between national political parties and their electorates within the same family. The analysis concentrates on seven major party families, and within-family convergence is used to assess the degree to which functional oppositions prevail over territorial ones as an indicator of Europeanisation. Ideological convergence is measured through quantitative indicators on the left–right axis at two levels. First, at the elite level the article measures within-family convergence since 1945 with manifesto data. Second, at the electorate level the article measures convergence of voters of a same family since 1970 with survey data. Economic and cultural left–right dimensions are distinguished. Results attest to high and persistent long-term ideological cohesiveness at both elite and electorate level (especially on the economic left–right dimension) pointing to a Europeanised party system.
Ideological congruence between the median voter and the government changes substantially from one decade to the next, especially in the SMD systems of Western democracies. These changes are closely linked to changing levels of party system polarization. When the large parties are close to the median voter, any outcome creates congruent governments. When they diverge, governments are usually much further away. This paper explores the relative influence and relationships between international ideological trends, domestic voter diversity and party system polarization. Citizen self-placement data from Eurobarometer, World Value and CSES studies, and party position data from the comparative manifesto project and CSES, are used to analyze these dynamic movements and their consequences from the mid-1970s through 2005.
I examine how international economic conditions affect Western Europe’s welfare states by analyzing parties’ ideological dynamics over time. Previous quantitative analyses revealed that both left-wing and right-wing parties systematically adjust their policy positions in response to economic changes associated with globalization, pointing to need to include right-wing parties in the globalization literature. Here, I examine how the Austrian and German center-right wing parties react to economic openness by tracing the parties’ policy positions and policies over time. Furthermore, I consider how the ascent of neoliberalism has affected intra-party consensus. The hypotheses that right-wing parties have an incentive to shift their policies further to the right and hypothesis that neoliberalism has appeal as a policy paradigm for the right are tested.
[From the introduction]. Social pacts – national-level agreements between governments, labor unions and sometimes employer organizations – began to emerge in many Western European countries in the 1980s. Although on the surface, these agreements seemed to bear some resemblance to the neo-corporatist arrangements of the 1970s, several features made them notable and distinct. First, they were signed in countries that did not conform to the characteristics usually identified with neo-corporatism, such as the presence of leftist governments, and strong and centralized social partners. Second, the pacts varied significantly in their contents, including issues as diverse as wage levels, work time, labor market or industrial relations reform, welfare reform, and training.
In this paper, we aim to explain the emergence of social pacts in West European countries. We are particularly interested in explaining the variation of the existence of pacts both across and within countries. That is, why do some countries feature a long list of social pacts, while others have few or none? And second, why do some governments pursue social pacts as their preferred way to change policies during certain time periods, but choose the legislative route at other times? In exploring these questions, we diverge from the prevalent explanation centered on economic pressures and instead highlight electoral dynamics. We argue that social pacts will be attractive when party leaders perceive them to be helpful in reducing the potential electoral costs of economic adjustment and wage restraint policies. Alternatively, parties may forgo negotiations with social partners and seek to impose such policies unilaterally if they believe that approach will yield electoral gain or minimize electoral costs.
The paper proceeds as follows: The first section will present a brief overview of the dominant explanations of social pacts, focusing on economic pressures and institutions. The second part will ground our argument in existing theoretical and empirical work on parties, governments, and voting behavior. The third section discusses some initial results based on a 16-country comparison of social pacts. Although these results are preliminary and tentative, they indicate the directions our future research will take. The final section summarizes our findings and suggests directions for further research.
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