European Political Parties Research Articles

Oltre le ideologie? Valori, pragmatismo e depoliticizzazione nell’esperienza del New Labour

The 1997 electoral success of Tony Blair’s New Labour can be seen as the symbolic conclusion of the debate on political ideologies that had developed in the UK and Western Europe during the ’80s and the ’90s, and that intensified after 1989. The “post-ideological” approach that underpinned the Third Way model introduced a strong emphasis on policy outcomes and effectiveness, which have gradually replaced values and ideologies in legitimizing governmental action. The article focuses on this aspect of the political experience of the NL, engaging in an analysis of the political discourse developed in the UK at the end of the 90s. The analysis highlights the contradictions in the experience of the NL. In fact, the attempt to move beyond ideologies appears to be a rhetorical instrument rather than a real transformation. However, the Third way model marked an important turning point in the definition of political legitimation strategies, the effects of which are clearly visible in the political discourses of European political parties in the years after the rise of the NL.

Assessing actually-existing trajectories of EU politicisation

Theoretical debate about the effects of politicisation on the democratic legitimacy of the European Union has tended to focus on the potential of conflict between European political parties or member state governments. At the same time, empirical sociological studies demonstrate that controversy about Europe continues to unfold primarily within national public spheres. There is as yet no genuine Europe-wide party system or public debate. This reveals a gap between the normative theoretical assessment of EU politicisation and empirical sociological analysis of this phenomenon. To reconcile this discrepancy, this paper develops three actually-existing trajectories of politicisation: the remote conflict, the international conflict and the domestic conflict. Each trajectory carries unique challenges and opportunities to the democratic legitimacy of the Union. It is argued that the domestic conflict trajectory is most promising from a normative democratic perspective. Paradoxically, this does not necessarily imply a renationalisation of the EU.

Interactivity and Political Communication: hypermedia campaigning in the UK

Within this article we examine the adherence to the conventions of online communication and hypermedia campaigning techniques among European political parties using UK parties as a case study. Overall we find UK political parties adapting to the norms of online communication and a hypermedia campaign model. The Internet is also a feature of the permanent campaign and having a vibrant, frequently updated and interactive web presence is, almost, de rigueur, though sophistication is hindered by resources. One corollary may be that members feel closer to the party, though techniques for achieving this are explored to a greater extent by opposition parties rather than those of government suggesting campaigning norms prevail and there is little indication parties wish to relinquish any of the power over ‘doing’ politics.

Two types of presidentialization in the party politics of Central Eastern Europe

IntroduzioneCentral Eastern European party politics offers a good example of the trend towards centralizing internal party decision making, as well as encouraging strong personalities in the role of party leader. This trend is visible in all three major spheres of party activity: election campaigning, the internal organization of parties, and governmental politics. This paper focusses on the party systems of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia to demonstrate that there are actually two processes of presidentialization that occur in party politics. On the one hand, the role of the leader is gaining importance in more traditional, well-established parties such as the Civic and Social Democrats in the Czech Republic and Fidesz in Hungary. On the other hand, perhaps an even clearer presidentialization process is evident in the emergence of new protest parties focussed around strong personalities that often make no attempt to establish and maintain a more complex internal party organization.

Objective and Subjective Party Leadership Selection: Regulations, Activists, and Voters in Poland

Over the last two decades, an increasing number of political parties have gradually formalized the influence of members in the process of leadership selection. This evolution has determined two partly contrasting behaviors in the new democracies of Eastern Europe: inclusive decision-making was formally mentioned but empirical evidence indicates implementation problems. Consequently, it remains an empirical question to what extent the East European political parties apply the formal provisions of inclusiveness when selecting their leaders. In order to provide an answer, this article compares the statutes and election regulations of four Polish parties with opinions of party members and voters. This study combines qualitative content analysis with aggregate statistics from individual-level data collected at the national level and covers the 2007–2011 electoral cycle.

Immigration, Attitudes and the Rise of the Political Right: The Role of Cultural and Economic Concerns Over Immigration

With the rise of the far-right parties in the European parliamentary elections, concerns over immigration and national identity have again come into the limelight. In this paper, we document the empirical relationships between immigration, native concerns over the economic and cultural impact of immigration, and the rise of rightwing political parties in Europe. Empirical analysis first establishes the critical and distinct roles played by economic and cultural concerns over immigration in determining citizen’s rightward ideology and voting for right-wing parties. Second, we investigate the determinants of economic and cultural concerns over immigration, finding strong and consistent evidence for the salience hypothesis, which suggests that immigrant share of a country’s population shapes citizen concerns over immigration. Thereafter, we document the roles of macro-level economic and cultural channels in determining the strength of salience effects. Finally, we investigate how the characteristics of the immigrant population affect native concerns over immigration.

Objective and Subjective Party Leadership Selection: Regulations, Activists and Voters in Poland

Over the last two decades an increasing number of political parties have gradually formalized the influence of members in the process of leadership selection. This evolution has determined two partly contrasting behaviors in the new democracies of Eastern Europe: the inclusive decision-making was formally mentioned but empirical evidence indicates implementation problems. Consequently, it remains an empirical question to what extent the East European political parties apply the formal provisions of inclusiveness when selecting their leaders. In order to provide an answer, this article compares the statutes and election regulations of four Polish parties with opinions of party members and voters. This study combines qualitative content analysis with aggregate statistics from individual level data collected at national level and covers the 2007-2011 electoral cycle.

Postawy elit politycznych Europy Środkowej wobec integracji z UE w okresie przedakcesyjnym

This analysis reviews pro-European and anti-European attitudes in the political life of Visegrad Group states in 1989–2004. It was not easy to identify these attitudes, as the profile of Central European political parties often depended on the personalities of their most prominent persons and their political platforms, especially during the first period of the post-communist era, and these did not keep pace with the changes that occurred around them. In the first half of the decade, integration with the EC/EU was considered an issue related to foreign policy. This was conducive to maintaining a superficial consensus on the matter. As negotiations went into more detail and their finalisation came closer, the political scene became more strongly diversified into three main orientations: „pro-European”, „anti-European” and „Eurosceptic” – based on disputes concerning internal reforms and the pace of these reforms, membership conditions, relations with other European countries or the target integration model. Both pro-European and anti-European discourses were based to a certain extent on emotional arguments, and this did not lead to deeper debates on issues related to integration.

How Can European Political Parties Maximise Their Success in the 2019 Elections?

During the 24 years that have passed since the Maastricht Treaty, there has been unprecedented progress in both the deepening and the widening of the EU. The European party federations, however, have not kept pace. This has created an asymmetry between the deepening of integration in the EU and its politically miniscule European political parties. There are several issues that need to be addressed. Doing so might improve the situation in the medium term.

Marxism Versus Anarchism: The First Encounter

Abstract Marx's first meeting with Mikhail Bakunin in 1847 was amicable. Sixteen years later, however, he crossed swords with Bakunin, who had by then formed his own anarchist current. The setting was the just-founded International Workingmen's Association (IWA) or First International. At the heart of their differences was whether workers should engage in political action, with Marx in favor and Bakunin opposed. While making a forceful case for its position, the Marx party was never able to get Bakunin or his current to openly debate the question in the International. Their conflict focused, rather, on organizational issues. Marx accused Bakunin, with evidence, of having formed a secret center within the IWA, in violation of its norms. The majority of its affiliates agreed and expelled Bakunin's current in 1872, while adopting Marx's political action course, which contained the seeds of the mass working-class political parties in Europe. Bakunin's current passed into oblivion.

What is in the Scandinavian Nexus of ‘Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, and Muslim-Western Relations’?

Studies of European political party programmes, social movements, news media coverage, scores of books, and social media networks have embraced a negative dialogue towards migrants, whose identities are increasingly seen as incompatible with ‘Western’ values and presenting a major challenge to democracy. Sponsors of these public discourses support anti-immigration and oppositional stances to ‘migrant sympathizers’, who are often represented as traitors or cowards. They also fuel a process where xenophobia, Islamophobia and zero-tolerance have become naturalized and morally accepted ways to respond to the non-Western migrants. The objective of this article is to explore how this position embeds a number of other negativities, such as multiculturalists, feminists, and ‘liberals’ (left-wingers). The article approaches this coexistence of negativities as a ‘nexus of exclusionary beliefs’ with its blurred relations and taken for granted assumptions in the Muhammad Cartoon Affair in Denmark, the media coverage of the terrorist attack in Norway 2011; a blog entry about Radical Islam, feminism and left-wingers; and discussion about immigrant youth and drinking on a website connected to one of Denmark’s most popular radio programmes targeting younger listeners.

Thatcher’s Victims vs. Beveridge’s Sons: The New Cleavage of European Parties

The Rokkans’ theory of cleavages has traditionally been a valid helpful instrument, although questionable, to interpret the nexus between social dynamics and party models. Thanks also to this theo-ry, during the hundred years between 1885 and 1985, European political party classification, at least where their origins are concerned, is reasonably straightforward. At the end of the sixties of ‘900, the per-formance of the political actors in terms of policy stimulated a level of feedback on the social conditions of populations to the point of reducing the impact of the traditional cleavages. The thirty-year “Golden Age” steadily led the population to believe in a world where the affirmation of universalistic social rights was an acquired right regardless of offsetting economic measures. But in the following forty years, with this con-viction still holding, the economic conditions for the sustainability of that model were overturned, and the prospect, therefore, of social benefits for all changed radically. Especially after the 2008 crisis, a new cleavage explodes with such an intensity that it actually squares the interests of the “protected” (state employees with steady jobs, workers of large and medium-sized firms protected by the Unions) with the “non-protected” (the unemployed, self-employed and seasonal labourers), in other words those of the established and non-established. In this framework, if they want to survive, the political parties both old and new, are continually being pressurised by an agitated electorate to realign themselves. And while in the short term gain votes populist and nationalist parties, the nature of the latest cleavage seems there-fore to be a challenge especially for those parties which find themselves managing the “social blocs”, gen-erated from the classic cleavages, and the identity nuclei.

Party Membership and Intra-Party Democracy: How Do Members React to Organizational Change within Political Parties? The Case of Belgium

Facing a crucial legitimacy crisis, many Western European political parties have recently undergone various forms of organizational changes by adopting procedures for increasing intra-democracy: internal ballots, internal referenda, primary elections and so on. Direct democracy is now used in a wide range of decision-making procedures such as candidate and leadership selection (Cross and Katz, 2013). These reforms have pro-vided new opportunities for participation to party members. What happens to more traditional elements of party internal structures when such instruments of intra-party democracy are adopted? And more specifically, how are such changes perceived by the party base? This paper explores the attitudes and behaviors of members with regard to intra-party democracy procedures. On the basis of a case study (Belgium) and of an original dataset, the paper explores the political consequences of intra-party democracy. We show that members’ satisfaction with the party and their degree of previous internal activism affect the level of involvement in intra-party democracy activities. However, the dissatisfaction of the party base vis-a-vis of the membership role is growing. Intra-party democratization seems to limit the organizational function of the grass-roots membership to a ‘cheerleading’ role.

Immigration, Attitudes and the Rise of the Political Right: The Role of Cultural and Economic Concerns Over Immigration

With the rise of the far-right parties in the European parliamentary elections, concerns over immigration and national identity have again come into the limelight. In this paper, we document the empirical relationships between immigration, native concerns over the economic and cultural impact of immigration, and the rise of rightwing political parties in Europe. Empirical analysis first establishes the critical and distinct roles played by economic and cultural concerns over immigration in determining citizen’s rightward ideology and voting for right-wing parties. Second, we investigate the determinants of economic and cultural concerns over immigration, finding strong and consistent evidence for the salience hypothesis, which suggests that immigrant share of a country’s population shapes citizen concerns over immigration. Thereafter, we document the roles of macro-level economic and cultural channels in determining the strength of salience effects. Finally, we investigate how the characteristics of the immigrant population affect native concerns over immigration.

The Europeanisation of Slovak Political Parties

Abstract The aim of the study is to analyse the Europeanisation of Slovak political parties in the various stages of the transition and transformation of the political system of Slovakia before and after the entry into the European Union. Methodologically, the paper is based on the concept of Ladrech, who divided five areas of research to suit the study of the impact of the Europeanisation on political parties and their politics. Visible can be changes in political programmes, organisational changes, a formula of party competition, relations between parties and government, relations beyond the national party system (a new look at transnational cooperation between political parties). Our research proved that the Europeanisation has been visible at all stages of development, with varying degrees of intensity and in various forms since the signing of the association agreement with the European Union. Its effect was important already in the stage of the society transition when it helped the return of Slovakia on the path of democratic development. In the two stages of development, Europeanisation created an individual line of cleavage of political parties, affected the rivalry of political parties, and thus a party system model. Unambiguously, it was reflected in political programmes of all parties, and an important role was played by the incorporation of political parties in the European political parties, by their cooperation and coordination of their policies. The election in the European Parliament was an important turning point in completion of programme orientations of political parties.

National Liberals and their Progeny. Approaching the Peculiar Developments in Central European Liberal Party Traditions, 1867–1918

This paper addresses patterns of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century structural and ideological transformations of liberalism in Central European party politics that might be perceived as region-specific. Focusing on the Czech, German, and Slovene speaking lands of the Cisleithanian half of the Habsburg Monarchy, it also shortly discusses the Imperial German, Hungarian and Polish Galician contexts. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the complex interplay between ide­ologies, organized political movements, and political languages within the context of rapidly changing political cultures during the last third of the nineteenth century and first quarter of the twentieth was the changing relationship between the national and liberal components within the national liberal traditions. By 1900 the national came to visibly prevail over the liberal: nationalism was gaining in strength and intensity and was adopting new, more aggressive and integralist forms. From the turn of the century onwards it is therefore more proper to talk about heirs of liberalism in terms of party politics rather than simply liberals. The nationalist turn of the Central European national liberals and their political heirs, reached its peak by the turn of the century and continued to develop further into the interwar period. Partial abandonment of classical liberal tenets largely distinguished the contemporary organized liberalism to the West as well. What makes the Central European developments specific in this regard is their direction, which unlike the emergence of currents of new or social liberalism in the West, to a notable degree led towards adoption of anti-liberal and radically nationalist positions and therefore partial vanishing of liberal traditions.

Elections to the European Parliament in 2014: A step towards the evolution of institutional system of the European Union

Elections to the European Parliament in May 2014, are important event in the development of the European Union. European political parties represented in the European Parliament for the first time on the eve of the parliamentary election pre-emphasized its candidate for President of the Commission. The European Parliament is the European Council failed to impose candidacy Jean-Claude Juncker for President of the Commission, as the leader of the federation center-right parties that won the most votes in the parliamentary election. The fruit of the election process for members of the European Parliament in 2014 increased personalization in the selection and strengthened the political authority of the President of the Commission as a first step in the further evolution of the institutional system of the European Union. Increased the authority of the president led to the birth of a new organizational architecture of the body in the form of 'clusters.' Manner in which took place the European parliamentary elections in 2014 actually contributes to the growing influence of transnational and democratic institutions within the institutional system of the European Union.

Leadership Elections: What is at Stake for Parties? A Comparison of the British Labour Party and the Parti Socialiste: Table 1

In recent decades many European political parties have broadened the selectorate for the party leadership, often clashing in so doing with their own tradition of decision-making. The article argues that in order to understand what is at stake in the staging of these contests we need to go beyond the classic literature on party change and party organisation and recast such reform through an anthropological lens. We can then explore how rules, practices and narratives constrain internal competition whilst retaining a focus on their strategic use by actors. Rather than see such reform as inspired by a search for organisational efficacy, this approach suggests that we consider leadership selection as a ritual. The conjecture is explored further and developed by comparing the 2010 Labour leadership election and the 2011 Socialist presidential primary.

The Reluctant Cosmopolitanization of European Party Politics: The Case of Germany

While still vastly underrepresented and lagging behind political representation in several other European democracies, more ethnic minorities and immigrants have entered the German Bundestag in 2013 than ever before. This is one of several indicators of Germany's political departure from hegemonic ethnic self-understandings, signaling the nation's complicated, partly still-contested evolution towards political self-conceptions as a “country of immigration.” A significant unanswered question is how and how far this process, which can be conceived as cosmopolitanization, has transformed party politics. This article examines the scope and causes of cosmopolitanization in three dimensions of German party politics after the 2013 Bundestag election: political discourse and programmatic positions on immigration, citizenship, identity, and ethno-cultural diversity; the policy regime of mainstream parties on immigration and the inclusion of ethnic minorities; and the fielding of minority candidates for national public office. It is argued that a belated postethnic cosmopolitanization of German party politics is primarily caused by transformed demographic realities, value change, and new electoral demands. Mainstream political parties—including the center right—have been reluctant but ultimately rational strategic agents reacting to these transformations in the electoral market. Yet, the scope and character of cosmopolitanization also depends on external and internal supply side conditions that enable parties to make programmatic changes, depolarize key issues of the immigration and citizenship policy regime, and recruit ethnic minorities for political representation. In European comparative perspective, the German case may serve as a model for theorizing the cosmopolitanization of party politics.

Energy policy objectives of the European Political parties in the 2014 European election campaign

Energy policy objectives of the European Political parties in the 2014 European election campaign