Political Parties, Origins, Transformations and Future Prospects
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Summary Party System Change, the European Crisis and the State of Democracy
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Political Parties, Origins, Transformations and Future Prospects
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Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (RU)
Summary of the compulsory chapters of the book written by Lisi, M. ed. Party System Change, the European Crisis and the State of Democracy. Routledge, 2018.
Political Parties, Origins, Transformations and Future Prospects
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Party System Change, the European Crisis and the State of Democracy
Lisi, M. Routledge, 2018.
4 Change and stability in the Danish party system
K. Kosiara-Pedersen and P. Kurrild-Klitgaard
The historical background and institutional framework
• Founding cleavages of the Danish party system were the
o Rural-urban → Liberals versus the Conservatives
o Employer-employee cleavages → Social Democrats representing the farmers versus
the Social Liberals representing the smallholders and landless
• These 4 parties are the basis of the Danish party system
o Throughout the 1920s and 1950s various minor parties came and went while the 4
old parties remained almost constant
▪ Only the Communists achieved a semi-permanent presence, but due to its
Soviet loyalty remained a pariah party
o Only from the 1950s onwards the system absorbed new, permanent entrants
▪ Socialist People’s Party → splinter party from the Communists in 1959 and
successful from the general election in 1960 onwards
• Stability of the Danish party system in the 1960s was marked → however, an increased level
of conflict was becoming slowly visible even then and a marked change waited
o Earthquake election in 1973: number of parties represented in parliament doubled
from 5 to 10
• 1970s and 1980s saw the representation of many new and small parties who were unable to
gain any stable representation
o Tightening of the rules on how to become eligible to stand for election in order to
ensure that parties standing for election would be able to gain at least some support
o Still new parties entered the parliament
• In sum, at the turn of the millennium 10 parties were represented
o Four old parties
o Socialist People’s Party
o Centre Democrats
o Christian Democrats
o Red-Green Alliance
o Danish People’s Party
o Progress Party
Electoral results and types of government
Danish parliament has 179 members, of which 175 are elected by a proportional election system
with multi-member districts and a 2-% threshold for representation being the most important hurdle
to pass for a party to enter parliament
• 2001-2011: the decade of the right of centre
o 2001 election: major electoral shifts
▪ Social Democrats lost, while the Liberals and Danish People’s Party gained →
parliamentarian majority shifted towards the right
▪ Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Liberals) formed a Liberal-Conservative minority
government with parliamentary support from the Danish People’s Party
1
, o 2005 general election: 2 major players (Social Democrats and Liberals) both lost seats
▪ Danish People’s Party did not get punished by the electorate for providing
the parliamentary support for the Liberal-Conservative government
▪ Social Liberals were the biggest winner
▪ Christian Democrats, Centre Democrats and the Minority Party did not gain
representation
o 2007 election: reinforcement 2005 elections
• 2011: the interim of a left-of-centre government
o No substantial affect of the electoral support of the 3 major parties
▪ Changes were much more marked for the remaining parties
• Conservatives were more than halved
• Socialist People’s Party was cut by 1/3
• Social Liberals and Liberal Alliance (introduced after the millennium)
doubled their share
• Red-Green Alliance tripled their share
▪ Introduction The Alternative in 2013: non-Marxist leftist platform with
environmental sustainability as a primary concern
• 2015: renewal and stability
o Renewal Danish party system: historically main parties (Liberals, Conservatives,
Social Liberals and Socialist People’s Party) all lost electoral support
▪ Social Democrats increased their electoral share (but only very small)
▪ Return of power of the Liberals → center-right governments are no longer an
exception
▪ Danish People’s Party overtook the Liberals as the largest non-socialist party
▪ Left-wing Red-Green Alliance and right-wing Liberal Alliance gained
substantial electoral support and The Alternatives gained representation
o Liberal minority one-party government with the other 3 parties providing the
parliamentary support
• In sum, the party system of the 2015 general election consists of
o 4 old parties
▪ Liberals
▪ Social Democrats
▪ Conservatives
▪ Social Liberals
o Socialist People’s Party (from 1959)
o Formed in the 1990s
▪ Red-Green Alliance
▪ Danish People’s Party
o Newer parties
▪ Liberal Alliance
▪ The Alternative
Declining but government-stabilizing core
• Often minority coalition governments → all Danish parties have been relevant in the Sartori
sense either by taking part in government or by providing the parliamentary support for one
2
, Party system formats and dynamics
• Historically high level of volatility since 1973
• Inter-bloc volatility constant prior to the 2001 election
• Slight uptick in the effective number of parties, both in the electoral arena and in the
parliamentary, and as opposed to the volatility of the party system (has been volatile)
• Very low level of disproportionality in the Danish electoral system
• Turnout is at an international high level, acquired without compulsory voting or other formal
means
Party choice: centrifugal polarization
• The increased vote shares for the ‘fringes’ really are not due to a substantive, ideological
‘centrifuge’ but rather reflect a simultaneous ‘centripetal’ tendency and increased
competition for the median voter
Cleavages and dimensions of competition
• Traditional, economic left-right dimension was important for the establishment of the Danish
party system: still relevant and to a large degree structures the Danish party system
• Since the 1994 election: new political dimension
o New politics dimension in opinions of voters and many public debates, but positions
on non-economic left-right dimensions tend to be very highly correlated with
positions on the familiar left-right economic dimension
• Danish voters on average less right-leaning on both economics and values now than in 1998,
but impact is limited
5 France: From Sarkozy to Macron, the advent of a new electoral order in the wake of the
economic crisis
S. Labouret
Electoral results and types of government
Electoral order in place before 2007; French electoral politics may be described as a succession of
• Periods of normal politics → own electoral order, with a party system related to a particular
configuration of the issue competition, as well as a set of institutional rules and enduring
electoral alignments binding the main parties to their core voters
o 1962-1981
o 1984-2007
• Realignment eras
o 1958-1962 → comeback of Charles de Gaulle at the head of the State paved the way
to two decades of government stability
▪ Socialists allied themselves with the powerful Communist Party (Parti
communiste français, PCF) → problem, since they became the party at the
left and a majority of French voters refused to give substantial pieces of
national power to supporters of the Soviet Union
• This locked electoral order collapsed in 1981 → heavy decline of the
PCF in 1st round op presidential election
▪ Socialist leader François Mitterrand could defeat incumbent right-wing
President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (his position was undermined due to
3
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