European Political Parties Research Articles

Religious references in political campaigning: a comparative analysis of Latin America and Western Europe on social media

The relationship between religion and politics is receiving increasing attention in political science, although the focus is often on voter attitudes. Despite secularization trends, scholars expect a resurgence of religion in Western European party politics, where Christianity as a native identity is opposed to non-native Islam by populist radical right parties. In this context, it is primarily hostility toward other religious groups that structures religious elements in political communication. In most Latin American societies, religiosity plays a much greater role for individuals, which is reflected in the discourses of political elites who use genuine religious references to appeal to religious voters (“sacralization of politics”). Using data from my own recent research on content analysis of parties’ and candidates’ Facebook profiles, this article compares how political actors in Latin America and Western Europe use religious references in electoral campaigns and how salient these discourses are. The results help to explain the different prominence of religious discourses in different democratic regions and religious markets. The article contributes to the ongoing debate on the role of religion in 21st century politics.

Transnational intra-party dynamics on European democratic reforms

One of the core elements of the European Union's (EU) democratic deficit is the lack of a genuine supranational political competition. Some processes were intended to mitigate these effects, such as the introduction of the Spitzenkandidaten (SK) and the possibility of creating Transnational Lists (TL) for European Parliament (EP) elections. These processes would be accompanied by a strengthening of the role of the European political parties (henceforth, Europarties) as the only transnational party federations capable of mobilising their national members in decisions beyond the EP. Europarties would thus be able to promote transnational candidates to the European institutions and become true political parties at the EU-level. However, Europarties are heterogeneous organisations of national parties, where ideological dynamics of these transnational parties can be subject to party dissidence, with differentiated positions on European democracy during EU elections. By adopting a principal-agent model of party organisation, the aim of this research is to analyse what effects did Europarty internal dynamics have had on the creation of a common position on the SK and TL. Based on evidence from Europarties, we suggest that supranational intra-party dissidence is low regarding EU democratic reforms.

Sympathy or Criticism? The European Far Left and Far Right React to Russia’s 2022 Invasion of Ukraine

This study seeks to contribute to our knowledge on ‘Russia-sympathising’ tendencies in Europe. By means of content analysis, it examines how the far left (N = 26) and the far right (N = 33)—namely, the two party families where benign views on Russia are expected to occur most commonly—have reacted to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The findings provide insights into the prevalence and nature of ‘Russia-sympathising’ trends in contemporary European party politics.

From torches to trees: Political party logo changes and voter perception

Logos are a prominent visual signal used by virtually every European political party. Most of these parties have also changed their logo at some point in their history. Despite the ubiquitousness of both logos and logo changes, little is known about voter attitudes towards this element of the party brand. To examine these questions, we first provide a theoretical framework that can be used to understand party logos and logo changes. We then implement a survey experiment in the United Kingdom to determine if voters notice these logo changes, how these may affect the issues that voters associate with the party, and how competent they perceive the party to be on these issues. Our findings provide suggestive evidence that voters notice and consider changes to the party logo, and that these changes can alter the issues that voters associate with the party. These findings provide the groundwork for future studies on party logos.

Mapping the digitalisation of European political parties

ABSTRACT An increasing number of comparative case studies explore the drivers and impacts of digital technologies on political parties (Bennet et al., 2018. The democratic interface: Technology, political organization, and diverging patterns of electoral representation. Information Communication & Society, 21(11), 1655–1680; Gerbaudo, 2019. The digital party: Political organisation and online democracy. Pluto Press), but a large comparative account on how parties are changing due to digitalisation is still lacking. Based on the new Digitalisation in Parties (DIGIPART) Dataset developed by the authors, this paper addresses this gap by empirically assessing the use of digital platforms and their affordances in 62 parties in five European countries (France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom and Spain). Building on previous research by Fitzpatrick (2021. The five-pillar model of parties’ migration into the digital. In O. Barberà, G. Sandri, P. Correa, & J. Rodríguez-Teruel (Eds.), Digital parties: The challenges of online organisation and participation (pp. 23–42). Springer Nature), the aim is to measure variations in the patterns of digitalisation of party activities, and to preliminary explore the relevance of some systemic and intra-organizational factors in shaping the use of party digital innovations (Lupato & Meloni, 2023. Digital intra-party democracy: An exploratory analysis of Podemos and the Labour Party. Parliamentary Affairs, 76(1), 22–42; Raniolo, Vittori and Tarditi 2021. Political parties and new digital technologies: Between tradition and innovation. In O. Barberà, G. Sandri, P. Correa, & J. Rodríguez-Teruel (Eds.), Digital parties: The challenges of online organisation and participation (pp. 181–204). Springer Nature). The preliminary results show that digital solutions are starting to be adopted as a facilitator of internal participation and that larger and older parties seem to be more digitalised than newer and smaller ones.

Google Trends of political parties in Europe: a fractal exploration

Abstract Google Trends, despite its controversial nature for some authors, can be considered an illustrative tool in exploring the political inclinations of a given audience. In the current European Union context, understanding the views and opinions of the public is of paramount importance. Through the analysis of search trends, Google Trends can provide valuable insights into the popularity of political parties in the context of the European Union along with other jurisdictions and how these trends change over time. Furthermore, by incorporating fractal dimensions and ARFIMA (Autoregressive Fractionally Integrated Moving Average) analysis into the data obtained, it is possible to reveal previously non-evident relationships, thereby providing a more comprehensive understanding of the audience‘s political leanings and their interest in specific political parties. The aim of this exploratory study is to assess the potential of ARFIMA, applied to Google Trends data, in characterizing political parties. Preliminary results indicate that this apparatus can be useful for that purpose.

Ideological ambiguity and political spectrum

This study examines the relationship between ambiguity and the ideological positioning of political parties across the political spectrum. We identify a strong non-monotonic (inverted U-shaped) relationship between party ideology and ambiguity within a sample of 202 European political parties. This pattern is observed across all ideological dimensions covered in the data. To explain this pattern, we argue that centrist parties are perceived as less risky by voters compared to extremist parties, giving them an advantage in employing ambiguity to attract more voters at a lower cost. We support our explanation with additional evidence from electoral outcomes and economic indicators in the respective party countries.

Ethnic minority MPs as reputational shields? How Western European political parties respond to public opinion shifts on immigration policy

Abstract In recent decades, representation of ethnic minorities increased significantly across Europe, while concurrently many political parties moved to the right on multiculturalism and immigration, a seeming paradox. We explain it by arguing that often it is the same parties that move to the right and simultaneously increase representation. They use this dual strategy in an attempt to positionally converge to the median voter, where the increased minority representation acts as a reputational shield to prevent allegations of intolerance. Looking at parliaments of eight European countries between 1990 and 2015, we find that parties that shifted to the right in response to a public mood swing to the right are indeed significantly more likely to bring more ethnic minority politicians into parliament. This has important implications for the literature on descriptive representation and party platform change.

Populism and the quest for political power: the pitfalls to populist electoral success in Canada

Recent electoral inroads by anti-establishment political parties in Europe and around the world have led to the resurgence of the debate on populism. Within the burgeoning theoretical and analytic interpretations of the surge of populism, competing arguments have been deployed. Economic dislocation and the demographic shift within liberal democratic societies have provided fertile ground for the rise of populism. However, the success of these populist political parties, particularly the radical right populist parties, in utilizing prevailing societal resentment is to a great extent conditional upon a perceived threat to national identity. While the vestiges of political distrust and social and economic indignation can be found in Canadian society, the absence of a historically ingrained strong sense of nationhood, consolidation of multiculturalism, the eclipse of class from national political discourse, and the implausibility of resorting to Anti-Americanism as a mobilizing tactic has made it difficult for both Canadian right and left-populist forces to replicate the success of their international counterparts at the national level.

Digitalisation and political parties in Europe

In this article we have attempted to improve our understanding of the influence of various factors, such as the level of organizational resources, age, ideology and values, on the digitalization of political parties oriented towards participation and resource mobilization. To do this, we use version four of the Political Party Database Round (PPDB) (2022), which covers 187 parties in 26 European countries. We focus on 10 of the largest party families. The data and variables have been analyzed using various descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicate an important level of similarity between political parties in the adoption of digital instruments. The level of resources, age and ideology, and values associated with the different party families present important explanatory and predictive limitations. We consider that the indicated results may be a consequence of a process of institutional isomoformism.

Dancing with the devil? Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen and the articulation of a new political divide in France

AbstractThis paper investigates how political challengers articulate new political divides in European political party systems and with what implications for representative democracy. Focusing on the case of France and the discourse and practices of Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, the paper identifies three strategies these actors have used to articulate a new political division beyond Left and Right: the discursive rejection of traditional Left/Right politics, the combination of elements from across the Left/Right divide and the identification of each other as opposite sides on a new cleavage. Our analysis also suggests that rather than addressing the democratic pathologies associated with the traditional Left/Right party system, this new divide has largely contributed to deepen them. Specifically, the new dichotomy carries risks in terms of representative deficits, electoral demobilisation and the further legitimation of illiberal politics.

Does a Lack of Trust Boost Populist Political Parties in Europe? Causal Evidence from Three Methodologies

Does a Lack of Trust Boost Populist Political Parties in Europe? Causal Evidence from Three Methodologies

Does a Lack of Trust Boost Populist Political Parties in Europe? Causal Evidence from Three Methodologies

Does a Lack of Trust Boost Populist Political Parties in Europe? Causal Evidence from Three Methodologies

Die Europawahl 2024 – systemische Besonderheiten, Erwartungen und die extremistische Herausforderung

The division of powers in the federally structured European Union, the lack of fixed political coalitions, the absence of effective control of voting behaviour in the European Parliament by parliamentary group leaderships and the structure of European political parties as alliances of national parties make European elections systemically specific. In the 2024 European elections, the lead candidate system for the President of the European Commission is back. This may contribute to increased voter participation and be successful if the informal preconditions for the candidates are met during nomination. During the phase leading up to the election of the President of the Commission, the Parliament achieves maximum leverage. Political forces that endanger the existing conditions of the system itself, should be categorized as extreme and be opposed by the political mainstream.

Migration debates in the political party arena during the Covid‐19 pandemic in Austria

AbstractThe Covid‐19 pandemic highlighted the economic contribution of migrant workers in maintaining essential services and access to goods. This new perspective on migrants as essential workers raised expectations in migration studies that it could reinvigorate an inclusive setting in terms of migration debates and policies. Building on this potential, we examine migration debates in the political party arena with a focus on centrist parties. The analysis focuses on Austria, a country with a high dependence on migrant labor in key sectors and a long‐standing contestation of migration across the political party spectrum. Drawing on an analysis of parliamentary contributions and press releases by the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) during the pandemic, the study finds that the debates did not change fundamentally. Whilst external shocks such as the Covid‐19 pandemic have a limited potential to reverse the focus on unwanted migration in European party politics, crises can lead the political center to reemphasize bifurcation strategies in response to shifts in public discourse, as this study of the Austrian case during the pandemic suggests.

Nostalgia in European Party Politics: A Text-Based Measurement Approach

Abstract Traditional research on political parties pays little attention to the temporal focus of communication. It usually concentrates on promises, issue attention, and policy positions. This lack of scholarly attention is surprising, given that voters respond to nostalgic rhetoric and may even adjust issue positions when policy is framed in nostalgic terms. This article presents a novel dataset, PolNos, which contains six text-based measures of nostalgic rhetoric in 1,648 party manifestos across 24 European democracies from 1946 to 2018. The measures combine dictionaries, word embeddings, sentiment approaches, and supervised machine learning. Our analysis yields a consistent result: nostalgia is most prevalent in manifestos of culturally conservative parties, notably Christian democratic, nationalist, and radical right parties. However, substantial variation remains regarding regional differences and whether nostalgia concerns the economy or culture. We discuss the implications and use of our dataset for studying political parties, party competition, and elections.

Trade and the transnational cleavage in European party politics

ABSTRACT Theorists of the transnational cleavage, defined as a political reaction against European integration and immigration, also regularly conceptualise international trade preferences as a component of this contemporary societal divide. Yet empirical analyses of this cleavage focus on the former two topics, while trade and the transnational cleavage has not been systematically investigated. Making use of a new item in the 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey that measures party support for protection of domestic producer groups versus support for trade liberalisation, we examine the applicability of explanations for European integration positioning for the topic of trade. The results show that party positions on international trade correlate with parties’ underlying two-dimensional ideology: parties of the economic left and culturally conservative parties support trade protection. The findings advance previous studies on the transnational cleavage and party positioning on trade, and demonstrate the continued importance of economic factors in driving patterns of trade protection.

Wolfs, Wouter (2022). European political parties and party finance reform: Funding democracy?

BOOK REVIEW OF: Wouter WolfsEuropean political parties and party finance reform: Funding democracy?Leuven: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, p. 316ISBN 978-3-030-95174-0 (paperback)ISBN 978-3-030-95175-7 (eBook)

The appeal to emotions in the discourse of populist political actors from Spain, Italy, France and the United Kingdom on Twitter

Western democracies live a populist impulse. In this context, the consolidation of digital technologies plays a key role due to their possibilities of efficiently spreading messages. This research examines the role that emotions play in the communication strategy on Twitter of populist actors from four European countries: Spain, Italy, France and the United Kingdom. The sample comprises the messages shared by four European political parties: Podemos, 5 Star Movement, National Front and UKIP and their respective leaders during the analysis period. In total, 9,128 messages are analyzed. The main findings show that fear, uncertainty or resentment are the emotions most frequently used by populist parties and leaders. Likewise, negative emotions have been observed in those messages whose primary actor is the political, economic and media classes, the European Union or immigration, while positive emotions, such as joy or pride, are associated with the figure of the leader and the party.

European identity and European political parties

ABSTRACT The legitimisation of European institutions tends to be a primary issue of debate in European identity politics. Following the expansion of the EU competencies and the growth of Eurosceptic forces, the attention gained by the democratic accountability of the European institutions should encourage reflections on the role assigned to the European political parties. Although it is impossible to equate the functioning of European democracy with national experiences, party politics remains an essential component of any democratic regime. This study is the first attempt to observe the engagement of European political organisations in promoting a collective European identity. To schematise the analysis, three ideal types are presented to illustrate different models of European identitarian attachment. The critical discourse analysis (CDA) and discourse-historical approach (DHA) from the manifestos of the European Christian-conservative, Socialist and Liberal parties have identified the activism of the parties in promoting divergent European identities, highlighting the intermediate role that European political parties could play in linking the European institutions with citizens.