Abstract
ABSTRACT In many European countries established leftwing and rightwing parties have been threatened by policy convergence and, in turn, new populist parties that offer more polarized platforms. I investigate whether government ideology influences dragnet-controls – controls of persons conducted by the police without having any suspicion that the controlled person committed a crime. They took effect after the Schengen Agreement in 1995. I propose dragnet-controls to be a prime example of ideology-induced policies implemented by established parties. Dragnet-controls confine citizens’ liberties, but may help to detect criminals. Using data from the 16 German states over the period 1995–2017, I show that rightwing governments have been active in implementing dragnet-controls and leftwing governments have denied dragnet-controls since the mid 1990s. When evaluating how government/party ideology influences individual policies, previous econometric studies ignored initiatives in parliament. My study also considers initiatives in parliament. I conjecture that, since 2015, the rightwing CDU has used initiatives to introduce/extend dragnet-controls to also deal with the upcoming threat of rightwing populism. Future research should examine policy-differences between the established parties regarding more fine-grained policy measures also in other European countries.
Highlights
The Euro crisis starting in 2008 and, in particular, the refugee crisis starting in 2015 have threatened the established political parties in many European countries
Empirical evidence showing that the established parties have implemented different dragnet-control policies may help disenchanted voters in European countries to evaluate the performance of established parties
The point estimate of the government ideology variable is around 0.14 indicating the dependent variable increased by 0.14 points when the government ideology variable increased by one point, meaning a change from a leftwing to a rightwing government
Summary
The Euro crisis starting in 2008 and, in particular, the refugee crisis starting in 2015 have threatened the established political parties in many European countries. Voters were disenchanted by the converging platforms and policies of established leftwing and rightwing parties.. The leftwing state government in North Rhine-Westphalia did not implement dragnet-controls on purpose because it did not wish to confine citizens’ liberties. Dragnet-controls may help to detect criminals, especially in view of the rising number of terrorist attacks in many countries. Empirical evidence showing that the established parties have implemented different dragnet-control policies may help disenchanted voters in European countries to evaluate the performance of established parties. I show that there have been initiatives on dragnet-controls in state parliaments that (a) have been turned down by majorities of leftwing and socially liberal parties against the rightwing parties or (b) have been passed in parliament by the majorities of the leftwing governing parties and leftwing and socially liberal opposition parties.
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