Party System Change, the European Crisis and the State of Democracy

Marco Lisi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351377645
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Party systems are crucial elements for the functioning of political systems and representative democracies. With several European countries experiencing significant changes recently, it is necessary to update our knowledge.

This volume analyses party system changes in Europe in the 21st century by considering several dimensions such as interparty competition, the cleavage structure, electoral volatility and the emergence of new actors. The book describes the principal continuities and changes in party systems in Europe; analyzes the main explanations for these trends; and assesses the impact of the crisis on the patterns observed. By considering a wide range of Western and Eastern European countries, and focusing on the 'parameters' of party system change, this book seeks to fill an important gap in the literature through a comparative analysis of the evolution of party systems in Europe over the last decades.

This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political parties, party systems and politics, electoral behavior as well as more broadly to European politics, comparative politics. political representation and the quality of democracies.

1 Party system change and the European crisis

An introduction

Marco Lisi

1.1 Introduction

This book analyzes the transformation of party systems in Europe in the early twenty-first century. In particular, it focuses on the accelerated changes that seem to have occurred after the onset of the economic and financial crisis. During the so-called eurozone crisis, party systems have entered a period of extreme flux and instability. The most spectacular changes occurred suddenly and with a huge intensity, thus differing from the long-term socio-structural alterations that European societies experienced in the second half of the twentieth century. Many established parties have lost their grip on society and are no longer at the core of the party system. The case of some historical (socialist) parties that have been relegated to a marginal role in their respective political system (e.g. France, Greece, etc.) is suggestive of the huge shifts that mass politics can experience in a very short period of time. And yet there is also evidence of stability or party system resilience, in which parties have been able to adapt and (successfully) compete for the popular vote. The major goal of this enterprise is to depict and understand these distinct trajectories.

On the basis of a systematic and critical review of theories on party system change, this book links existing theoretical approaches to new evidence, and integrates the findings into a comprehensive assessment of party system change during the crisis period.¹ Hence, this study investigates the direction and extent to which party systems in both Western and Eastern Europe have evolved and changed over the last two decades. By considering the key changes in the main party families and the links between political parties and voters, this work also allows a medium-term assessment to be made of the characteristics of party governments and the quality of political representation in Europe’s democratic states.

This is an introductory chapter in two senses. First, it presents an overview of the literature and findings on comparative European party systems. Second, it seeks to sketch out a theoretical framework for the chapters that follow. Although some contributions also take intra-party politics into consideration, the book focuses on the connections between parties, in particular on the competitive interactions that structure a party system (Mair 1996). This idea is also encompassed in Sartori’s definition of a party system as “the system of interactions resulting from inter-party competition” (Sartori 1976, 43–44). More specifically, a party system displays features that are not associated to the analysis of political parties per se, i.e., as standing in isolation from each other. Party systems result from the “patterned interactions” of their component parts, and these interactions define the boundaries of the system.

The aim of this introductory chapter is to frame party system change during the eurozone crisis. The following section reviews the main theoretical approaches adopted for the study of the transformation of party systems. The third section presents the empirical findings of previous works, while the fourth part examines the main factors driving party system change, highlighting in particular the role played by the Great Recession. Section five outlines an analytical framework linking party system change and the impact of the crisis. The final section sets out the structure of the volume.

1.2 Approaches to party system change

In political science, different theoretical approaches have been elaborated in order to examine and understand party system change (Daalder 1983; Ware 1996; Wolinetz 1998, 2006). The first of these is based on the elaboration of typologies that allows us to depict the trajectory and evolution of party systems, thus examining the passage from one category to another. Perhaps the most widely known and used typology of party system is based on Sartori’s seminal work (Sartori 1976). Sartori’s theory is grounded on two key dimensions, namely fragmentation and polarization. Therefore, he specifies seven party system types, which are intended to capture party competition in both established and consolidating democracies (and even non-democratic countries). According to this approach, party system change happens when there is a shift from one type to another. Nwokora and Pelizzo (2018) have noted that the underlying assumption here is that party systems are “multidimensional compounds”, that is, a combination of features that are interlinked and contribute to making the party system congruent as a whole. The main problem, however, is that it does not give enough consideration to “marginal” change, that is, to those transformations that are not related to the “essential” properties of the party system (Mair 2006).

Another important approach used to interpret and examine the transformations of party systems stems from Lipset and Rokkan’s (1967) influential analysis, which is usually associated to the “sociological” approach to party system change. Here, the emergence of (four) specific cleavages is translated into political competition by distinct party families. As Bartolini and Mair have argued (1990), the fact that a cleavage is a form of closure of social relationships does not prevent the possibility of party system change. Extraordinary events (e.g. regime change) or long-term changes may generate new cleavages and boost party system change. This means that “non-structural” cleavages may be divisive and alter party competition or voter alignments. The important point to note is that political elites and parties play a crucial role in establishing new patterns of competition and politicize new dimensions of competition. New issues, such as European integration, may activate the transformation of party systems through the politicization of specific topics by political parties.

A third approach to party system change is based on the concept of (party system) “institutionalization” (PSI). Sartori was perhaps the first to notice the differences between the first (and second) generation of party systems and “third wave” democracies. While the former was seen as “consolidated” party systems, the latter cases were categorized as “no party system” whatsoever. A number of authors then criticized this crude dichotomization, arguing that the study of party system institutionalization requires a multidimensional approach (Mainwaring and Torcal 2006; Casal Bértoa 2017). Each dimension is conceived as a continuum, and the overall degree of party system institutionalization is measured by an index that combines several dimensions. Chief among these are the pattern of party competition (e.g. volatility), party-society links, the “strength” of party organizations and party legitimacy in society (Mainwaring 1999; Mainwaring and Torcal 2006). Conventional theories have conceived these indicators along one single dimension of PSI. Research on party system institutionalization in Eastern European found that party systems are likely to be more unstable (i.e. less institutionalized) when there are cross-cutting cleavages, while party system institutionalization is higher where cleavages overlap (Casal Bértoa 2014; see also Bornschier 2009).

Two main criticisms can be addressed to these theoretical approaches. The first is that they are rather deterministic, as they tend to emphasize medium and long-term developments without taking into account short-term factors and ad hoc shocks that may destabilize party system characteristics and open uncertain trajectories.² Although there is undoubtedly a certain degree of path dependency in the transformation of party systems, the recent instability in party systems is much more evident than in past decades. The second reason is that it is almost impossible to elaborate indisputable and consistent typologies that can be applied to distinct cases and to determine in which types the evolution of party systems should be grouped. This is why many scholars prefer to examine party system change on the basis of a combination of attributes that do not necessarily form party system “types”. Therefore, the underlying idea that characterizes this approach is that party system change is a matter of degree and must be considered as an empirical issue. In other words, each party system is unique and may differ from other party systems not in terms of type, but with regard to the degree of a specific property. According to Nwokora and Pelizzo (2018), the main implication of the “degreeism” approach is that party systems often change from one election to another, thus making it difficult to find “stable” patterns. Moreover, many scholars tend to give more importance to some dimensions than others, but the theoretical basis of this hierarchical classification is rarely justified. This is what happened with the role attributed to electoral volatility, which measures the “fluidity” of the party system and is habitually taken as the measure of party system change (Pedersen 1979). However, as a number of authors have recently noted (Sánchez 2009; Powell and Tucker 2014; Chiaramonte and Emanuele 2017), even this indicator may hide distinct dynamics of the party system and different properties in its functioning.

1.3 The evolution of party systems in Europe: empirical findings

The empirical analysis of European party systems has long stimulated a reliable body of works. Most of the evidence on the evolution of party systems stems from the electoral arena and is based on the examination of political cleavages, voting choice and patterns of volatility. While these studies highlight the significant changes in party systems over recent decades, more detailed works have revealed the substantial stability of party system features. For instance, some authors have underlined the resilience of the class cleavage and mainstream parties, which contributed to reinforcing the balance between the left and right bloc (Gallagher et al. 1998). Overall, contradictory findings are quite common in empirical works on party system change (von Schoultz 2017, 48). This problem is not only related to the moving target of this field of research, but also to theoretical and methodological issues. On the one hand, the use of concepts is somewhat inconsistent; on the other, there is great diversity in terms of approaches, research design and data.

In their attempt to assess party system change in Europe after WWII, Gallagher et al. (1998, 266) argued that Western countries experienced “peripheral change, with the core of the party system remaining intact”. This means that even if individuals have weaker ties with political parties, they still hold broader ideological identities that help freeze the structure of party systems, especially the division along the left-right cleavage. Confirming the picture of substantial stability, the edited volume by Broughton and Donovan (1998, 263–268) characterized party system change in Western Europe as a “regeneration” process in which there is increasing flexibility in coalition patterns, but transformation is still constrained by the presence of ideological blocs and previous patterns of party competition. While they found a steady decline or setback of catch-all parties (namely in Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands or the social democrats in Sweden), a process of territorial differentiation also emerged, which means the rising significance of multi-level politics and party system heterogeneity. Finally, new parties have generally remained marginal and had a very limited impact on the structure of party competition (1998, 266–267). With some notable exceptions (Austria, Italy and the Netherlands), anti-establishment parties have failed to trigger a change at the core of t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Preface
• 1 Party system change and the European crisis: an introduction
• 2 Party system change in Belgium: from stability to fragmentation?
• 3 Bulgaria: the failed party system institutionalization
• 4 Change and stability in the Danish party system
• 5 France: from Sarkozy to Macron, the advent of a new electoral order in the wake of the economic crisis
• 6 Tectonic shifts in the party landscape? Mapping Germany’s party system changes
• 7 The swift unravelling: party system change and de-institutionalization in Greece during the crisis
• 8 The Hungarian party system from soft to hard populism
• 9 The never-ending transformation of the Italian party system
• 10 The Phoenix of consensus democracy: party system change in the Netherlands
• 11 (In)Stability of the party system in Poland
• 12 The times (may) be a-changin’? The Portuguese party system in the twenty-first century
• 13 The Romanian party system: cartelization, coalition leverage and elite continuity
• 14 From stability to change? The evolution of the party system in Spain
• 15 Soul-searching and political change in the name of the Swedish welfare model
• 16 The British party system(s): fragmented, unstable and very capricious
• 17 The impact of the European crisis on party system change: some comparative reflections
• Index