Patterns of Transnational Partisan Contestation of European Foreign Policy

Abstract

This article explores the historical and societal roots of transnational partisan foreign and security policy preferences in Europe and assesses whether and how foreign and security policy is structured by the European party system today. It points to the existence of transnational dimensions in the contestation of European foreign policy that are consistent with the dominant axes of partisan competition on a European level (ideology and integration). The ideological dimension is mitigated by the small policy stretch between major party families in the core of the European party system. Even if it is a sign of the maturity of the European party system that it is able to structure in its core a still intergovernmental policy area, the nature of foreign policy as a prerogative of Member States and the adoption of Euroscepticism by parties located in the extremes of national party systems conspire to make the integration axis a more relevant dimension of contestation of European Union (EU) foreign policy. This means that the relevant patterns of contestation of EU foreign and security policy increasingly escape the existing range of rival views established by mainstream political forces.