Competition and Coalescence in European Party Systems: Social Democracy and Christian Democracy Moving into the 21st Century

Abstract

Party systems in Europe have been in transition since the 1990s. New parties have emerged and appear more successful in gaining representation in parliament and government than before. Conversely the established party families in many postwar West European party systems - Social Democracy and Christian Democracy in particular - seem to have lost ground. We argue that an ideological convergence is developing between these two party families towards the ‘centre of gravity’ of their respective party systems. This may help to explain why ‘new’ parties of the Left and the Right have competed more successfully since the 1990s: they have bypassed Social and Christian Democratic parties in terms of both Left/Right and Progressive/Conservative dimensions and differences. These developments are explored by analysing party programmes. It appears that many Social and Christian Democratic parties are indeed often moving closer to each other. In fact, we conclude that being in the centre of a party system or in government is hardly an electoral asset any more in most West European polities.