New Party versus Old Left Realignments: Environmental Attitudes, Party Policies, and Partisan Affiliations in Four West European Countries

Abstract

In the past two decades, the tranquility of European electoral politics was disrupted by the rise of new social movements and a number of smaller New Left parties. These developments have initiated a debate over the possibility of a partisan realignment on the basis of New Politics issues. However, past research that tries to assess the probability of a New Politics realignment neglects to incorporate the policy behavior of established parties as a variable in New Politics realignments. This article tries to fill this gap by analyzing how parties' environmental policies, mediated by electoral laws, affect the link between environmental attitudes and voters' partisanship. The results suggest that Old Left parties are considerably more able than previously assumed to absorb the environmental challenge. In contrast, new party realignments are less prevalent than previously assumed in West European party systems. The results stress the importance of the interplay between public opinion, party policies, and electoral laws in New Politics realignments.