Christian Democratic Party Research Articles

From proportional representation to plurality and back: Post-Christian Democratic parties compared

This article analyses the competition strategies adopted by the Christian Democratic (DC) and post-Christian Democratic (post-DC) parties after the electoral reforms of 1993 and 2005. Four main aspects are considered: the significance of cultural (ideological and cognitive) factors in the DC's exit from the political stage; the need to adapt post-DC strategy to bipolarism and the nostalgia for an autonomous centre; the nature and geography of the post-DC vote; and the attitudes of the middle-level elites of the three principal post-DC parties (the DL, the UDEUR and the UDC) vis-à-vis the competitive and strategic decisions they had to make. The article reaches the following conclusions: the post-DC parties share the same cultural orientations and have similar politico-electoral characteristics (a confessional background, the relevance of patronage networks and personalistic vote mobilisation); all three parties adapted, in different ways and with different degrees of success, to the new structure of coalitional bipolarism in the decade 1996–2006; and both research data on the main post-DC parties’ national congress delegates and the evolution of their electoral strategies on the eve of the 2008 elections show that the post-Christian Democrats felt more at home in the centre-left alignment, together with the post-communist PDS-DS, than in the centre-right alignment led by Berlusconi.

Fatto in Italia: Refashioning Italy

This article discusses how the Made in Italy brand helped Italy to recover from economic recession in the 1980s, but also how it redefined the country's identity after the traumatic years of terrorism and especially after the murder of the Christian Democratic Party Secretary, Aldo Moro, at the hands of the Red Brigades. In this period cinema as a form of artistic achievement declined, while fashion and industrial design moved at the centre stage of economic and creative success. The rampant consumerism of the 1980s, fuelled by tax reforms that favoured a wider urban middle class, the retreat of unionism, the abandonment of collective bargaining in many industrial sectors, industrial restructuring with the consequent growth of black market economy in the provincial areas of the so-called Third Italy first and the South later, were all factors that contributed to a social and economic shift within Italy itself.
 Commercial consumption, propagated by the proliferation of local commercial television networks, hedonism and a re-articulation of identity through appearance replaced the 1970s' political activism and ideological opposition to fashion. Ultimately, 'Made in Italy' was a multidimensional phenomenon that presented itself as a new cultural model for the country’s political tribes of the 1970s.

Why Is There No Christian Democracy in Poland — and Why Should We Care?

Despite the fact that almost all Poles are Roman Catholics and that religion has played an important part in contemporary Polish politics, no self-declared Christian Democratic party has been successful in post-1989 Poland. None of the currently successful Polish centre—right parties profile themselves as Christian Democratic, nor can they be labelled as such objectively. While, superficially, Poland looks like fertile ground for Christian Democracy, the factors that were crucial to the formation and success of Christian Democratic parties in post-war Western Europe were largely absent during the emergence of democratic, multiparty politics in post-1989 Poland. Of course, parties are never simply produced and sustained by `cleavages', they are more than institutional responses to some kind of social demand. The formation and success, or otherwise, of Christian Democratic parties owes much to the interplay between social realities and sponsors, on the one hand, and the institutional and ideological crafting of entrepreneurial politicians, on the other.

Turning round the telescope. Centre-right parties and immigration and integration policy in Europe1

Because those who study migration do not focus much on parties, while those who study parties tend to focus on migration only insofar as it affects electoral competition and positioning, the role of political parties in immigration control and integration policy is underestimated. Parties on the centre-right, which have enjoyed nowhere near the attention devoted to their more radical counterparts, are particularly important and interesting in this respect. They make up many European governments and therefore help to determine state and EU policy. Maintaining their ownership of the issues involved makes electoral sense but their policies on control and integration are not purely, or at least primarily, a strategic response to the populist radical right; even before the rise of the latter, immigration and integration were matters of genuine ideological and practical concern for Europe's market liberal, conservative and Christian Democratic parties. Too hard a line, however, risks alienating their supporters in business and in civil society. It is a difficult balance, but one that makes a big difference both to the parties involved and the public policies they help to produce.

Immigration and the transnational European centre-right: a common programmatic response?

As aspects of immigration policy are brought into the competence of the EU, the role of transnational parties in co-ordinating policy choices across national boundaries grows in importance. Yet immigration is often seen as a cross-cutting issue and transnational parties have limited capacity to enforce programmatic uniformity across national member parties. We explore both of these issues by mapping the stances of transnational and national party manifestos on immigration policy at EP elections. We argue that ideology does structure party positions on immigration but that separating immigration control from migrant integration is essential to understanding partisan differences. While Christian Democrat and Conservative parties do not differ significantly from their Socialist equivalents on control issues, Liberal parties are less restrictionist. On integration, both Christian Democrats/Conservatives and Liberals are less multicultural than Socialist and Green parties.

Catholic Social Thought and Modern Liberal Democracy

Introduction How might proponents of Catholic social thought persuade citizens of the United States to take the Church's social teaching seriously? Several problems intrude. The United States does not have a tradition of Christian Democratic parties. These parties, whose platforms were marked by a concern for personal dignity, subsidiarity, and a lively sense of human frailty, often suffused the political life of nations such as Holland, Germany, France, and Austria with principles congenial to those of the Church's social teaching. (1) By contrast, as Louis Hartz argued, the liberal tradition is the tradition in American political life, and this may lead to a certain myopia regarding alternative ways of approaching public policy questions. (2) Complicating the problem is the fact that it is not clear where either side stands in relation to the other. This is partly a result of a long history of mutual suspicion. The anti-Catholic tradition in American public life runs deeper than we like to think. (3) Even more important, however, is the long history of antagonism between the Church and proponents of modern democracy. While this history has been redressed somewhat by the Church's recent promotion of democratic regimes throughout the world, advocates of democracy may still think of the Church as a relatively recent friend who sometimes backslides. (4) Then again, citizens of liberal democracy--including many Catholics--are often suspicious of the Church's claim to authority on social issues. Why should any American think of this body of teaching as authoritative in the current marketplace of ideas? This attitude is partly a function of the separation of church and state, with its sense that the Church is a voluntary social organization among many others. Recent scandals do not help in this regard. For many, the Church appears to be just another interest group advocating yet one more political agenda. If so, there is no compelling reason to give its social teachings any more weight than we would give to a pundit's or lobbyist's proposals. Finally, part of the difficulty is that it is not clear where the Church stands in relation to liberal democracy. (5) Sometimes she praises, and other times criticizes, aspects of it. How can we expect our fellow citizens to take the Church's teachings about liberal democracy seriously when she seems muddled about what she thinks? Do we have to resolve this ambivalence before we start a conversation? One cannot explain this ambivalence away by arguing that the Church's social teaching has evolved, for we find that ambivalence persists in more recent encyclicals. (6) If the notion of an evolving social teaching will not do, can we resolve the ambivalence by seeking some underlying consistency in the Church's teachings about liberal democracy? Perhaps, but both these strategies assume that ambivalence should be avoided. Yet, isn't ambivalence a proper response to an ambiguous situation? What if Catholic social teaching's ambivalence toward western liberal democracies reflects ambiguities within them? If so, we should try to understand how modern democracies like the United States contain ambiguities that invite ambivalent judgments. In fact, perhaps this goes a long way toward answering our question about how to get Americans to take Catholic social thought seriously. Perhaps beginning a profitable conversation entails understanding better the ambiguities within American political practices and showing how Catholic social thought can move beyond them in a way our conventional practices cannot. Such a rhetorical strategy need not be interpreted as sectarian partisanship. Many thoughtful supporters of liberal democracy agree that it is in an ambiguous situation. On the one hand, liberal democracies are enormously successful. This is evident in the waves of democratization that have swept the globe for the last two centuries. …

Religious Parties in a Secularizing Political Space: The Case of Italy

The Christian democratic parties in Italy from the end of World War II to 2006 show that while the popularity of religious political parties may diminish due to fewer religious voters, if political institutions facilitate the participation of small parties in government then religious parties can survive, albeit in reduced size. Their political influence may be greater than suggested by their size if they can be a deciding element in a governing coalition's survival. With access to the spoils of office, religious parties are able to distance themselves from the demands of seemingly powerful organized religious interests. Having to compromise with other parties in the government on policy in order to remain in government can also compel a religious party to moderate its platform and even soft-pedal core religious issues. The Christian democratic parties of Italy have, due to ideology and to strategic assessments of security interests, supported Western regional and international security cooperation.

Propogandos aksesuarai ar nuoširdus antisemitizmas?

This article examines the contents of the newspaper Darbininkas (The Worker) from 1922 to 1923. That year the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas) was being elected, and the newspaper supported the ideology of the Christian Democratic Party. Generally speaking, most of the Lithuanian press referred to the "Jewish question", but Darbininkas had a special view of the problem. First of all, the newspaper applied an instrumental use of anti-Semitism: the editors and correspondents knew that there were certain tensions between the Lithuanian and Jewish communities; they also knew that in Lithuanian society Jews were mostly seen as strangers or guests, but not as reliable citizens. Darbininkas used this image of Jews; made it an indicator of instability, unreliability, and general harm to Lithuanian interests; and presented the opponents of the Christian Democratic Party as pro-Jewish, i. e., as defenders of Jewish rather Lithuanian interests. In this way readers of the newspaper, whenever they saw the Jewish minority mentioned, received the impression that everything done in cooperation with the Jewish minority was wrong and anti-Lithuanian, while at the same time the Christian Democrats were pictured as the only and true alternative to Lithuania's becoming dominated by Jews. So Darbininkas exploited the suspiciousness about Jews in the Lithuanian community and used it as a propaganda tool in the election campaign. In addition, the newspaper's correspondents seemed to believe to a certain extent that Jews were evil and strictly opposed to Lithuanian rule; this conclusion can be made on the basis of the rhetoric and arguments used in their articles. [...]

The Baltic Churches in the Process of Transformation and Consolidation of Democracy since 1985

The author first looks at the changes that have taken place on the religious map of the Baltic States from the 1930s to the present. It is clear that the Lutheran Church is no longer a majority church in Estonia or in Latvia. Only the Catholic Church in Lithuania can claim a clear majority position. It is then pointed out that the churches in each Baltic country had a significant role in the restoration of national sovereignty, although there were interesting differences. The struggle to come to terms with the past has been a more or less essential task in all three Baltic states. Each of them set up in the 1990s a historical commission to investigate the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazi and Soviet occupiers. It is obvious that in all three Baltic states the long Soviet period is generally considered more harmful and destructive than the comparatively brief Nazi occupation. In politics, Christian democratic parties have not been very successful in any of the Baltic States. In both Latvia and Lithuania, church leaders have criticized politicians for failing to take satisfactory measures against a wide range of political and social problems that cause concern for the churches. The mainstream Churches in all three Baltic states were clearly in favour of the EU membership. The post-Communist theological landscape in the Baltic Countries can be desribed as conservative. This has manifested itself especially in two things. The first is the rejection of the ordination of women, especially in Latvia, and the second is the negative stance on the blessing of homosexual partnerships combined with a general homophobic atmosphere. Theological discussion and controversy is to a large extent considered a luxury the churches can not afford.

The Impact of the USSR on Lithuania's Domestic Policy and Its International Orientation in the Third Decade of the Twentieth Century

This article investigates links between domestic and foreign policy, topics which are usually discussed rather than analyzed in any detail. The case of the USSR and Lithuania is taken as an historical example of the impact of the external factor on domestic policy, and an attempt is made to elucidate how the Soviets tried to influence and correct Lithuania's policy in the inter-war period by providing financial assistance to parties and their press. In this way they sought to set Lithuania against Poland and fuel the conflict between them, so that they would not become reconciled, would not create the so-called Baltic Union with Latvia, Estonia and Finland and would not orient themselves to the West. Using financial and other levers of secret policy, the Soviets contributed significantly to pushing the pro-Western Christian Democratic Party away from power in Lithuania so that the Nationalists, who sought to establish closer relations with the USSR, came to be established. The overseas financing of parties which remained unknown to the public distorted the political process of Lithuania and hindered the maturing of social awareness.

From SIF to City Fund: a new direction for urban policy in Flanders, Belgium

For years, analysts have wondered about the exceptional place that Belgium, and in particular Flanders, has taken in the urban policy landscape. Contrary to neighbouring, equally strongly urbanised Western European countries, Flanders maintained a tradition of neglect towards its urban centres, linked to the hegemony of a rural-based Christian-democratic party. In the 1990’s, this tradition was converted into an urban policy approach which, equally at odds with developments towards urban entrepreneurialism in other Western European countries, remained strongly oriented towards social policy. Only in 1999, when, for the first time in 50 years Christian-democrats resigned from government, the Flemish discourse took a more pro-urban and entrepreneurial approach. This paper shows how this discursive shift at the regional scale is reflected in local urban policy-making practices and warns against the detrimental social effects it might have on the field.

The politics of the ‘Church’ in the Italy of Pope Wojtyła

This article analyzes the development of different political tendencies with the Italian Church during the pontificate of John Paul II. Two different strategies enabled the episcopal conference to maintain stability for a long period, in which time Cardinal Ruini played a key role, first as secretary and then president of the bishops. In his years the conference of bishops accepted that the political unity of the Catholic world was over, but it still tried to retain a strong political influence even though the mediation of the Christian Democratic Party was no longer available. With the end of Wojtyła's pontificate, however, this period came to a close and the different tendencies that make up the rich and complex world of the Italian Catholic Church have become more visible.

Catholics and politics after the Christian Democrats: the influential minority

The Italian political history, since the unification of the nation in the nineteenth century, has been deeply marked by the influence of the Catholic Church and of the associations in the Catholic universe. For more than 40 years, since the beginning of the second post-war period, the Christian Democratic party had ruled continuously. Practicing Catholics' electoral choices toward this party lead scholars to talk about Catholic political unity. Yet, since the early 1990s, with the demise of the First Republic and the end of the Christian Democratic party experience – which disintegrated into various small parties – the relationship between politics, church and practicing Catholic voters has deeply changed. Church has transferred its political representation ‘from the party to the pulpit’. It has become a sort of lobby, which has followed a neutrality strategy from the parties and from political alignments, for about 10 years. More recently, the church and the catholic voters in part, seem to have shifted toward the center-right stance, in particular with respect to ethical issues. This article, based on this hypothesis, aims to address the transformation that has occurred in the relations between church, society and politics in Italy, focusing on the last decade.

Book Review: Christian Democratic Parties in Europe Since the End of the Cold War

Book Review: Christian Democratic Parties in Europe Since the End of the Cold War

The Rise and Fall of Christian Democracy in Europe

The role of Christian Democratic parties after World War II in helping to build stable parliamentary regimes in Western Europe deserves attention simply for their ability to survive. Such parties took root in Catholic countries and electorates and incorporated electoral organizations from the early twentieth century. After the war, Christian Democrats provided an alternative to the large Communist parties that were particularly strong in France and Italy. They also represented a link to the European past that was not implicated in the crimes of the Nazi era. Germany's Christian Democracy has proven the most successful of its kind. It moved beyond its original Catholic base to include a significant Protestant minority. And it has survived amidst the social and cultural changes and charges of corruption that have reduced their counterparts elsewhere to a secondary parliamentary force.

Ideologiska förutsättningar för den svenska och den tyska prostitutionslagstiftningen

"The ideological bases for prostitution policies in Sweden and Germany" by Susanne Dodillet, PhD Candidate at the Department of History of Ideas. At the end of the twentieth century, both Germany and Sweden engaged in extensive discussions on prostitution - discussions that resulted in two very different prostitution policies. Whereas the purchase (but not the selling) of sexual favörs was forbidden in Sweden, prostitution was made a legal profession in Germany. This artide examines the debates that preceded these legislations and analyses their ideological backgrounds. The ideas behind the Swedish client criminalization are traced back to the welfare ideology of the 1930s. Sweden, still known for its sexual liberalism during the 1950s and 1960s has at no time during the 20th century accepted prostitution. Prostitution has been condemned as an expression for the gender inequality in the society.The Germans renounciation of explicit feminist arguments, on the other hand, can be explained by the power struggles between the conservative Christian Democratic parties and the liberal left wing in the German parliament and a broad skepticism toward feminist ideas in the parliament. Also the leftist German legislators understand their prostitution lawthat approved prostitution as a regular profession - as a way of liberating woman. Apart from their Swedish colleaugues the supporters of the German legislators had to disguise their arguments into a new rhetoric to be accepted in the parliament. They also adopted a liberal attitude towards sexual behaviors that have been oppressed by conservative double standards and Christian norms.

Allochthons, Colonizers, and Scroungers: Exclusionary Populism in Belgium

Abstract:This article analyzes the growth of autochthony in Belgium as an example of the increasing popularity of autochthony discourses in Western Europe. Autochthony discourses, which try to reserve the benefits of the welfare state to those who are said to really belong, tend to thrive in prosperous Western European welfare states with a strong Social-Democratic tradition that refuse to accept that they have become immigrant countries. In federalized Belgium, however, autochthony has a much stronger appeal in Flanders, which historically was dominated by Christian-Democratic parties, than in Wallonia, which remains a Social-Democratic bulwark. Analyzing Western European autochthony in terms of welfare chauvinism helps explain the ways in which prosperous Flemings, unlike impoverished Walloons, can afford to buy into the neoliberal rhetoric of choice and thus create themselves as autochthons.

Translating Good Science into Good Policy: The Us Factor

Ellis Rubinstein Translating Good Science into Good Policy: The Us Factor IN A WORLD OF CONTENTIOUS ASSERTIONS, HERE IS A STATEMENT THAT everyone can agree with: science has never been m ore im portant to the citizenry and to the body politic. But instead of becoming better understood by the public and its representatives—something one might expect as this increasingly highimpact endeavor takes the center stage—polls indicate that science is as poorly understood as it was decades ago. In fact, science literacy is tread­ ing w ater... or worse. In the United States, we have recently observed the renew ed debates on the teaching of evolution, the lack of clarity about climate change despite the evidence, the battles over stem cell research, the public’s reluctance in applying risk/benefit calculations to pharm aceu­ tical products, and the general politicization of science in the current US adm inistration (Specter, 2006: 58-69). Is science literacy unacceptably sparse only here in the United States? The failure of sufficient num bers of European citizens to com prehend the basics about genetically modified organisms is leav­ ing them as bystanders in a m odem agricultural era. Far worse, their position has had devastating consequences for starving millions in the developing world. To cite a stranger exam ple out of Europe, M artin Enserink in Science (2005: 1394) reported th at Holland’s m inister of science and education, Maria van der Hoeven, announced plans to “stim ulate a Roundtable Discussion 1043 debate about intelligent design.” How could the science m inister of a contem porary W estern European nation take such a position? Van der Hoeven—a political appointee of the Christian Democratic Party and a practicing Catholic—seems to have thought that the “ID debate” would be a mechanism for achieving “common ground” among the W estern religions at a tim e w hen religious extrem ism worries us all. Enserink reported that the m inister wrote, in a blog she authors: “W hat unites Muslims, Jews and Christians is the notion that there is a creator.. . . If we succeed in connecting scientists from different religions, it m ight even be applied in schools and lessons.” Am erican scientists and policym akers will im m ediately guess w ho was cheering th at seem ingly well-m eaning statem ent. Enserink w rote: “Says M anaging D irector John Calvert of th e In telligent Design N etw ork in Shawnee M ission [Kansas]: ‘I th in k it’s a dyna­ m ite idea.’” This paper flows from a panel discussion th at concluded the conference, “Politics and Science,” held at the New School. The charge of the panel, in which I participated, was to address three questions: W hat needs to be done now, and by whom or by w hat institutions, to ensure that good science leads to good public policy that best serves the needs of the American public? How can we change the current situa­ tion so that scientists and scientific findings have m ore influence? And, how can we improve the policy decision-making process?” This paper addresses those questions. But before turning to the challenge, I would like to cite one additional example of science illiter­ acy, occurring recently on a different continent. I refer to the hard-core Korean nationalists who have continued to support Hwang Woo Suk in the face of the m ost clear-cut evidence imaginable that he com m itted scientific misconduct on a massive scale and who reject the pronounce­ m ents of leading Koreans such at Seoul National University’s research dean and the nation’s public prosecutors. So as we turn to a global problem —science illiteracy. W ho is to blame, and w hat can be done? 1044 social research THE BLAME GAME Many com m entators before m e—politicians, sociologists, educators, and scientists themselves—have w ritten extensively on this topic. And the candidates for blame are numerous: politicians who misuse science for their own partisan purposes; religious leaders who consider science in conflict w ith their belief systems; policymakers who fail to emerge from the halls of academe and power; publishers...

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

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.

The Politics of Ideals of Care: Danish and Flemish Child Care Policy Compared

Most European welfare states today have said farewell to the male breadwinner–female caretaker model. Still, child care policy has a different pace and shape in each country. This article studies the (late) origins as well as the diversity in Danish and Flemish (Belgian) child care policy. In Denmark, a universal child care provision was made possible because of the advocacy coalition of women with social pedagogues. They promoted the ideal of professional care. To combat the ideal of full-time motherhood, the Flemish Catholic women’s movement strived for subsidizing childminders—the ideal of surrogate motherhood—supported by the Christian Democratic Party. Both strategies led to comparatively high levels of child care provisions, but also to very different contents and shapes. In short, one of the factors that shaped child care policy is the promotion of different (moral) ideals of care by the women’s movement, together with other—often more powerful—allies, and backed up by parental preferences. European governments are bidding farewell to the oncepopular ideal of the male breadwinner model. Except for Scandinavia, this model has been sitting firmly in the welfare state saddle since World War II. But in the new millennium, the governments of Europe no longer expect women to be full-time mothers. See for instance the Lisbon strategy, in which European countries committed