Party Strategies in Western Europe

Gemma Loomes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136593024
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines political party system change from a party-centric perspective and assesses how, and to what extent, established political parties in western Europe can maintain their dominant positions.

Parties are increasingly competing in a changeable environment and this book assesses the ways in which political parties have tried to adapt to these changes, by undertaking a study of the strategies employed by established parties since 1950. It features analysis of seventeen western European countries, with eight case-studies explored in greater depth, including; France, Germany, Portugal, Greece, Denmark, Ireland, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The book assesses two groups of 'strategies': institutional strategies, by which parties aim for success through control of rules, regulations and laws; and strategies oriented towards the electorate, through which parties seek success by proving themselves responsive to voters. Offering a detailed empirical assessment of the frequency with which these strategies have been employed, this book assesses the impact on established political parties, and argues that parties can shape their own fate by strategic choices.

Party Strategies in Western Europe will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, Government and party politics.

1 A party-centric approach to party
system change

Political parties are central actors within western European political systems, and the choices they make in terms of electoral, parliamentary and governing strategies can significantly influence their success or failure as political actors. It may be a truism that parties compete for ‘policy, office and/or votes’ (Müller and Strøm 1999b), but exactly how political parties compete and, more specifically, what impact the competitive choices made by political parties have on their own fate, and the party systems in which they compete, remains an understudied area of research. The significance of party strategies has been highlighted in the work of Müller and Strøm (1999b) among others, and the role that political parties can play in the process of party system change has also been highlighted, most notably by Peter Mair (1997, 2002). However, the work of Müller and Strøm does not consider the systemic impact of a party's strategic choice and the impact that these choices can have on party competition. In contrast, the work of Mair focuses on the role of political parties in the process of party system change, but does not consider in detail the strategic decisions and actions that influence party behaviour, ultimately influencing the shape of the party system. This book seeks to fill a gap in the literature by developing the work of Mair, and Müller and Strøm to combine these approaches and to address specifically how established political parties may seek to influence the process of party system change, and with what impact.

The importance of party strategies has become an increasingly pertinent research question since the 1970s, when the dawning of the ‘post-industrial’ age (Bell 1973) substantially changed the political landscape in which political parties acted and competed. Sustained peace in western Europe, unparalleled prosperity, a vast expansion in higher education and increased travel and communication between countries (Crewe 1985: 5) led to changes at the societal level that significantly altered electoral behaviour. The votes of parties’ core supporters were no longer assured, and the erosion of societal cleavages facilitated the process of party system fragmentation. Indeed, since the 1970s, there has been an increase in the fragmentation of party systems (Wolinetz 1979), electoral volatility (Pedersen 1979), partisan dealignment (Dalton et al. 1984), decreasing electoral turnout (Franklin 2004) and declining party membership (Mair and Van Biezen 2001) across western Europe. However, this is not to say that political parties have acted solely as passive victims of the process of radical change.

It is the contention of this book that political parties have adjusted and adapted to the unquestionably changed political and social landscape since the 1970s. Although the environment in which they compete has changed significantly, continuity remains a significant feature of many western European party systems, with core political parties still shaping and structuring party system dynamics as they have throughout the post-war period.¹ This book examines why there appears to be a dichotomy between levels of social and electoral change on the one hand, and levels of party system change on the other, and will explore a party-centred response to this problem. The relationship between social change, electoral change and party system change is not deterministic; instead, the strategies of political parties can act as intervening factors in these processes. Political parties can act strategically to attempt to consolidate or improve their systemic position, and the purpose of this book is to assess the ways in which political parties can restrict or facilitate the process of party system change, and to assess the outcomes of these strategic decisions.

1.1 The impact of social change on modern-day party systems

The 1970s marked the start of a period of electoral turmoil for many established political parties in western Europe. New parties on both the left and the right of the political spectrum challenged previously dominant parties and stable party systems were thrown into disarray. Perhaps the best and most often cited example of the radical electoral changes experienced in the 1970s is the Danish ‘earthquake’ election of 1973, where electoral volatility amounted to 29 per cent² and the number of parties represented in parliament doubled overnight. The changing western European electoral landscape appeared to suggest that the era of stability and absence of change was ending.

From a socio-structuralist perspective, social cleavages structured stable party systems. Most electors did not vote as autonomous individuals, but instead voted as members of organised communities based on their class or religion, or occasionally based on language, race, national origin or region (Crewe 1985: 2). Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan's (1967) work best exemplifies this approach, arguing that that ‘the party systems of the 1960s reflect, with few but significant exceptions, the cleavage structures of the 1920s ... the party alternatives and in remarkably many cases, the party organisations, are older than the majority of the national electorates’ (1967: 50). The electoral volatility of the 1970s challenged this view.

The changed electoral landscape of the 1970s in many western democracies appeared to suggest that the influence of social cleavages on electoral behaviour was waning. The ‘social change’ literature (see Crewe and Denver 1985, Franklin et al. 1992) had begun to challenge the ‘freezing hypothesis’ of Lipset and Rokkan (1967). Mark Franklin et al. (1992: 3) argue that ‘since the late 1960s ... the world of electoral politics has changed dramatically and in all countries voters have shown increasing unpredictability in their choice between parties, often to the extent of voting for parties that are new to the political scene’.

The changing electoral and social backdrop suggests that traditional cleavages are waning. Russell Dalton et al. (1984: 19) argue that advanced industrialisation has undermined the stable bases of western European party systems. Political party alignments are fragmenting, socio-psychological bonds between voters and parties are weakening and party systems have experienced increasing levels of electoral volatility (1984: 19). Dalton and Martin Wattenberg (2000a: 264) echo these sentiments and argue that dealignment within the electorate and falling turnout indicate a broad-based weakening of party systems throughout western Europe.

The social changes of the 1970s not only created a dealigned electorate where social cleavages no longer securely structured voting behaviour, but realignment was also taking place (Inglehart 1977). Social change produced a set of ‘postmaterialist’ values in the younger generation, leading to Ivor Crewe's conclusion that ‘a new political cleavage, based on cultural rather than economic or religion divisions, on conflicts of values not interests or communities, was slowly spreading across the Western democracies’ (1985: 5).

The socio-structuralist literature emphasises the importance of social change for patterns of party competition, with a common assumption that social cleavages structure voting behaviour and party systems. Where cleavages are stable, voting behaviour is predictable and party systems are stable. Where these cleavages break down, electoral volatility and party system flux occurs. The picture painted of change, volatility and instability is an attractive one and implies that high levels of renewal and dynamism are present in western European party systems, but is this really an accurate picture?

Three of the authors that have produced the most significant challenges to the assumed causality of the relationship between social change, electoral change and party system change are Gordon Smith, Peter Mair and Wolfgang Müller (1989a) argues against the assumption that social change leads to party system change. Instead, he suggests that the weakening of cleavages does not necessarily mean the deconstruction of traditional patterns of competition in party systems. Smith argues that cleavages do not have inherently systemic qualities; cleavage structure relates to the social make-up of party support and not to the party system per se. If a party system is viewed as the sum of interactions between parties, then cleavages become just one set of factors shaping electoral alignments, with cleavage change being registered through other dimensions such as the number and size of parties, polarisation and volatility (Smith 1989a: 351).

In a similar vein, Mair challenges the assumption that ‘one can only speak of ... party system change if and when electoral change is seen to occur’ (1989a: 271), proposing an interpretation of party system change ‘which may owe its origin to factors other than simply flux in voter preferences’ (1997: 215). For Mair, electoral change produces changes in the environment in which parties operate, but the terms ‘electoral change’ and ‘party system change’ should not necessarily be viewed synonymously (2002: 101). Mair uses the Danish example cited previously to support his argument. He argues that although Denmark witnessed a ‘massive shift’ in 1973, ‘it is certainly possible to question whether this change had any substantial impact on the workings of the Danish party system’ (2002: 101–2).

Another interesting perspective on the relationship between electoral change and party system change is provided by Müller (1993, 2002), who argues that the institutions of the state can act as a vital intervening factor in the relationship between electoral and party system change. According to Müller, ‘the institutions and regulations of the state or their alteration are favourable to ... party system change’ and the state can prevent or ‘limit’ natural party system change (1993: 420). The study of electoral systems is one area of the institutional architecture that has received the most comprehensive scholarly attention, as electoral systems can ‘ “structure” party systems by keeping only those parties in the business that can meet the system's viability test and removing those that cannot’ (Müller 2002: 265). The institutional arrangements in a particular country can play a vital role in the process of party system change, with institutions able to act as a barrier potentially suppressing party system change.

These contributions challenge what some regard as overly deterministic assumptions about the relationship between social change, electoral change and party system change, with the contributions of Mair, Smith and Müller constituting a ‘party-centric’ approach to party system change. This approach challenges the socially deterministic approach to party system change of the social change literature. The socially deterministic and party-centric approaches to party system change both acknowledge the changed environment in which political parties must operate since the 1970s and that the environment can affect the fate of parties and the party system. However, whilst the social change literature is deterministic, the party-centric approach offers an alternative perspective.

The party-centric approach to party system change suggests that in the process of party system change, political parties and institutions are important intervening factors. Mair, Smith and Müller view political parties as potentially independent actors, able to influence their own fate and shape the party system and institutional environment in which they operate. Smith argues that within the process of party system change, ‘the parties occupy the key position’ (1989a: 355) and must be regarded as independent forces. Parties are strategic actors able to initiate change, as well as alter its direction to their own advantage. Moreover, parties are adaptive actors, able to cope with changing circumstances (Smith 1989a: 355–6). From this perspective, Smith highlights the crucial role of political parties by arguing that ‘party interaction and party responses to electoral movements are at least of equal importance to the structural changes in society for an understanding of how and why systems change’ (1989a: 356).

Mair echoes the sentiments of Smith and argues that parties are adaptive organisations that can respond to changed circumstances. He maintains that ‘[p] arties ... are ... independent actors, capable, at least in part, of moulding the environments in which they compete. Thus while the social bases of party support change ... parties adapt and modify their appeals and their methods of mobilising support’ (1993a: 130–1). Indeed, Mair's typology of party system change (2002) reflects the position that parties can influence their own fate to the extent that party system change may originate from the actions of parties themselves and not solely from the electorate, and provides the foundation of the definition of party system change adopted in this study.

Müller argues that political parties are important in influencing party system change, in particular, focusing on their interplay with the institutional architecture. He argues ‘institutions rule out some types of behaviour and make others more or less likely by influencing the costs and benefits that a party can expect when following a certain course of action’ (2002: 252). Institutions act as a strong restraint or facilitating influence on party behaviour. Yet ‘institutions are no more than rules and rules themselves the product of social decisions’ (Riker 1980: 444–5). Accordingly, although institutions limit or permit certain party behaviours, governing (or established) political parties ultimately determine the institutional system in which they operate. Müller convincingly argues that political parties are a strong influence on the institutional framework, arguing that institutional engineering, that is, the manipulation of institutions for the benefit of certain political parties, is a ‘relevant, but much understudied strategy of political parties’ (2002: 292).

This approach challenges the socially deterministic approach to party system change of the social change literature, offering an alternative perspective, acknowledging the presence of intervening factors in this relationship. Unlike the socially deterministic literature, which sees party system change as emerging above all from shifts at the level of society and the electorate, the contributions to the literature by Smith, Mair and Müller embody a party-centric approach. Their work provides a more comprehensive understanding of party system change by acknowledging the importance of factors other than the electorate, most notably political parties and institutions, in the process of party system change.

Both the literatures reflect a much broader theoretical debate concerning the role of political parties in democratic systems. Cleavage-focused, or socio-structuralist, interpretations of party system change assume that changes at the electoral level ultimately lead to party system change. Political parties are subject to the whims of the electorate and are largely dependent on voters for their survival; parties have only a minimal independent role to play and therefore play a dependent role in the process of party system change. In contrast, the party-centric literature argues that political parties can act as independent actors.

1.2 Parties as dependent and independent actors

Parties can thus be viewed as either dependent or independent actors in the process of party system change. According to the first perspective, political parties should act as agents of the electorate and are dependent actors in the process of party system change. Parties should play a predominantly passive role, mainly as structures through which electoral and social change are transmitted to the party system. The electorate determines the fate of political parties and parties should not actively attempt to moderate the impact of electoral change.

This interpretation of the role of political parties shares many similarities with one of the normative definitions of a political party contained in the work of Richard Katz (2002). Katz argues that one of three definitions is that of a political arm of one of the classes, ethnic groups or economic interests that make up society. Parties are viewed as agents of a specific segment of society and although parties are autonomous with respect to the state, they are firmly rooted in society (2002: 89–90). The ‘parties as dependent actors’ model has much in common with cleavage-based interpretations of party system change, reflecting the dependence of political parties on social and electoral changes.

The second perspective on the role of political parties posits that they are able to control their own fate. By engaging in certain behaviours, political parties can attempt to control party system dynamics and moderate the impact of electoral change upon the party system. According to this view, parties have agency and although the electorate is an important influence shaping the behaviour of political parties, ultimately, parties are independent actors, able to take certain steps in order to preserve or improve their positions in party systems. This interpretation of the role of political parties has much in common with the final two definitions of a political party noted by Katz (2002). The first of these two definitions suggests that political parties are teams of politicians engaged in competition for political power through elections, with parties understood to be autonomous from society (Katz 2002: 89). According to Katz, ‘democracy results from popular choice among competing parties’ and ‘[p]opular control results from the parties anticipating the reactions of the electorate at the ballot box a...