Comparative European Politics Research Articles

Tolerant and intolerant responses to populist parties: who does what, when and why?

This article introduces the special issue of Comparative European Politics on Tolerant and Intolerant Responses to Populist Parties: Who does what, when and why? Populist parties have become more powerful political actors in Europe’s multilevel system of governance. Yet we lack concepts and comparative empirical studies charting how those who disagree with populist parties oppose them and theoretical accounts of the normative implications of this opposition. Discussing how the articles in this special issue address these shortcomings, this introductory article argues that while responses to populist parties is a neglected field in the study of populism, the ambiguity of populist orientations to liberal democracy sits uneasily with traditional paradigms for studying democracy’s challengers. It then outlines a new typology, developed with reference to case studies on Germany, Denmark, Italy and Poland, which aims to present a new conceptual language for understanding contemporary opposition to poulist parties. The article also explores the conceptual and institutional limits of political and legal (in)tolerance, a concept which provide a bridge between political science and political theory traditions encompassed in the special issue.

Storytelling (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

Storytelling (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

Inclusivity (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

Inclusivity (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

Explicit civility (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

Explicit civility (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

Rationality (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

Rationality (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

Is there a presidentialization of US presidential leadership? A European perspective on Washington

This article revisits the different notions and concepts of ‘presidentialization’ that have held an exceptionally prominent status in recent comparative European politics but have conspicuously failed to capture the attention of the American political science community. It then applies a slightly amended version of the influential conceptual framework suggested by Thomas Poguntke and Paul Webb to the analysis of presidential leadership in the United States to demonstrate the analytical usefulness of the concept beyond the family of parliamentary democracies. This stock-tacking exercise reveals that there are some manifestations of presidential leadership that could in fact be described as ‘presidentialization’ and others that are better characterized as ‘de-presidentialization’. Interestingly, the recent developments towards a less ‘presidentialized’ mode of politics and leadership seem to have been induced by the institutional incentives of the presidential system.

Book Review: Comparative Politics: State Formation, Parties and Democracy: Studies in Comparative European Politics

Book Review: Comparative Politics: State Formation, Parties and Democracy: Studies in Comparative European Politics

Hans Daalder, State formation, parties and democracy: Studies in comparative European politics, reviewed by Hanspeter Kriesi

Hans Daalder, State formation, parties and democracy: Studies in comparative European politics, reviewed by Hanspeter Kriesi

Revenge of the Optimum Currency Area

Revenge of the Optimum Currency Area

Turkey's Path to EU Membership: An Historical Institutionalist Perspective

Scholars have drawn heavily on new institutionalist approaches in the study of comparative European politics and European integration. However, these approaches have been neglected in the study of Turkey–EU relations, resulting in a significant gap in the academic literature. In particular, the extant literature fails to question the significance of domestic political institutional settings and also fails to ask what role Turkey's National Security Council (MGK) played in shaping Turkey's path towards EU membership. The Historical Institutionalist approach, and the associated concepts of path dependence and punctuated equilibrium, can help address these failures by highlighting the importance of two significant phases of Turkey's European policy: the MGK's tendency to rule through states of emergency and its incompatibility with EU membership criteria (1983–1997); and the curtailment of the MGK's powers and the EU's decision to begin accession negotiations (1997–2004). To substantiate the value of historical institutionalism, I will first discuss the utility of the approach and justify its selection as a framework for explaining Turkey–EU relations. I will then discuss, in general terms, the ways in which institutions shape political action and maintain long periods of stasis. I will then demonstrate the utility of the concept of path dependence in researching the interaction between the MGK's use of state of emergency legislation and Turkey's path towards EU membership. The final part argues that the changes in the MGK and in Turkey–EU relations can be best understood with the historical institutionalist concept of punctuated equilibrium

Symbolism in European integration

Q1 Abstract The role of symbolism in European integration provides one way of answering Craig Calhoun's 2003 call in Comparative European Politics for a means of transcending specific regimes of analysis in order to advance European studies. The article argues that our understanding of the integration process and the consti- tution of the European Union (EU) is furthered by broadly studying symbolic forms in a multiperspectival way. In contrast to much emphasis on heroic symbolic icons, the article studies more banal processes of symbolic construction that provide a deeper understanding of the symbolisation of European integration and enrich European studies more broadly. The article sets out how such processes could include the roles of physical icons such as maps or places, performative rituals such as days or museums, or discursive taboos such as mottos or texts. In this way the study of symbolism in European integration suggests a means of understanding how the EU becomes constituted as a political reality - how it is 'always already there and still in formation'. Comparative European Politics (2010) 0, 1-26. doi:10.1057/cep.2010.11

An Appreciation: Gordon Smith 1927–2009

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes G. Smith, Democracy in Western Germany: Parties and Politics in the Federal Republic (London: Heinemann, 1976). S. Padgett and T. Poguntke (eds), Continuity and Change in German Politics (London: Frank Cass, 2002). G. Smith, ‘Seeking to Understand European Politics’, in H. Daalder (ed.), Comparative European Politics: The Story of a Profession (London and New York: Pinter, 1997), pp.152–61. G. Smith, ‘The German Volkspartei and the Career of the Catchall Concept’, in H. Doering and G. Smith (eds), Party Government and Political Culture in Western Germany (London: MacMillan, 1982). Gordon served in the British occupation forces in Hamburg in the post-war period, where he met his first wife Dorothea, one of the founder members of the Young Socialists under the leadership of Helmut Schmidt in 1945. G. Smith, ‘Does West Germany have an “Efficient Secret”?’, in W.E. Paterson (ed.), The West German Model: Perspectives on a Stable State (London: Frank Cass, 1981). R. Dahrendorf, Society and Democracy in Germany (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965). W.E. Paterson and G. Smith (eds), The West German Model: Perspectives on a Stable State (London: Frank Cass, 1981). P.J. Katzenstein, Policy and Politics in Germany: The Growth of a Semisovereign State (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1981).

The Rise of Pension Fund Capitalism in Europe: An Unseen Revolution?

The pension funds have become America's new ‘tycoons’ – surely the most unlikely masters any society ever had. They have attained this position without any struggle, any crisis, any major ‘problems...

What Can Students Learn from the Spanish Case in Comparative Politics Courses?

What can undergraduate students of comparative politics learn from studying Spain? Clearly, many professors do not see any good reasons to integrate Spain in introductory courses on comparative politics or European politics. Spain is often considered as a country on the periphery of western Europe—geographically, economically, and politically—and thus not worth spending time discussing in introductory courses on comparative politics or even western European politics. Given the time constraints of short semesters, instructors have to make choices about which topics and countries to cover when choosing European case studies for their syllabus, and often settle for a mix of the “classic” cases such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, and “newer” cases, such as new democracies in eastern and central Europe. Spain fits neither the established, advanced industrialized democracies category nor is it of much obvious interest for studying the latest developments in EU expansion. Spain re-democratized in the latter half of the 1970s and is currently celebrating 30 years of electoral democracy. The country joined the EU, then the European Communities, in 1986, together with Portugal and Greece. Thus, the newness of Spanish democracy and its EU membership has long since passed as a point of interest for college instruction, giving way to the new democracies in central and eastern Europe and the more recent waves of EU expansion. At the same time, Spanish democracy is too young to present a classic case of advanced industrialized democracies. In short, Spain does not appear to have much inherent appeal for undergraduate comparative politics courses. I gratefully acknowledge research assistance from Wendy Whitman in collecting information on textbooks and syllabi.

THE RISE AND FAULTS OF THE INTERNALIST PERSPECTIVE IN EXTREME RIGHT STUDIES

In contemporary political science, the extreme right phenomenon continues to attract considerable academic attention. Among major political developments in established Western-style democracies, few have provoked as much interest as the revival of different forms of right-wing radicalism and extremism in recent years (Betz 2003, 74). The number of studies focused on the subject, the number of scholars active in the field and the range of theoretical approaches have all expanded enormously (Mudde 2000, 6). In short, there has been an ‘explosive growth of the literature’ (Ignazi 2002, 22).1. Despite renewed interest in the ‘dark side of Europe’ (Harris 1994), it should not be overlooked that there exists a rich tradition of research focused upon various aspects of extreme right-wing politics. As pointed out by Norris (2005), social psychology, political psychology, political sociology and political science have all devoted significant efforts to investigating the social bases of support for a variety of manifestations commonly labelled ‘extreme right’, whether fascism and Nazism (e.g. Adorno et al. 1950), Poujadisme in France (Hoffman 1956), American phenomena such as McCarthyism and the John Birch Society (Bell 1963; Lipset and Raab 1970), or more recent developments in Western Europe (e.g. Betz 1994; Cheles et al. 1995; Kitschelt and McGann 1995; Merkl and Weinberg 1997; Ignazi 2003; Carter 2005). What differentiates previous instances of extreme right success from more recent examples is that the former, for example the Poujadists in 1956 or the German Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) in the 1960s, experienced only ‘flash’ success, while contemporary extreme right parties (ERPs) have exerted an appreciable impact upon a number of party systems over the course of a number of electoral cycles. As observed by Schain et al. (2002, 16), ‘there seems to be little question that the radical right has become an important political force in Western Europe’. The principal aim of this review article is to examine the scholarly response to the extreme right phenomenon and, to this end, is composed in the following manner: first, it outlines how a preoccupation with ‘demand-side’ or ‘externalist’ explanations led researchers away from examining extreme right parties (ERPs) and towards assessing the impact of socio-economic developments on levels of ERP electoral support. Second, although contributors have in recent years attempted to redress this imbalance by focusing increasingly upon party-centric factors, to date ‘internalist’ perspectives have suffered from a glaring lack of empirical analysis. The review concludes by suggesting that researchers might gain a richer insight into internalist dimensions and the nature of contemporary ERPs through examining the political actors at the heart of this phenomenon.

Policy Formulation, Implementation and Feedback in EU Merger Control

This paper analyses the formulation of the EU Merger Control Regulation (MCR) and its implementation via the 1992 Nestle/Perrier merger. It offers two arguments. First, these phases of policy development occurred in macro and micro policy communities found at the supranational level of governance. The first community consists of larger Commission and business interests that formulated the MCR and the second of specific actors within the macro community - the Merger Task Force and the firms - that implemented the rules. Secondly, the development of these communities can be explained by interest theory. The conclusions highlight two main lessons for students of comparative European politics. First, the concept of macro and micro communities existing at both the formulation and implementation phases of policy offers a framework for comparativists to better analyse which types of actors will interact during different stages of the policy-making process. It is argued that while the (larger) macro community helps define the nature of the regulations, a related, but not necessarily equally composed, micro community eventually implements the rules, potentially changing the nature of the policy itself via a feedback mechanism. Secondly, this study suggests that comparativists must pay more attention to the interests of policy-makers and how these are intertwined with their private fears. Such interests and fears guide policy-makers while simultaneously constrain them from acting alone.

Where is Political Science Going?

Political science, as we currently understand the label, was born, in Western Europe, in the early Fifties. One may say that it was “reborn”; but that would be inaccurate, for in the nineteenth century and until World War Two the label indicated a captive discipline largely dominated by juridical or historical approaches (as in the case, e.g., of Gaetano Mosca). So political science had a new start and became a field of inquiry in its own right about half a century ago. I was, at the time, one of its founders (with Stein Rokkan, Juan Linz, Mattei Dogan, Hans Daalder, Erik Allardt, S. N. Eisenstadt, and others. See: Comparative European Politics: The Story of a Profession, edited by H. Daalder, 1997). I am thus one of the witnesses of what the “young turks” of the time had in mind, of how we conceived and promoted political science. I am now an “ancient sage” and it now pleases me to reflect, some fifty years later, on where political science has gone and on whether it has taken the right course, the course that I had wished for and expected. Thus to ask today, in the middle of Mitteleuropa, where political science has been heading is also to ask whether the new beginnings of the discipline in Eastern Europe should or should not follow the path entered by our “big brother,” I mean, by American-type political science. I too have been somewhat swallowed by our big brother (to be sure, a benevolent and well meaning one) in the sense that I have been teaching in the United States for some thirty years. Let me add that I have largely benefited from my American exposure. Yet I have always resisted and still resist the American influence. And I take this occasion to say why I am unhappy about the American molding of present day political science.

Austria in the Twentieth Century

The fourteen essays in this volume include works by leading Austrian historians and political scientists. Collectively it serves as a basic introduction to a small but trend-setting European country. It is also a basic up-to-date outline of Austria's political history, shedding light on economic and social trends as well. No European country has experienced more dramatic turning points in its twentieth-century history than Austria.This volume divides the century into three periods. Section I deals with the years 1900-1938. The First Austrian Republic (established in the aftermath of World War I) was one of the succession states that tried to build a nation against the backdrop of political and economic crisis and a simmering civil war. Democracy collapsed in 1933 and an authoritarian regime attempted to prevail against pressures from Nazi Germany and Nazis at home. Section II covers World War II. In 1938, Hitler's Third Reich annexed Austria and the population was pulled into the cauldron of World War II fighting and collaborating with the Nazis, and also resisting and fleeing them. Section III concentrates on the Second Republic (1945 to the present). After ten years of four-power Allied occupation, Austria regained her sovereignty with the Austrian State Treaty of 1955. The price paid was neutrality.Unlike the turmoil of the prewar years after 1955, Austria became a normal nation with a functioning democracy, one building toward economic prosperity. After the collapse of the iron curtain in 1989, Austria turned westward, joining the European Union in 1995. Most recently, with the advent of populist politics, Austria's political system has experienced a sea of change, departing from its political economy of a huge state-owned sector and social partnership. This insightful volume will serve as a textbook in courses on Austrian, German and European history, as well as in comparative European politics.

How we are, or how we say that we are: The post–war comparative politics of Hans Daadler and others

Abstract. This article reviews Comparative European Politics: The Story of a Profession (London: Pinter 1997 and 1999), edited by Hans Daalder, one of the fathers of contemporary comparative politics. Such a volume is the collection of the autobiographies of almost all the major scholars of comparative European politics during the post–war period. It can be considered a non tedious way of getting a picture of the sub–field. What is the European comparative politics that emerges from these autobiographies? In reviewing the book the answer is provided through the analysis of four main features: first, what are the themes and methods that prevail; second, is it possible to single out the factors which form the basis of the growth in the field?— a question Daalder also asks; third, what are the “lessons” to be learnt from these scholars; and fourth, what are the most evident and noteworthy differences that exist between the work of the scholars who wrote a contribution for this book and those of the younger generations.

The increasingly difficult art of comparative European politics

Abstract. Those writing textbooks on comparative European politics, or the cross–national study of European democracies, have a number of key choices to make. They must decide whether to cover Western Europe as well as Central and Eastern Europe; whether to focus on a limited number or a broad range of countries; whether to include the EU in the analysis or exclude it; whether to adopt a thematic or a country–by–country approach; whether to survey events or test a broader argument; and whether to focus on the politics of institutions and representation or to include more social and economic–oriented concerns as well. The evidence from the most recently published texts in this area is that different writers make different choices. Moreover, the context within which European politics now operates also suggests that their choices are becoming increasingly difficult ones to make.