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Towards Ideological East-West convergence? European party families 1990-2013
Dalarna University College, Falun, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0009-0000-2273-4169
2014 (English)Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

This paper assesses possible East/West ideological convergence among three European party families: The Christian Democratic EPP, the Social Democratic PES and the Liberal ALDE. The analysis departs from elections manifesto data from 1990 to 2013. The aim is to provide an overview on possible trends of convergence and the method is based on mean value comparison. Left-Right position is first evaluated for all three party families and thereafter specific issues are selected for each party family. Finally, the relevance of party size is evaluated in relation to ideological convergence. The findings indicate that both the EPP and PES have elements of East/West convergence on the Left-Right positions. The ALDE on the other hand demonstrate a constant Left-Right consensus between its West-and East European member parties. However, on specific issues, the ALDE displays a weaker East-West consensus especially on the national issue. Both the EPP and the PES show elements of convergence in the issue specific analysis. The EPP displays an early East/West convergence on the EU-dimension and a somewhat later trend of convergence on the national issue. PES shows a surprisingly strong overtime East/West consensus on the welfare state while there is a post-2004 convergence when it comes to underprivileged minority groups. Moreover, the aim is to relate the findings to the theoretical framework for Europarty cooperation, developed by Poguntke and von dem Berge. The findings support the need to make a distinction between strong and weak parties as party size matter for ideological convergence. However, this is only verified in the first years. Furthermore, the model suggests that Europarty influence is a combination of pressure and socialisation, where socialisation dominates after 2004. Hence, it is possible to assume that the East/West convergence on patriotism for the EPP and for underprivileged minority groups for the PES is a result of socialisation processes. In the same way, the early convergence of the EPP on the EU-issue is an indication of Europarty pressure for change.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2014.
Keywords [en]
Ideological convergence, party families, Europarty, Europeanisation
National Category
Political Science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-112502OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-112502DiVA, id: diva2:1846146
Conference
23rd World Congress of Political Science, Montreal, Canada, July 19-24, 2014
Available from: 2024-03-21 Created: 2024-03-21 Last updated: 2024-03-22Bibliographically approved

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Öhlén, Mats

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
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Language
  • de-DE
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