Beyond the catch all system: determinants of success of post 2008 political parties

Master

Reference

Beyond the catch all system: determinants of success of post 2008 political parties

CHASKOS, Christoforos

Abstract

Beyond the catch all system: determinants of success of post 2008 political parties

CHASKOS, Christoforos. Beyond the catch all system: determinants of success of post 2008 political parties. Master : Univ. Genève, 2021

Available at:

http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:150698

Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version.

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Christoforos Chaskos | UNIVERSITA OF GENEVA

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C hristoforos C HASKOS

MASTER THESIS

under the supervision

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SUMMARY

1. Introduction 3

2. Motivation of the Study: The Importance of Political Parties 3

3. Literature Review 3.1 The Evolution of the Party System in Western Europe 5

3.2 2008 A Turning Point? 8

3.3 Determinants of Party Success: Ideology and Structure 9

4. Research Question and Hypotheses 10

5. Data and Methods 13

6. Results 6.1 The Ideological Nature of the New Political Parties 17

6.2 Success Rate of New Political Parties 25

6.2.1 The Level of Entryism of New Political Parties in the EU-14 26

6.2.2 The Level of Effective Power of New Political Parties in the EU-14 35

6.3 A Formula for Success? 43

6.3.1 Reflections on the Criteria for Success 58

7 Conclusion 61

8 Bibliography 62

9 Appendix 67

3 1. Introduction

The purpose of the study is to examine the European Party System and to attempt at pinpointing a tendency, or a general indicator of a possible entryism of new political subjects that are electorally viable and might threaten the political consensus built by the mainstream parties in the post-war period in western European democracies. Additionally, the paper aims at identifying a pattern of features which might bring about said entryism of these new political formations and to indicate how they differ in terms of leadership, organization and ideology from their political predecessors and competitors.

In the first sections I explore the motivation of the study by underlining the importance of political parties and the party system in general for the proper livelihood of a viable democracy, followed by the literature which tackles the issue of party evolution and the reasons why the World Financial Crisis of 2008 is seen as a turning point in electoral politics, reflecting on the existing literature.

Further I will lay out the research design in which I will examine my hypothetical expectations and the tools I will utilize to this end. The following section will be the testing of the hypothesis alongside the various results, concluded by reflecting thoughts and an enumeration of the limitations of the paper, which due to its broad scope and general disinterest in local issues and the plurality of contextual factors that need to be examined further, leaves abundant room for further research aimed at arriving to more conclusive and deterministic results.

2. Motivation of the study: The importance of political parties

Political parties are the entities which rationalize political action and thus enable change and progress in every country, as we have yet to witness a successful society without highly organized political subjects that are operationalized to direct government and public affairs.

The importance of political parties has been laid out in the classical literature which addresses their function and irreplaceable role in a democratic society. E.E Schattschneider one of the most important contributors in the literature of political parties stated that “modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of the parties”, this due to the majoritarian nature of political parties and the necessity imposed unto them to appeal to a large number of groups in the society, unlike segmental civil interest groups, which represent minoritarian views of the polity (1942). In the conception of the political scientists that first studied and evaluated the role of political parties in societies, political subjects are a necessity in order to have organized and coherent politics, in the framework of an accountable democracy (Herzberg & Pomper,1966). In contemporary political science, political parties are described as a vital and indispensable link between civil society (comprised by a plurality of opinions and interests) and the state (viewed as the constant overarching authority that regulates public affairs and directs the decision-making processes in a given society) (Heywood, 1997).

4 Even social movements theorists – which are generally more critical of partisanship and the extended role that in their view political parties have in developed societies - recognize the necessity of formal political institutions that have a vested interest in winning elections and maintaining power (Stryker, 1997) as the only way to conduct public affairs in a responsible and effective manner.

As such, analysing how political parties’ function and operate is crucial in order to understand the political system that governs public affairs in our societies. Oftentimes, the organization pattern of a party is an indicator of how a state is run. In countries that are run by cartel parties – which by definition are isolated and clientelist political structures – the government as a whole is more corrupt and shares the nepotistic features of the dominant political parties (Katz & Mair, 1995). On the other hand, the fact that the American political system is not centralized, less radical and regards bipartisan cooperation as positive phenomenon in the political arena has much to do with the fact that similar organization features are shared by the political parties. In concrete terms, the two major American parties are not centralized - they differ significantly in their state chapters and are populated by a number of ideological factions - they tend to host within them a compromise created with a wide variety of civil interest groups and as a result they are more moderate, or at least – as proven empirically up until the recent years – they are less prone to enact radical change or to undo the reforms of the previous government, whilst providing for a very uncontested and smooth rotation/transition of power (Schattschneider, 1942). Thus, we might conclude that the studying of the features of the predominant, or emerging political parties in a society is important, because they point to the direction that the state administration is going to have eventually, due to the fact that one of the main functions that a political party has, is to staff the public administration in elected and appointed capacities (Scarrow, 1967).

Although public opinion in general regards political parties as being corrupt, inept, and/or disruptive of progress and the cause of many ills in a society, it is apparent that no viable alternative exists to political parties in governing a polyarchic society. This can be also witnessed by the fact that the first measure any totalitarian regime implements once it comes to power is to abolish political parties (Seller, 2000).

As such, in realising the importance that political parties have for the political life of countries, the study aims to enquire what do new political formations represent ideologically (where do they sit in the political spectrum) and what innovation do they offer in terms of inner party organization, that as mentioned above is a crucial element into understanding how they operate and a good indication as to how they will govern.

5 3. Literature Review

3.1 The Evolution of the Party System in Western Europe

Drawing from the existing literature we know that historically political parties have adapted to the socio-economic realities of their time and thus have evolved from “mass ideological parties”

– which were political subjects deeply enrooted in the ideologies of the XX century (Duverger, 1964) - to “catch-all” parties – which appeal to a broad category of electorates (Kirchheimer, 1996) - throughout the last decades of the XX century.

The mass ideological parties are dubbed as such, due to their strong ideological standing and a tendency to represent specific socio-economical “strata” and their well-defined interests.

Additionally, these parties had other features that characterized them beyond their strategical and ideological stance. In terms of their organizational features, they can be described as highly hierarchical and oftentimes maintained by the “patronage” of benefactors or unions (the latter case mostly referring to socialist mass ideological parties). This in turn had an impact in how countries that were run by said parties conducted their public affairs. Patronage was likely to develop when a party leader is able to exercise control of both the party organization and the appointments for public office; in this case, even ideologically motivated partisans are expected to turn into self-interested patrons (Pappas, 2009). This political era was characterized by an all-encompassing control of the political party in power of the state apparatus and it encouraged a “winner takes all” mentality that further divided societies and threatened civil war in some countries which had stark class inequalities. These political formations were rarely seeking cooperation with parties that did not share their group interests, and compromise was interpreted as “selling-out” or betraying the strata which the party represented. In Hegelian terms we could describe this phase in the political party evolution literature as the “thesis”.

In the aftermath of the “age of ideologies” and especially after WWII, the new socio-economic conditions in the political West, brought about the necessity of parties to evolve, in order to garner more electoral support that would in turn enable them to govern. With the passing of time, social classes were not as easily distinguishable and the rising levels of educations facilitated social mobility, thus breaking the bonds of localities and classes, which were the backbone of the modern political parties up to that point. In order to politically survive in the new socio-economic terrain political parties had to change their modus operandi and their organizational features.

Consequentially there was the creation of what has been dubbed the “catch-all” party, which is an umbrella term describing, more or less, all of the mainstream political formations of the second half of the XX century. The “catch-all” model has been predominant - arguably up to this point in time - and it has dictated the conditions with which western party systems operate – or used to before being challenged by the new socio-economic challenges of our era – namely, in a more centrist manner, where the political stances of the major political parties have converged overtime and where governing parties have downsized the policy expectations of the

6 electorate and have externalized policy commitments by giving away the operation and distribution of certain public goods and services (Hopkin and Blyth, 2018). Political parties changed both in terms of their stated ideological positions, with many left-wing parties renouncing their stated goals for a revolution, whilst right-wing political subjects implemented social policies favouring labour, as compared to a more fanatic capital stance they had in the beginning of the century (Lipset, 1981). Coalition governments became the norm and more proportionally representative electoral systems were put in place in developed democracies.

Rhetorically the period was characterized by a fading away of animosity, whilst moderation and compromise were valued ever more as the political norm. The desired state of political affairs was one of civilized discourse within the “Overton Window” and any attempt of political entrepreneurs, or challenger to the status quo, was quickly rejected. Thus, the “catch-all”

consensus reigned in the political arena and had very real consequences in how states were governed, and political parties were led.

The era of consensus and “calm” politics led to a population that was becoming ever more depoliticized and less interested in public affairs (Hooghe & Kölln, 2018). This is primarily reflected in the dramatic fall of party membership levels. In the European Union as of 2010 only 4.65% of electors were part of a political party, a drastic fall of millions in absolute numbers from the levels of the 1980s. Austria and Norway are the two countries which have experienced a drastic fall in partisanship levels (with over 10%) in the last 40 years, whilst the two well-known countries for political discourse and activism, namely France and Great Britain have witness the fall of partisanship levels in more than a million party members each. The situation is similar in the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, and Finland where mainstrea m parties have seen their membership collapse and being reduced in half. The only countries which have not exhibited extreme signs of loss of partisanship are the post-dictatorial societies of Portugal, Spain, and Greece (Van Reybrouck, 2016). I will address the latter cases in the following segments where one might identify this partisanship with the “late” evolution of the democratic political process and the series of political and economic crises that have hit these countries.

Furthermore, electors began abstaining the electoral process in unprecedented numbers since the universal right of suffrage was implemented in developed democracies. In the 1960s more than 85% of European electors partook in elections. This number had fallen to 79% by the ‘90s, and in the first year of the XXI century the toll of participation (on average) has been slightly higher than 70%. In absolute terms, these percentages translated into many millions of European citizens who choose not to go to the ballot and cast their vote (Van Reybrouch, 2016).

One should also account for the fact that even this reduced percentage of participation is forcefully maintained to its current levels due to some countries having laws which sanction the duty to vote, thus artificially driving up levels of participation, which do not reflect the levels of interest in the political process.

In sum, we might say that these effects were caused in a binary manner. Firstly, the political parties took the cues from the sociological realities of post-WWII and evolved to fit the system,

7 and the cycle was latter re-enforced by the public who due to this new nature of political affairs were less interested in political and electoral involvement. In terms of governing, as mentioned above, political parties converged around the ideological centre, thus making it even more difficult for the average voter to distinguish the real difference between the political offers and the effects that the rotation of power had to her day-to-day live. As such, we can see an “anti- thesis” of political apathy that is a diametric opposite to the very ideological and politically vivid environment of the beginning of the century.

This state of affairs led many scholars, most notably Francis Fukuyama (1992) to proclaim the

“end of history”, which more than a proclamation of victory in the international relations sphere of the west over the east, alluded to an end of the very need for ideology and political debate over the core ideological cleavages that had haunted the XX century. The winning formula of globalization, international markets and liberal democracy was triumphantly proclaimed to be an indisputable trinity of the ever-enduring political state of affairs since this model had won the world over both in terms of real political and military strength but had also outperformed its rivals in every aspect.

The point of these arguments, is not as much to dwell into the historical features of political parties as to illustrate how practically the internal organization and features of political parties that compete for power, inevitably are reflected in the way that a country is governed and consequentially impacts the lives of all citizens. Although this might seem as self-evident, it is rarely highlighted and the link between party organization and governmental & electoral behaviour has seldomly been exclusively examined.

Retrospectively reflecting upon these facts and viewing how in the last decade or so the “catch- all” party system seems to be challenged and be more open to political entrepreneurship and to ideological challenges than ever before, led to a general question of whether we should reconsider the character of mainstream political parties and create new categorizations which are more adapt to the new socio-economic and ideological conditions of the time. This question is of particular interest, since there is a certain vacuum in the existing literature – or at least a lack of consensus – as to how the political parties have evolved to adapt to the new era of globalization and digitalization, especially after the 2008 worldwide Financial Crisis, that is regarded by many as a turning point, or a moment of “disillusionment” with the established political order (Hopkin & Blyth, 2018). The broad categorization outlined by Daniel Louis- Seller of the origins of the parties (2000), whether they are urban, rural, religious, agrarian, labourite or not, are outdated and new models must be created to categorize the latest political subjects that emerge as a response of the current political circumstances. Even though - as has been underlined - political parties did detach from their class and ideological origins, in broad terms they still are self-categorized and list themselves in the traditional groups or labels, and there is little evidence or scrutiny from the media and the public, in examining whether political parties which categorize themselves in terms of these cleavages actually do possess the characteristics their labels attribute them (Wieringa & Meijers, 2020).

8 As of late, we are witnessing – especially in countries that have proportional electoral systems – the emergence of new political subjects which cannot be deemed neither “catch-all” neither can they easily fall into one of the classic categories that were conceptualized in the modern industrialized era. One can allude that the new post-modern, and technological revolution era demands new categories and novel conceptual categorizations of political parties. As in most spheres of public life, in the party system the need for evolution/innovation in order to adapt to new realities and the demise of those forces which represent and actively promote stagnation is inevitable. In a post-materialistic period where the technological revolution dictates reality more than the previous industrial revolution that shaped the current party system, there is a natural tendency or predisposition within the public that new political parties are needed to express new grievances and to position themselves on the latest societal cleavages. As a consequence, many political “entrepreneurs” undertake the initiative to create new political parties that will presumably fill the ideological space abandoned by the mainstream and bring about the creation of a new party system (Hobolt & De Vries, 2020).

3.2 2008 A Turning Point?

The reason that the year 2008 is viewed as a turning point is the fact that the financial crush and the subsequent crises of political and financial institutions led to a rise of discontent which fuelled new movements and gave rise to new political subjects, some of which were more successful than others (Hernandez, Kriesi 2016). The eurozone crisis led to an inevitable change in the party-political landscape across Europe (Hobolt, Tilley, 2016) as many people felt betrayed by the establishment after unemployment and poverty levels sky-rocketed across the continent, with a specifically greater impact on the southern countries of Europe: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and to a significant extent, Ireland. Even though these countries were disproportionally more affected than the others in Europe the economic fallout was felt universally and followed by a decade of austerity that increased the feeling of alienation and dissatisfaction of certain strata of the society (Hopkin & Blyth, 2016). What fed the anti- establishment feelings that were naturally created after the financial crisis, is the rhetoric employed by the mainstream parties of the centre-left and the centre-right which at the time stated that “there is no alternative” to the necessity of austerity and structural reforms. This which lead segments of the public to position themselves not only against the reforms that were consensually passed, but to further the logic of opposition to a hostility towards European Integration and globalism that were identified (rightly or wrongly is beyond the scope of this paper) as the causes of the downfall (Hobolt, Tilley 2016). As such the “old” parties were seen as one unique political pole, due to their consensus on the best way to resolve the crisis and radical opposition to this consensus moved into the spotlight to capture and capitalize on the growing resentment of the public.

9 3.3 Determinants of party success: Ideology and structure/organization

The two crucial variables which I intend to examine in determining the success of new political parties are their political ideologies and party organization.

However, there is much to be learned from examining these new political subjects, in order to tackle some default, or a priori prejudices one might have created by merely looking superficially at the latest party politics developments. One benefit of such an examination would be challenging the common misconception that there are new populist or radical parties alone that are forming and that are garnering success. Firstly, many of the parties that have managed to capitalize the economic and political crises of post 2008 to gain electoral support, are not new in terms of when they were founded, as a number of them such as Lega in Italy, the National Front in France, the Freedom Party in Austria etc. have been operating for decades and as such they are not created explicitly as a reaction to the socio-economic and political conditions of this century. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that not all new political parties that emerge are radical or populist, but a number of these new political formations are moderate, or centrist political powers aimed at counter-balancing the more radical ones. And finally, what is to be underlined is the great disparity of some of these political parties in terms of success and failure, which is measured of course by the electoral representation meter (whether they managed to be elected in the legislative branch) and their government participation (whether they are part of the coalition government or constitute the main opposition force of the respective country).

Thus, it is important to underline the new political trends, to define their “modus operandi” and to look ahead at what might be the “winning formula” for the years to come in terms of electoral success.

The internal organization of the party is a very important factor in assessing the nature of a given political party. Whether the party is leadership dominated, or more dependent on its membership and its ideological foundation indicate how flexible the political party can be in terms of its manifesto (Schumacher & Giger, 2018) and as a consequence how prone it is to cooperate with other political parties and to make compromises with them. Furthermore, the bureaucratization of political parties, which is usually accompanied with an increase in apathy amongst the members of the organization (Olson, 1965) is a strong determinant of both the level of control that a leader has upon the party (Bueno de Mesquita, 2002), as well as how prone members of the public are to joining said party. As such, it is expected that although it could be easier to control a party with less members, it is risky for a new political entrepreneur to design a political structure in a manner that does not attract or inspire potential members and activists.

Reflecting upon these considerations it is evident that the structure of the party is very much related to and intertwined with the role that the leader has in terms of dominating the party, or of being rotated out of power periodically.

10 The existing literature examining the behaviours of the “catch-all” party type which has been widely accepted as the archetype of the modern party thus far, suggests that political parties have become more moderate in terms of their political goals and ideological rhetoric, they are less dependent on the financial and technical support of their membership base – since the parties receive funding from the state budget and have professionalized most of their functions, by hiring full-time employees – and they are composed of different elite factions which compete with each-other to get control of the leadership. These facts lead us to the theoretical bases for the expectation which will build the hypotheses.

4. Research Question and Hypotheses

Reflecting upon these considerations and seeing how we are going through a phase of political entrepreneurship and a general shift in the party system, the research question is: “Is there a new type of party emerging, and if so, what drive its success?”

Judging from the above-mentioned characteristics of the mainstream parties, it is intuitive to expect that the new political formations that will arise will share few of these characteristics and will mostly like to present themselves as contrary to the establishment forces.

The first hypothesis is built on the simple logical intuition, that new political subjects will attempt at capitalizing discontent and maximizing their appeal, by being distinct and at the very least rhetorically against the arrangements of the status quo. A new party that blends to a large extent with its environment will hypothetically have a far more difficult challenge of breaking through into the news cycle, or garnering support whose demand is already supplied by other existing, more potent, more experienced and more trustworthy (due to their time in office) political parties. Nonetheless, I expect to find that oftentimes this trend of flocking the ideological flanks by ambitious party “entrepreneurs”, will cause a counter-reaction with the creation of more moderate new political parties, who might undertake political action, explicitly to counter the innovators, whilst being “untainted” by the political consumption and the general costs of governing. So, in sum although the expectation is that the majority of new parties will have an anti-establishment outlook, it is to be expected that a large number of new “moderate”

parties will also appear, for reasons above-mentioned.

H1: Most new political parties are self-proclaimed to be anti-establishment political subjects.

Secondly, to enter to the substance of the general research question that asks if we have arrived at the end of the catch-all model, we need to assess the toll of success of these new political subjects, in terms of garnering electoral support. To gather this information, I will utilize the database of “Europe Elects” the largest poll aggregation and election result analyses centre in the continent.

Whether a political party is successful or not, one must account for the different variations of what can be considered successful. Naturally, the first and one of the most crucial milestones

11 of electoral success for new political subjects is to be able to entre in the parliament and thus achieve representation. As such, one must account managing to enter into the parliament as a significant sign of success. However, in view of the political landscape as a whole, it would be far-fetched to claim that the party system has been changed or even challenged by the mere presence of these new political subjects in the legislative. As such, we ought to measure participation in parliament as the first degree of partial success.

To account for actual changes in the political landscape that indicate the success and electoral demand for new parties we ought to measure it in terms of whether a political party has managed to become part of the governing coalition at any time from its creation until the moment of the study (irresectable of the duration that the party had in the government), or alternatively whether this political party has managed to become the biggest opposition party in the country, determined by the number of seats said party has on the Parliament (and not in the percentage of votes it has acquired). Although this conception of success might seem rather arbitrary and lacking nuance – given that some new parties might have experienced meteoric rise in their support, without necessarily “qualifying” to be part of the government, neither to be the main opposition in the country – I believe that that the determinant is fitting to the purpose and the general question of the study. The study does not aim at analysing the growth rate of new political parties, but rather aims at determining whether there has been a significant shift in the system as a whole. As such, even if there were a number of new political parties which have gained relative prominence, in lack of concrete results of either leading the opposition or being part of the government would indicate that the party system is still resonant and largely unchanged. In wit, we could conclude that the “catch-all” party system still reigns in the political European West.

My expectation is that contrary to the tendency the public opinion has to overestimate the potency and the power-share of the new political parties, in general the established, catch-all party-system remains strong and prevalent in most countries. As such the second hypothesis is formulated:

H2: New political parties have a low success rate in:

a) Managing to get into parliament;

b) Managing to become the main opposition party or enter in a coalition government;

To assess the success rate of these new political subjects I will merely enlist the list of parties created in the EU-14 countries from 2008 onwards and create an arithmetical report of

“successful vs. unsuccessful” political parties, in which I expect the large majority of the sample to indicate that most political “entrepreneurs” do not penetrate into the political system. This expectation does not run contrary to the general spirit of the study, which indeed pre-supposes a certain demand for new political offer in the electoral marketplace, but however is conservative and nuanced in assessing that although the principal statement might as well be

12 true, not all new political formations have the adequate tools, or structure to breakthrough.

Additionally, the established political parties are also resilient for a number of reasons. Namely, they have the political expertise that enhances their electoral performance and their communication strategy throughout all times, they enjoy a loyal support base that has become

“fanatically” imbedded into the fabric of the party (new political formations do not enjoy such advantage, since they have not been around long enough to make a segment of the population

“identify” with them) and in the end of the day, these established parties can always be deemed more “trustworthy” and a less risky electoral investment, compared to the new, adventurous political subjects.

Out of the new political formations that have succeeded (information that will be drawn from the first hypothesis), I wish to distinguish the existence or not of an organisational pattern that might be used to explain their electoral success and see whether there is an organisation

“formula” that dictates this success. In order to be theoretically coherent, we must assume that these parties created in reaction to the new conditions and wanting to replace an established party consensus, will do so by differentiating themselves in organisation from the mainstream parties. The most curious case would be that of the “5 Star Movement” in Italy which began its operations by implementing membership-based decision-making online, whereas every member had the right to vote on the party agenda, its local officials, and its stances on the policy issues. Regardless of the behaviour of the party after getting power, which is not the scope of this research, this formula somehow produced a remarkable electoral success, and made the 5SM the first protest movement to become the biggest government party in Europe. Similarly, some other parties have adopted similar tendencies, but have failed to capitalize electorally.

The study from Hooghe and Kölln (2018) can be illuminating in this regard, since it concludes that even though official party memberships have declined across the board (for parties of all ideological convictions and in every developed country), an informal supporter base can be relied upon to support the party electorally. As a consequence, it would be only natural to state that if technology in some form of “e-participation” would facilitate larger numbers of people to support their preferred political candidates without having to undergo the cost of physically and financially investing for their party’s success, parties could broaden their appeal more effectively. We can already get a glimpse of this with the success that most populist leaders have in social media, often outcompeting their mainstream competitors in that domain. With the number of people getting their information from the electronic media ever-growing, this seems as a very probable scenario. As such, the following hypothesis is formulated to target the substance of the research:

H3: The new parties that do succeed in the electoral arena, do not share similar characteristics with the catch-all parties due to them:

a) Being more open to new members.

b) Being less leadership dominated.

13 5. Data & Methods

The states that will be taken into consideration in this study are members of the EU-14 (including the United Kingdom). This choice has been made due to the fact that membership in the EU is itself a sort of guarantee that the country has democratic standards and conducts free and fair elections, a precondition without which the exercise of this study would be in vain.

Since, inside the EU there are different electoral codes, we might be able to identify which type of party is facilitated to have electoral success in which electoral system and vice-versa, which electoral systems favour the established parties and leave little room for political innovation.

The electoral code is a very important determinant in terms of barriers or facilitators of entry, however for the purposes of this study indicating a general trend will suffice to point out to an existing pattern, or lack thereof. In the study I will include in the election measurement only the national elections that have taken place from 2008 onwards, given that for local and European elections there are a number of control variables and specific context which might disorient the results of the study. In concrete terms, in local election, local issues and the popularity of some particular figures in various communities with a range of different characteristics might influence the vote, so it is difficult to account for these specifics (Dinas, Foos, 2017). In addition, European elections cannot serve as a reliable measurement tool given that it is often been recorded that the participation level is generally lower and also a larger segment of the public casts a protest vote, that does not reflect their true preferences as results in the following national elections indicate (Hix, Marsh, 2006).

As mentioned above we will consider as newly established those subjects formed in and after the year 2008 – which has been viewed as an evolutionary landmark in the political party system – given that we have defined the subject of the topic as targeting the politics of the XXI century and looking ahead towards new trends in party politics.

Regarding the first hypothesis all of the data will be collected utilizing the database of “Party Facts” the online encyclopaedia of political parties and then proceed to manually place them in the political scale left-right on the economic scale, and authoritarian-libertarian in the socio- cultural sphere and defining if they can be considered anti-establishment or not. In concrete terms for a party to be considered as radical or anti-establishment, one should assess whether it has a 1) “people vs. the corrupt elites” rhetoric, 2) if it is globalist or nationalist and 3) moderate or not in economic issues, since as explained, mainstream parties tend to converge on most central economic policy stances, and it is only the radical parties that want to disrupt the current status-quo by espousing either staunchly left-wing or right-wing economic ideals. This should be a straight-forward task since most parties are self-proclaimed as radical or not and they are recognised by the official reporting channels as being (or not) anti-establishment. Furthermore, to measure their policy positioning I will utilize the “Comparative Manifesto Project” which will show the basic stances of the parties on key electoral issues.

In regard to the second hypothesis, to determine whether new political parties have generally been successful, one ought to scale the measurement of success. First and foremost, party

14 representation in the national parliament is a pre-requisite to any subsequent success and is often the first and most crucial step into eventual political survival. Most of the parties that do not manage to enter the parliament have an exponentially higher possibility to simply parish before the subsequent electoral cycles (Wieringa, Meijers, 2020). As such, parties that do manage to enter into the parliament will be deemed “partially successful” given that they have achieved their first meaningful milestone, without which no further achievements can be arrived at. However, as outlined in the literature review section, merely having new political subjects entering the parliament does not necessarily indicate a shift in the political party system.

Throughout the whole period which the literature has established that there has been a dominance of “catch-all” parties, there have frequently been threats posed to the establishment by peripherical and “radical” political forces (Hobolt, de Vries, 2020). Occasionally such as in the 1960 with communist and radical left parties, as well as in the 1980 with Green Parties and sporadically far-right formations, ideologically more extreme parties have managed to gain representation and to win certain seats in national and local legislatures. Nonetheless, contrary to what some at the time feared, these new political parties did not persist and where simply lost into oblivion after very short and far in between appearances in the public sphere.

As such, in order to determine a “complete success” of political parties we must examine whether they have managed to either govern (as the main party of government, or in a coalition) or whether they have managed to become the main opposition in their respective countries.

Such a breakthrough would indeed indicate a shift and a potential evolution into the party system, given that throughout the last few decades prior to the World Financial Crises the same centre-right, centre-left political formations rotated in and out of power in most of the countries that are sampled in this study. It is throughout this “filter” of complete success that new political subjects will be assessed as the potential model of future political success. The number of political parties that will be deemed completely successful according to these criteria, will be the most telling number that will indicate whether indeed there is an electoral demand and increasing support for new political parties that break away from the established model. In case of very few such completely successful parties, we must state that the system remains resilient, however it is challenged in an unprecedented manner (given that in the past there were almost no new political entrepreneurs able to get into influential positions). If the number is completely insignificant, we ought to reject the hypotheses all-together, whilst in the contrary, in case that the number of such completely successful new political parties is indeed too large we ought to examine what drives this urge for change and how successful subjects organize themselves to manage success in our times.

The meaningful purpose of this study is to view the inner organization of the political parties and to conclude as to whether there is a pattern of “success”, a similarity between the parties that succeed electorally and those who fail regardless of their ideological affiliation (strictly on a bureaucratic, technical perspective that tackles: party rules for leadership and membership power). Adding to these the study can point out to certain trends of electoral demand that leads us to understand how the political party scene is evolving.

15 I have selected these data sources (Party Facts¹, Europe Elects², Manifesto Project³¹) due to their large sample, the expertise of the people running them (most of the contributors to these pages are academics, political scientists, and researchers) as well as from their regular updating which ensures that the data is not flawed and always kept up to date.

The general characteristics which I am going to tackle in this study in order to determine, whether or not indeed the organizational pattern of new successful parties does differ from the one of the established parties are the following: openness to new members; leadership rotation;

access to leadership determination and policy decisions by the member.

To address all the elements of the hypothesis I will consider as “open to new members”, those parties which have lower entry barriers (in terms of the economic cost of joining and paperwork/legal process). The interest of assessing this measurement is spawn from the fact that in our era of technological revolution, members of the general public will be less prone to join a political party if the process is far too time-consuming and inconvenient. One of the reasons that might explain the drop in party membership, beyond a general disaffection and apathy of the public, is the fact that people are generally less engaged in civic bodies as they have less free time and are accustomed to communicating and interacting through digital media.

Also, the public is less prone that it has been historically to believe that individually one elector and party member can effectuate change and as such, they are less incited and motivated to take the monetary and time cost of subscribing to a political party. Alternatively, if the party offers easy access, little economic cost, little paperwork and fast registration, people might be more open to join said movement. As such, the expectation is that new parties, especially those who are successful, can attribute part of their success to the manner in which recruitment of potential supporters is facilitated through easy access into the structure.

In addition, I will account for the variable of “leadership rotation” by measuring the number of leaders that have been changed by the parties throughout their existence, also accounting for the longevity of the party (if a political party has been around for only one year, it cannot be assessed in the same light as another which has existed for 12 years). This variable is a more curious and nuances one, in terms of expectations. A priori, the existing literature indicated that new political parties which are led by a politician who has already been in the political scene, either as a MP or in any other capacity, are more likely to succeed (Wieringa, Meijers, 2020).

There are many reasons that one such party might be expected to outperform others. Firstly, the expertise and the network that the party leader has already created is a much-needed capital in political entrepreneurship (Arter, 2016) and it helps new political parties penetrate the electoral in a more successful way. Furthermore, the creation of a political party by an already established political figure, is more newsworthy and the media provide more coverage for said party, compared to another that would have the same ideological and structural make-up and would be led by an anonymous political figure. As such, newsworthiness can never be disregarded

1 https://partyfacts.herokuapp.com/

2 https://europeelects.eu/

3 https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu/

16 when assessing the chances of electoral success. In wit, what would be expected judging on these premises, is that new political parties which are led by charismatic figure, that have an established persona and a solid supporters’ base, will not change their leader, as the very identity and raison d’être of the party is embodied in this leader.

Nonetheless, it remains to be examined by the results, whether these presuppositions hold water.

It might as well be that the public – which in general has become ever more distrustful of the political process in general and of political figures in particular – will be more prone to supporting political parties that represent them on the issues and would have a disdain of

“worshipping” an individual, in an era when there is little aura around the concept of a

“revolutionary saviour”. How often there are leadership contests and leaders of a party are changed can also be a testament to whether the new political parties are issue-oriented, or merely represent an intra-elite competition for power that takes places in the electoral arena and beyond mere infighting in existing parties.

To assess how much influence can a party member and where members have direct power in the decision-making process in the party and/or the leadership race. All of this data will be drawn from news articles reporting the party activities and mainly from the respective party constitutions. I expect the pool of successful new parties not to be very large and as such a qualitative comparison between them will not be very difficult to make, in order to conclude to some pattern that might be distinguished as the prevalent and the most successful among the field of new electoral subjects. In this sense, the third hypothesis tackles the organizational pattern differences of the parties, whilst the first addressed the ideological standing.

In sum, the hypotheses largely touch upon a number of variables and important factors which would orientate us towards a new “model” of a political party, a post catch-all model, which the electoral trends would indicate that the electorate is gravitating towards. Naturally, the study cannot account in detail for some variables such as barriers to creation of a party in each country, or the specific dynamics of each national election that takes place, which might shape the result independently of the party evolution theory. Nonetheless, I believe that the relatively large European country sample, is sufficient to at the very least indicate a trend – or lack thereof – of political parties’ evolution towards a new category, which would in turn open the door towards new considerations, regarding the nature of our political system, where the electoral demand and offer are headed and what the potential results for the governing of national governments and international institutions might be. As mentioned in the opening paragraphs of the study, the characteristics of political parties and the party system in general, dictate to a large extent how a country is governed. In the end of the day, no matter the extent and the relative power that technocratic institutions which are independent of partisan influence might accumulate and how important the experts’ qualifications are in the running of a country, the state apparatus is ultimately placed under the will and the tutelage of the governing political interests, which are in turn at least influenced by the electoral demand, which is crucial in determining political success. To entangle this spider-web of effects, I believe it is crucial to investigate how the cornerstone of the political system, namely the political factions operate

17 and what their ideological positions and goals. This examination will enable us to further tackle the issues of bad governance and re-occurring political crises.

6. Results

6.1 The ideological nature of the new political parties

New political parties seem to occupy all ideological fields and a number of these political subjects – some of which managed to get into government – represent the same ideology and principals espoused by the mainstream catch-all parties and are strongly pronounced as such.

Although as explained below we do find confirmation for the hypotheses, the results create a very diverse landscape that leaves room for further elaboration and interpretation.

Excluding regional parties (which do not partake in national elections) and those parties that were created sporadically and have not managed to compete on the national level, throughout the sample size (EU-14), in the specified time period (2008 onwards), 75 new political parties were formed, out of which - using the measurements explained in the “Research Design”

section - 39 were classified as anti-establishment and 36 as new political parties that generally share the views of the convergent, catch-all parties, which for convenience purposes will be referred by the general term new, moderate political parties. These political subjects are listed in detail by country and classified as anti-establishment or moderate parties in Table 1.

A brief overview of the results indicates that there have been intensive developments in the political party scene in Europe and most notably in southern European states, such as Greece (15 new parties in total), Italy (11 new parties) and Spain (7 new parties) who experienced the harshest austerity and repercussions in the aftermath of the World Financial Crisis of 2008. It is evident that in these countries, political entrepreneurs were most likely to penetrate into parliament, to gain prominence in opposition and even enter the government. There are two sides in the equation in which this success of new political entrepreneurs in these countries can be attributed to. Firstly, as this paper argues, there is a political demand for new political subjects that differ in ideological stances with the established or traditional political forces, as well as in their organizational structures and practices. However, it is important to underline the extent to which traditional political parties in these countries were burdened with the blame of the Financial Crisis and the subsequent austerity, which led large segments of the public to cast a protest vote in support of new political subjects. The latter received a significant part of their electoral support, merely due to the citizens explicitly wanting to “punish” the political class and the expressed aim of peoples at replacing the “old” political figures with new ones.

These sentiments aided new political parties and personalities, who managed to capitalize on the opportune moment, and as such have little to showcase in terms of innovation or ingenuity of their political offer.

18 One exemplary case would be that of PASOK in Greece, a centre-left political party which had governed the country throughout the plurality of the post military dictatorship years and had a steady vote share of more than 35%, oftentimes reaching near 50%. Although it enjoyed a vast supporter base, this party collapsed to a mere 4.7% of the vote share in the 2012 elections. The toxicity of the PASOK brand and the inability to garner support amongst the youth, led to the necessity of the party rebranding, disavowing its historic leaders, and merging with smaller centre-left and ideologically left political parties. This is a variable that needs to be taken in consideration when discussing this topic, namely the extent to which the emergence of new political parties can be attributed to the failure and lack of trust to the established party system, rather than in the trustworthiness or ingenuity of the new political subjects. This is particularly evident in these countries, which were hit hardest by the financial crisis. In wit, in these countries mainstream and established parties experienced the biggest losses in their vote share and political power, whilst naturally new parties had more access to the parliamentary and governmental arena.

Nonetheless, as is indicated in the list of new political subjects, the new political entrepreneurs have attempted to break the consensus in other “northern” countries of the continent, where naturally the effects of the financial crisis and the subsequent political instability were experienced far less. Most notably Austria (5 new political parties) and Denmark (4 new political parties) seem to signal that although, there has been no “wave” of new political parties similar to the above-mentioned southern countries, nonetheless political entrepreneurs have sought support, apparently attempting to fill a vacuum in the electoral demand of said countries.

In sum, the increased frequency and proliferation of new political parties can be explained, primarily by the financial crisis, which in turn led to a political crisis and distrust in the political system in general. Additionally, there seems to be a general tendency throughout the continent for new entrepreneurs to attempt at penetrating the system. This can be explained amongst many national and momentary factors, by the fact that political personalities and political parties also take their cues from international events and developments which dictate political moods and inspire party entrepreneurship. In concrete terms, the political events of the USA, although not directly related to the lived experiences of the peoples in Europe, are in the forefront of the mediatic and academic debate, and as such remain important in the public discourse and in the political reflections of people. Oftentimes the magnitude of the events abroad creates ideological affiliations and sympathies for the struggle and aims of foreign political entities, that are naturally expressed and channelled in the national political setting. As such, we can see how the political debate about race and climate change that took central stage in the USA, was transmitted in the European political discourse which had for these issues a more consensual and less central stage.

Additionally, a large segment of the public neglect first-hand considerations regarding their local issues and align themselves in terms of their attitudes towards international organizations and developments in the international scene. This is most notable in our country-sample, due to the fact that the core EU members states constitute the “battleground” between pro-European

19 integration political forces, and the Eurosceptical ones. A significant portion of the new parties that are created in almost every country in the sample, are established explicitly as being either in support of European integration or European Federalism – and having this issue at the centre of their platforms - (most notable cases: The Republic Onwards - France; More Europe – Italy;

The River – Greece; Change UK – UK) or as explicitly anti-European integration, or the European project altogether (most notable cases: EU STOP – Austria; Independent Greeks – Greece; CasaPound – Italy; Brothers of Italy – Italy; Forum for Democracy – The Netherlands;

Vox – Spain; Alternative for Germany – Germany; Brexit Party – UK). It is noticeable that a number of the sceptical parties regarding EU integration and globalization in general, have the name of their countries into their party brand, thus in way re-asserting their stance and purpose of representing nationally oriented political sentiments as opposed to European ones. This is not the case for the integrationist and federalist forces (with the exception of the literally pro- EU “More Europe” party in Italy), which appeal to common mottos and themes which might resonate with every contemporary country, regardless of the political specifics of each. Thus, we see themes such as “Change”, “Progress”, “Democratic” etc. that indicate the general outlook of these parties, which seem to antagonize to a large extent, new Eurosceptical political factions, rather than established and mainstream adversaries, who in some countries – as mentioned above – might have made themselves insignificant or unelectable.

Due to this fact new parties seem to not only enter the political arena in competition with the established forces, but additionally as adversaries to one-another, representing new social cleavages and novel challenges, for which the maladjusted traditional political formations do not have the agility and the grasp to be in the forefront of. It is precisely due to these reasons that the paper distinguishes in its very first hypothesis between the ideological stances of new political subjects, not to point out that a particular ideological strand of either the political right or political left are gaining prominence, but mostly to highlight that new political subjects are not a monolith but are very diverse. However, they are politically “evolved” in the sense that they do not represent the old social, economic, and political cleavages, such as class, rural vs.

urban interests, landed vs. tenant etc., but in essence the new political parties that have emerged are representing novel differences and compete on different ideological “playing fields”. The main issues that divide these new political subjects are their stance on globalization, their view towards the established political system as such (as opposed to merely being opposed to the established political class, which by design and naturally should be rotated and replaced periodically in liberal democracies), their understanding of history and their definitions of who is the constituency or the “people” that governments should serve.

These are some of the explanatory reasons, that shed light as to way all of the countries of the EU-14 have experienced the emergence of new political parties, regardless of their national context and isolated variables and what this new re-alignment entails in an ideological sense.

Whether the emergence of new political parties also signifies their potency and an eventual shift in the party system as a whole, this will be considered in the upcoming sections. The mere

20 emergence of these parties and the diversity of their ideological stances and policy goals, is an indicator in and of itself about the state of the party system in the European Continent.

Reviewing the measurement, we do find confirmation for the first hypothesis, however not a significant one. Any slight fluctuation in the configuration, with the disband or creation of new political subjects might change this slight advantage of the anti-establishment parties. This result is to an extent counter-intuitive, since one might wonder what the electoral appeal and the potential support base is for parties that ideologically share the same stances with the mainstream, established parties. However, this can also be interpreted as a result of the crisis in the sense that large segments of the public did not prefer radical policies to overcome the crisis, but nonetheless had lost confidence in the expertise and the political figures of the established mainstream parties. As such, these new subjects were appealing to the strata of the society more content with the status-quo, but who were prone to punish those parties that to a large extent were billed with the political responsibility for the crisis.

This explanation can be exemplified by the fact that with the exception of Spain, the three other southern European countries hit the hardest by the Financial Crisis, Greece, Italy and Portugal have a higher number of moderate new parties, rather than anti-establishment ones, however as we will find in the examination of the second hypothesis, in these countries the anti- establishment parties are more likely to breakthrough into government positions.

As exhibited in Figure 1, Greece is overall the country with more new political subjects created, both anti-establishment ones (7) and moderate ones (8), indicating that the crisis is indeed a major event, as the country hit hardest by it, exhibits signs of a political crisis, since there is a proliferation of new parties ranging from the anti-capitalist extreme left, to the hardcore nationalists, whilst there are also many challenger parties seeking to occupy the centre of the ideological field, further demonstrating that even the electorate not sympathetic to radicalism is perceived (by the political entrepreneurs) as having lost confidence on the expertise of the established parties.

Further shown in Figure 1 it appears that the country with more anti-establishment parties created in relation to moderate ones is Austria, where the ratio of the former compared to the latter is 4/1, whilst the country that has the most moderate tendency is Sweden – a country hit exponentially less than the Southern states by the economic crisis- where there are two moderate parties established, but no radical ones. The Sweden Democrats which have gained traction in the latest election are an old party with roots in the nationalist scene since the ‘80s, thus cannot be taken into consideration in this study.

21 Table 1- List of new political parties, classified

Country Anti-Establishment (1) Moderate (2) Ratio

(1)/(2)

Austria

-EU STOP -The Citizens Forum -The Reform Conservatives

- Team Stronach

-NEOS The New Austria

4/1

Belgium -People’s Party 1/0

Denmark

-Hard Line -Liberal Alliance

-The New Right

-The Alternative

3/1

Finland -New Alternative 1/0

France

-France Arise -Left Front -Left Party

- New Anti-capitalist Party - Unbowed France -Union of Democrats and

Independents

-Animalist Party -Centrist Alliance -Democratic Movement -Europe Ecology/ The Greens

-Generation the Movement -Republic Onwards

6/6 Germany -Alternative for Germany -Pirate Party 1/1

Greece

-Front of the Greek Anti-capitalist Left

-Greece, the Other Way -Greek Solution -Independent Greeks -Panhellenic Macedonian Front

-Popular Unity -Union for Homeland and the

People

-Action -Democratic Left

-Dot -Diem 25

-Greek European Citizens -Movement of Democratic

Socialists -Recreate Greece

-The River

7/8

Italy

-Brothers of Italy -CasaPound -Civil Revolution -5 Star Movement -Power to the People

-Article One -Democratic Centre

-Free and Equal -Italian Left -More Europe

-Italia Viva

5/6

Luxembourg -Citizens’ List -Party for Full Democracy

-Pirate Party

-Volt Luxembourg 2/2 Netherlands -Forum for Democracy -50 Plus

-Think 1/2

Portugal

-Enough

-Republican Democratic Party

-Alliance -Free

22 -Party for Animals and Nature

-We the Citizens

2/4

Spain

-Basque County Unite -Commitment Coalition -International Solidarity

-Podemos -Vox

-Catalan European Party -Union, Progress and

Democracy 5/2

Sweden -Feminist Initiative

-Pirate Party 0/2

United Kingdom -Brexit Party -Change UK 1/1

The results of the first hypothesis are mostly an indication of the diversity of political entrepreneurship that would run counter to the general idea propagated by political discourse in social media and to an extent in the mainstream media, that new political parties are characterized by “extremist” views and universally they aim at overthrowing the established order of things. If anything, this clear-cut, and easily verifiable report of forces generally points out to the fact that new political parties are as likely to be moderate as to not be.

Figure 1

39 36

Classification of New Political Parties

Anti-Establishment Moderate

23 Figure 2. Ratio of Anti-establishment to Moderate New Parties

Regarding the tendency of party entrepreneurship in general, the countries with less new parties are Finland and Belgium, two of the countries less impacted by the economic crisis of 2008, thus demonstrating a definitive correlation between the impact of the crisis in a given country and the number of parties that are created to challenge the established ones. Additionally, both of these countries only have one political party each that can broadly be categorized as

“moderate” in the terms defined at this paper, namely sharing the belief in the core institutions that were maintained by the political status-quo, and merely wishing a change of personnel and a more persuasive stance in favour of certain polities that are well within the accepted “Overton Window”. When referring to the Overton Window, naturally we are entering into subjective waters, but in more concrete terms I would argue that parties well within the mainstream accepted discourse are the ones that would be most likely to enter into coalition governments in support of established political parties, and the ones that are more likely to be accepted for partnership by the traditional political forces and the societal strata that they represent. This does not necessarily mean that these parties that have been dubbed in the paper as “moderate”

will be more likely to enter into government due to their ideological and rhetorical proximity with the mainstream forces, but one would assume that if the electoral calculations impose the formation of coalitions, these subjects will be first in line to enter government and support the established forces. Consequentially, less moderate political subjects will have the tendency to cooperate amongst one-another when the electoral calculations provide this opportunity.

Moreover, looking at the results it is also evident that in some countries other political events have driven the emergence of new parties, besides the World Financial Crisis of 2008. A couple of cases to prove this point would be the “Forum for Democracy” party in the Netherlands, which one could argue has emerged in the ideological framework of Euroscepticism and a

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Anti-Establishment Moderate