Political Representation in Southern Europe and Latin America

Before and After the Great Recession and the Commodity Crisis

André Freire, Mélany Barragán, Xavier Coller, Marco Lisi, Emmanouil Tsatsanis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781032235714
• eBook ISBN: 9780429682582
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This collective volume - with contributions from experts on these regions - examines broader questions about the current crises (The Great Recession and The Commodity Crisis) and the associated changes in political representation in both regions.

It provides a general overview of political representation studies in Southern Europe and Latin America and builds bridges between the two traditions of political representation studies, affording greater understanding of developments in each region and promote future research collaboration between Southern Europe and Latin America. Finally, the book addresses questions of continuity and change in patterns of political representation after the onset of the two economic crises, specifically examining issues such as changes in citizens' democratic support and trust in political representatives and institutions, in-descriptive representation (in the sociodemographic profile of MPs) and in-substantive representation (in the link between voters and MPs in terms of ideological congruence and/or policy/issue orientations).

This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political elites, political representation, European and Latin American politics/studies, and more broadly to comparative politics.

Part I

Southern Europe

1 Southern Europe and the Eurozone Crisis

Political Representation, Party System Characteristics and the Impact of Austerity

Marco Lisi and Emmanouil Tsatsanis

Introduction

Southern European countries are considered successful cases of democratic consolidation, where political and civil liberties can not only be taken for granted, but set the standard for newer democracies. Yet this assessment is less positive when we look at the overall quality of democracy and recent trends. First, Southern European citizens express more negative opinions on the functioning of representative democracies than citizens living in other Western democracies (Ferrín and Kriesi 2016). Second, according to the democracy index elaborated by the Economic Intelligence Unit, the quality of democracy in several Southern European countries eroded during the euro crisis, and they were characterised as ‘flawed democracies’. This index shows a decline in the quality of democracy between 2006 and 2016, especially in Greece, where democratic governance has taken a step backwards due to the persistent economic and deep political crisis. Finally, there has been a significant decline in the Human Development Index in some countries (notably Greece and Spain) over the last decade.

Since the emergence of the Eurozone crisis, Southern European countries have faced a number of challenges (see Bosco and Verney 2013, 2017; Freire and Lisi 2016; Freire, Lisi and Tsatsanis 2016; Morlino and Raniolo 2017). In addition to the negative economic outputs and a general disaffection, which have widened the gap between citizens and democratic institutions, new phenomena have contributed to the perfect storm experienced by Southern European countries: these include asymmetric austerity; the violation of electoral mandates; emphasis on responsibility over responsiveness; and the crisis at the European level (Mair 2013; Matthijs 2014; Muro and Vidal 2016; Sánchez-Cuenca 2014). These events clearly call for a new assessment of the state of democratic representation in Southern Europe.

The main goal of this introduction is to evaluate the extent to which the crisis has ushered in a new phase in Southern European democracies and to identify both similarities and differences in the trajectories these political systems have experienced over the last decades. To what extent has the Great Recession affected the features and functioning of Southern European political systems? Have these polities displayed common trends over the last decades? These are our research questions. Although a relatively large number of analyses have examined political representation in Southern Europe (Gunther, Diamandouros and Puhle 1995; Diamandouros and Gunther 2001; Freire and Lisi 2016), they do not focus on the recent period or the complex events that took place during the crisis. An update is therefore required that uses a common theoretical framework and indicators. This introduction provides the basic background for a systematic comparison of several dimensions of democratic representation.

This chapter is divided into four sections. The following section analyses the institutional features of the main Southern European countries (Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain). The second section focuses on macro-patterns of economic and political change in Southern Europe, before delving a little deeper into the political consequences of the economic crisis. The third section examines party system fragmentation, party system polarisation and ideological identities. The fourth addresses voter mobilisation, analysing both electoral turnout and volatility. In the conclusions, we discuss our main findings, the lessons learned from Southern Europe, as well as highlighting some avenues for future research.

Overview of Institutional Design: A Comparative Perspective

While all South European political systems can be classified as multiparty democracies, four of them (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece) share legacies of prolonged or intermittent right-wing authoritarian rule in the 20th century. Even though these four countries have adopted largely parliamentary forms of government, the constitutional set-up of executive–legislative relations, the role of heads of state and the vertical distribution of power are much more varied from a formal-legal standpoint. In addition, if we exclude the authoritarian presidential republic of Belarus, Southern Europe is home to the only (democratic) presidential system in Europe: Cyprus. In contrast, the remaining countries follow the normal European pattern of non-executive heads of state. The head of state in the constitutional monarchy of Spain is a hereditary position, whereas in Italy and Greece the head of state is elected by the legislature.¹ In Portugal, the head of state is elected by popular vote as the young democracy initially adopted all the formal trappings of a semi-presidential form of government in the 1976 constitution. Despite the controversies surrounding Portuguese semi-presidentialism (Neto and Lobo 2009), it could be argued that even in some parliamentary republics (indirectly elected) presidents can acquire a more central role during periods of political instability, just as they have in Portugal. In Italy, this is known as the ‘presidential accordion’ thesis, according to which the expansion or contraction of the role of the president depends on the strength of the party system, as shown by the role Giorgio Napolitano played during the Monti government (Pasquino 2013).

In terms of executive–legislative relations, the three new democracies of Portugal, Spain and Greece have adopted a more majoritarian style of governance, which is characterised by the legislature’s dependence on the executive, with relatively weak checks and balances (Morlino 1998; Gallagher, Laver and Mair 2011). Given the presidential system of government, the executive powers of the Cypriot president tend to be among the strongest of all countries with presidential systems. This is even more paradoxical given that the 1960 constitution was drawn up with the goal of creating a consociational system of government that never really took off after the growing tensions between the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities during the 1960s and the de facto division of the island in the mid-1970s. The absence of a counterbalance from the Turkish-Cypriot communities has left few institutional counterweights to presidential executive power.

Although strong executives were the norm in the region even before the crisis (with the exception perhaps of Italy), there is little doubt the crisis has contributed to increasing executive dominance at the expense of parliaments, taking to extremes a trend that arguably extends beyond the confines of Southern Europe.² Since their return to democracy, Spain and (notably) Greece have come closest to the pure Westminster parliamentary model (Bruneau et al. 2001: 20), at least until the further fragmentation of party systems observed during the economic crisis. Portugal moved further along this path after 1987 with the emergence of single-party majorities, although it should be said that the possibility of cohabitation in the Portuguese semi-presidential system can somewhat mitigate majoritarian tendencies (Pasquino 1995: 274). Paradoxically, Spain has established a majoritarian style of government despite minority governments having been the rule thus far (eight out of 13).³ The stability and longevity of minority governments in Spain is due, in large measure, to the existence of a constructive vote of no confidence. At these times, the most important checks to majoritarian tendencies within the Spanish system are the regionalist parties in the Cortes, which typically provide support to either PP (Popular Party) or PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) minority governments. However, this institutionalised system is also being brought into question with the erosion of popular support for the two main governing parties. In addition, the crisis period has introduced an unprecedented level of uncertainty in the functioning of Spanish parliamentarism, compounded by the emergence of new actors and recent secessionist tendencies in Catalonia that render alliances between national and regionalist parties even more complicated.

Italy, on the other hand, had a tradition of a more consensual style of government during the post-war period compared with those of other countries in the region. Fears associated with the potential emergence of a new tyrant tended to favour representation over the decision-making capabilities of strong and stable executives (Pasquino 1995: 282). During the so-called First Republic, government tenure was very short and there were intense conflicts among coalition parties, paving the way for a weak and unstable parliamentarism (see Newell 2010). The passage to the Second Republic was also facilitated by an attempt to prevent the cabinet instability that had marked Italian democracy before the collapse of the party system in the 1990s, most notably through electoral system reform. Indeed, the design of electoral systems has been one of the main ways in which a majoritarian style of governance has been promoted in Southern Europe. Finally, Cyprus and Greece have traditionally been examples of stable and single-party government, and patterns of change have been quite easy to forecast. However, the Greek crisis has led to important changes in the type of government, with the development of technocratic solutions – a situation shared with Italy under the Monti government (2011–13) – and innovative coalitions (see the alliance between SYRIZA [Coalition of the Radical Left] and Independent Greeks).

When assessing the functioning of political parties in governments, the key role played by institutional rules in mediating political representation should not be underestimated as they make it difficult to find a uniform pattern due to the inconsistent rationale for government formation, functioning and the termination of cabinets. Even though certain models and tendencies can be identified in individual cases, they can rarely be generalised. Moreover, countries with similar coalition types and format characteristics actually differ from each other in the representation of political parties in governments, or in the stability and durability of governmental formations.

Electoral Systems

Southern European countries have a range of proportional electoral systems with some built-in advantages for larger parties that facilitate the formation of single-party governments or pre-...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The Impact of the Great Recession and the Commodity Crisis upon Political Representation in Southern Europe and Latin America
• PART I: Southern Europe
• PART II: Latin America
• Index