Regionalism and Party Programs. Comparative analysis of the content of the manifestos of regionalist parties in Europe
Régis Dandoy & Giulia Sandri CEVIPOL University of Brussels (ULB)
[email protected],
[email protected]
Paper presented at the Conference of the Società Italiana di Scienza Politica (SISP), University of Catania, 20-22 September 2007 Workshop “Partiti e Regionalismi”
Introduction The underlying question of the empirical comparison of ethno-regionalist parties with parties belonging to other party families is the one of the existence and coherence of the regionalist family. Given that their main specific campaign issue is territorially based, ethno-regionalist parties might not demonstrate the same cross-border and common characteristics that other parties may share inside a party family like, for example, the parties constituting the sociodemocrat family that more or less rely on common ideological grounds. In addition, because of their sometimes combined ideological identity that mixes decentralisation and socio-economic issues, the ethno-regionalist parties are often too easily associated with ‘traditional’ parties and located on the left-right axis, reducing their ideological specificity (Delwit, 2005). As a result, European ethno-regionalist parties can be found inside the European Parliament not merely in the Europe Free Alliance group but also in several different political groups. According to Gomez-Reino, De Winter and Lynch (2006), the study of ideology is not only important to identify the determinants of electoral successes (see mainly Montabes, Ortega & Pérez Nieto, 2004), but also to determine whether the ethno-regionalist parties constitute a political family as such. They hypothesised that the regionalist family not only exist but also demonstrate a different ideology than other party families. Even if variation inside this party family can be shown, the overall ideological image of the ethno-regionalist parties is less heterogeneous than one might suppose. The comparison of ethno-regionalist parties between each other is therefore quite common in the literature, but yet no empirical research has been done regarding the comparison of ethno-regionalist parties with other types of parties or other party families, with the exception of some comparative analyses solely focused on one theme or issue. For example, Ray (1999) and Jolly (2006 & 2007) have compared the issues of Europe and European integration in ethno-regionalist parties and state-wide parties through expert surveys. The originality of the present paper thus consists in a systematic and multi-dimensional comparison of ethno-regionalist parties’ family with other party families. The different positions of political parties at a given point in time regarding certain domains of public policies are conceptualised through the saliency theory. According to this theory, parties compete with each other by putting forward their political priorities rather than struggling on the same political issues. In other words, parties, through their manifesto, try to promote their
‘ownership’ on some key issues and priorities (Budge et al., 2001). In addition, the issue ownership theory states that parties are trustful and credible on a certain range of issues, that they are considered as experts on these themes, and less on others. There exist several subjective indicators of political positions of the parties, often made by an ‘external’ observer. The particularity of the estimations based on party manifestos is that they clearly determine the position of a party at each election, based on its electoral program. By definition, the obtained information comes from an ‘internal’ document that was approved by the party: it is not even unusual that the majority of the party members and affiliates have to formally approve the document before the elections. Electoral programs are therefore considered as a valid indicator of the positions of parties regarding certain domains of public policy at a given point in time (Volkens, 2002). 1. The ethno-regionalist parties’ issues The conceptualization of the socio-political phenomenon of ethnic mobilization within territorial concentrated areas, encompassing both aspects of ethnic conflict and nationalism, is based on the idea that parties stand for goals and support ideologies that are rooted in the cleavages that define their identity (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967; Rokkan and Urwin, 1982). Following this perspective, we may assert that ethno-regionalist parties stand for the empowering of the ethnic groups they claim to represent (Türsan, 1998). This range of political actors, which can be considered as constituting a separate party family because of their common characteristics and distinctive specificities (Gomez-Reino et al., 2006) are often described by scholars by mean of several conceptual labels: ethnic, ethnonationalist, minority nationalist, autonomist, regionalist, separatists or non-sate wide parties. Each of these labels insists on one particular aspect of the notion of ethnic and regionalist movements in Western Europe. The divergence in the historical experiences that produced the emergence of ethnic and territorial political claims and the broad variation in the demands of self-determination pushed forward by this party family may explain this conceptual and linguistic vagueness (Lynch, 1996). The most encompassing definition of the socio-political phenomenon of ethnic mobilization is the notion of “ethno-regionalist party” adopted by De Winter and Türsan (De Winter & Türsan, 1998). With this term are designed the parties that not only claim for the political reorganization of the state territorial structure, but also base these claims on the existence of ethnic cleavages within the considered area. The label of “ethno-regionalist party” is aimed at capturing the regional-territorial dimension as well as the cultural, linguistic and identity elements of this particular form of nationalism. These parties root their regional identity claims upon ethnic distinctiveness. In fact, the “ethno-regionalist party” label integrates the reference to the notion of ethnos, intended as culturally bounded community, within the concept of territorial concentration at sub-state level (Gellner, 1983; Connor, 1994; Brown, 2000). Some argue that ethno-regionalist parties should focus on one issue. The reasoning is that if they focus on one single theme, the one of increased autonomy, they would have a larger impact on agenda setting rather than dilute their issues on different topics (Rasmussen, 1991). In this regard, as the regional concentration of electoral support is an asset for a maximal representation, the thematic concentration of the political objectives is viewed ad an asset for maximal policy influence. Moreover, some scholars have assessed not only the impact of ideology on the electoral success of ethno-regionalist parties, but also the importance of the relative level of radicalization of autonomist claims on the electoral performance of these parties. The more moderated ethno-regionalist parties usually obtain better electoral results than the radical ones, especially within proportional electoral systems (Montabes et al., 2004).
On the contrary, previous studies stressed that ethno-regionalist parties have enlarged the number of political issues they are dealing with, and not only focusing on this single issue of devolution and decentralisation. There are several hypotheses that may explain this greater thematic diversity. First of all, they search for electoral success. As the ultimate goal of a political party is to win elections and to govern, the enlargement of its target electorate is obviously required. This enlargement can be made in two different ways: either they enlarge their target constituencies and try to attract similar voters as theirs but from neighbouring regions, either they try to get a greater diversity in public. As far as this latter strategy is concerned, they try to enlarge their electoral supply by including new themes or issues such as the environment or the European integration in order to attract other types of voters. In this regard, we might argue that, like other party families, ethno-regionalist parties tend to become ‘catch-all parties’. The Otto Kirchheimer “catch-all” thesis represents one of the seminal theories in the study of transformation of West European political parties and it is broadly used as a mean of analyzing party change at ideological, organizational and electoral level. Built on Neumann’s typology of “parties of individual representation” (Neumann, 1956), which emphasizes parties’ functions and not only concentrates on their organizational characteristics as the Duverger’s categorization does (Duverger (1954) classifies parties according to the “cadre” and “mass” parties typologies), Kirchheimer’s typology has been further specified under new theoretical perspective and has been integrated in a broad, encompassing model of party development and conceptualization of democracy by Richard Katz and Peter Mair (1995). In this perspective, during the 20th century the dialectical process of party development led, at a certain point in time, to the emergence of a new typology of party, the “catch-all party”. According to this model, parties are classified on the basis not only of their ideology and of their internal organization, but also on the basis of their relations with civil society and the state. The “catchall party” represents one stage of the whole party development process which emerged during the second half of the last century (Katz and Mair, 1995). Therefore, this typology provides an useful heuristic tool for distinguishing contemporary parties from former parties of mass integration. According to Mair’s evaluation, Kirchheimer listed five main characteristics of the “catch-all” model (Mair, 1990): the downplay of party’s ideological baggage, the strengthening of leadership groups vis-à-vis of the party’s internal decision making procedures, the decline in the role of the individual party member, the decrease of the party’s electoral penetration of a classe gardée or a denominational clientele in favour of the recruitment of voters among the population at large and finally a central role of interest groups, in order to secure electoral support as well as financing through interest group intercession. In fact, the erosion of traditional social boundaries in the late 1960s caused the weakening of formerly highly distinctive collective identities and therefore the ideological and political distinctiveness of parties became rather blurred. Based on a Downsian model of party competition, Kirchheimer’s model asserted the progressive convergence of parties to more centrist positions within their party systems as well as the retrenchment of traditional denominational cleavages’ salience in shaping the belongings and attitudes of citizens. Moreover, as parties no longer encapsulate a specific social group, party membership is losing its previous importance with regards to party’s internal decision making as well as to electoral campaign techniques and party financing. Thirdly, the electoral programmes became less divisive and claimed to serve the interests of the electorate at large. The electoral strategies become more offensive, in order to reach the larger part of the electorate as possible. Thus,
parties have begun to offer generic programmes and to avoid controversial questions and to downgrade basic political options in favour of the more immediate compensation of electoral success (Mair, 1992). Kirchheimer assumed that parties would emphasize more and more officeseeking goals, rather that the implementation of a specific political programme. Within this perspective, the elections decide the choice of the leaders rather than the choice of policies. Within the “catch-all” typology, party functions are soundly transformed: parties aim mainly at conquering conditional electoral support and at penetrating the increasingly de-aligned West European electorates, which are characterized more and more by high rates of electoral volatility and by “opinion vote” patterns (rather that “belonging vote” ones). These phenomena are translated at organizational level in the clear shift of power from the grass-roots members to the party elites and in the progressive ascendancy of the party in public office. The main “catch-all” party features are, in fact, the progressive reinforcement of leadership and the increasing permeability vis-à-vis of interest groups, which are charged of securing electoral support through highly mediatised and marketing-based electoral campaigns. Angelo Panebianco provides the translation of Kirchheimer’s typology into organizational terms with its “electoral-professional party” model, which is based on the assumption that the party organization centre of gravity has moved from members to voters (Panebianco, 1988). The consequent “professionalisation” of political parties and strengthening of the role of party leadership are explained by the party’s need to widen their voter base in an increasingly complex and competitive electoral market. Therefore, parties are forced to shift away from ideological goals towards more tactically defined principles and to concentrate their political action upon policy issues which would engender minimal resistance in the electorate (Wolinetz, 2002). On the other side, a significant electoral success for ethno-regionalist parties may permit them to join the regional or national cabinet. This government participation often allows them to partly realise their electoral pledges or, at least, make their decentralisation issues reach the government’s agenda. In addition, other parties may be ‘contaminated’ by this issue (see below) and put it by themselves on the government’s agenda or support any state reform towards more devolution. As a result, their electoral ‘mission’ is sometimes fully accomplished and this means that, via their electoral strength, they managed to gain some institutional advancement towards autonomy. Political parties often do not want to leave the political arena even if the majority of their claims have been achieved. In order to avoid a disappearance from the political sphere, three strategies can be identified (Gomez-Reino et al., 2006). First of all, they can keep on stressing, in their manifestos and in their discourses, on the autonomy issue, but in a radicalised way. They have to go a step further in their claims and ask for more institutionalised advancement like, for example, the claim for full independence for the region this party comes from (Sandri, 2006). Second, they can transform into a ‘governing party’ that is a party focused on conserving rather than pushing further the newly acquired autonomy or decentralisation, that tends to stand in the middle of the right-left cleavage and that makes use of political behaviours such as patronage or clientelism. Finally, they can ‘open’ their party agenda to new issues or existing cleavages. Gomez-Reino et al. (2006) divides the ethno-regionalist parties’ ideology in four main dimensions: self-government, left-right cleavage, European integration, and post-materialism. These dimensions – mainly the first three ones 1 – will be considered as the hypothetical basis for this paper and will be dealt in a comparative and empirical perspective. Using a content analysis 1
There is nearly no empirical evidence of the validity of the post-materialism dimension and even De Winter (2006) admitted that this dimension can be found in the case of only a few ethno-regionalist parties.
technique of the electoral manifestos of the main European political parties, we will compare the evolution of these three dimensions across time (1945-2003) and space (four countries will be considered). More particularly, the ideological differences and diverging positions on these dimensions between the ethno-regionalist parties and the other party families will be analysed. In this regard, we use Swenden’s approach (2006) that consists in an ideological and party strategy comparison of the ethno-regionalist parties with the state-wide parties of the same country taken together, with no distinction of party family. The data used in this paper come from the CMP project (Comparative Manifestos Project) in which the party policy positions have been coded for numerous countries for each election at the national level since WWII 2. These data for the 1945-2003 elections are available in the framework of the books of Budge et al. (2001) and Klingemann et al. (2006), based on a thematic codebook of 56 categories 3. But, besides well known criticisms that were made to this manifesto database (like country or language specificities not taken into account, coding procedure problems, etc.), this database contains two main limitations that primarily concern ethno-regionalist parties. First, the choice of the relevant ethno-regionalist parties is left to the responsibility of the national coding team. Each team was left alone in the selection of the coded parties according to its overall political significance. As a result a political party might not be included in the database even though he obtained a few seats in the national parliament and was the dominant party in one of the regions. Among these neglected small parties, a lot of them are ethno-regionalist parties. Secondly, the analysed manifestos of the selected party only concern national elections. Manifestos designed for regional or sub-state elections were not coded. The specificity of the ethno-regionalist parties being their territorial limitation and therefore their regional focus, they often do not put much efforts in their national manifesto and reserve their preferred ideological discourse for regional elections where their target electorate is to be find (Montabes et al., 2004). In addition, some important and influential ethno-regionalist parties do not participate to national elections at all. However, limited tests made on the CMP database confirm its validity (Dandoy and De Winter, 2005). Basically, the manifesto project database includes 12 ethno-regionalist parties coming from four EU countries. Three from Belgium: RW (Rassemblement Wallon / Walloon Rally), FDF (Front Démocratique des Bruxellois Francophones / Francophone Democratic Front) and VU (Volksunie / People’s Union) 4. One from Finland: RKP/SFP (Ruotsalainen Kansanuolue / Svenska Folkpartiet / Swedish People’s Party). One from Italy: LN (La Lega Nord / Nothern League). And seven from Spain: CiU (Convergencia i Unio / Convergence and Union), ERC (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya / Catalan Republican Left), PNV/EAJ (Partido Nacionalista vasco / Euskadi Alberti Jetzale / Basque Nationalist Party), EA (Eusko Alkartasuna / Basque Solidarity), PAR (Partido Argones Regionalista), PA (Partidu Andaluscista / Andalusian Party), BNG (Bloque Nationalista Galego / Galician Nationalist Bloc). Unfortunately, the manifestos for these parties were not coded for each national election they have been participating. With all these methodological limitations in mind, we assess that the gathered data for these 12 parties will allow us to draw some general conclusions on their ideological position and to be able to compare them on several issues with parties from other party families 5. 2
Data for the Belgian ethno-regionalist parties were not included in the original database and were therefore coded by the authors. 3 For more information on the coding procedure, see Volkens (2002). 4 The VB (Vlaams Belang / Flemish Interests) can be classified as an extreme-right-wing party rather than an ethnoregionalist one (Swenden, 2006 ; Swyngedouw et al., 2007). 5 As one of the main goals of this paper is to compare the manifestos of the ethno-regionalist parties with the ones of the state-wide parties, we selected in our database only elections where at least one coded ethno-regionalist party
2. The dimension of autonomy The claim for (regional) autonomy has been considered as the main characteristic of ethnoregionalist parties. Many authors studying the ethno-regionalist parties observed the centrality of the decentralisation issue in the ideology of the ethno-regionalist parties (see for example Smith, 1991; Rasmussen, 1991; De Winter, 1998; Seiler, 2005) and all agreed that this issue is the most relevant. More specifically and as far as the electoral manifestos are concerned, De Winter (1998: 204) clearly stated that “the defining characteristic of ethno-regionalist parties’ programs is undoubtedly their demand for political reorganisation of the existing national power structure, for some kind of ‘self-government’”. Two remarks have nonetheless to be done. First, the type of decentralisation or self-government claimed varies among parties. If one draws a typology, this theme is not homogeneous and differs from one ethno-regionalist party to another. Based on De Winter (1998) and Swenden (2006), we can distinguish between six types of parties: protectionist parties that seek preservation and development of their culture within the existing state, like the SFP (Swedish People’s Party); autonomist parties that request more competencies for specifically their region or territorial entity, like the PNV (Basque Nationalist Party); national-federalist parties that want a reorganisation of the whole state that would lead to more autonomy of all regions, like the LN (Lega Nord) before 1995; independentist parties that seek for total independence of their region, like the Belgian VU (People’s Union) and the LN after 1995 (Montabes et al., 2004); irredentist parties that claim for independence and the annexation of some territorial parts of the neighbouring state, like the EA (Basque Solidarity); and ‘rattachist’ parties that want to be part of the neighbouring state they share similar cultural identity with. Secondly, the relative space occupied by other issues in the political claims of the ethnoregionalist parties also varies. For some authors, the decentralisation issue is said to be central and the ‘only’ defining characteristics (a unique claim), the other themes being marginal (Smith, 2001). For others, the decentralisation issue is said to be central and the only invariant theme. Other aspects of public policies or other claims are part of the ethno-regionalist parties’ discourse, but they are not stable as the ‘self government’ one (Seiler, 2005). Finally, the decentralisation issue is said to be central but other themes may also be part of the specific identity of the ethno-regionalist parties (De Winter, 1998; Tronconi, 2005; Gomez-Reino et al., 2006). When compared to other parties, this type of demand for more ‘self-government’ is not only considered as the defining characteristic but also what differentiate them from other party families (De Winter, 1998). As these claims are at the centre of the ideology of the ethnoregionalist parties, compared to other party families, we may hypothesise: H 1a: The manifestos of ethno-regionalist parties deal more with the ‘decentralisation’ issue than other parties. As stated above, ethno-regionalist parties can gain some electoral successes. These successes are obviously considered as a direct threat to other established political parties. According to De was participating. As a result, we have elections data for Finland between 1945 and 2003, for Belgium between 1961 and 2003, for Italy between 1994 and 2001, and for Spain between 1977 and 2000. In sum, that is 42 coded elections.
Winter (1998), there are two strategies for other party families to react to this new electoral threat represented by ethno-regionalist parties. First, they can invite them into regional and/or national cabinets. The logic behind is that this kind of party is viewed as quite unprepared and may lose its credibility when carrying public policy responsibilities. In the Belgian example, the different ethno-regionalist parties participated five times to the national government and always lost minimum 3% of their voters during the following elections (with the exception of the FDF in 1981 that still managed to gain 0,2%). Secondly, the state-wide parties can leave the ethnoregionalist parties out of the cabinets and try to implement themselves the agenda of the ethnoregionalist parties. This ‘contamination’ hypothesis can be found in previous research (Rokkan & Urwin, 1983; Smith, 1991; De Winter, 1998; Swenden, 2006). As the traditional or state-wide political parties suffer from the electoral successes of the ethno-regionalist parties, they want to attract the electors that voted for the ethno-regionalist parties. They therefore enter in electoral competition on the own issues of the ethno-regionalist parties and ‘copy’ their statements and manifesto of the decentralisation topics 6. This electoral contamination might explain an observed increase of the issue of ‘self government’ in the other parties’ manifestos. In addition, a position of this issue is also important in the framework of multi-party systems as it might play a significant role in coalition building (De Winter, 1998). The positions on decentralisation may offer an alternative to coalition formation based traditional cleavages and render government formation easier if several political parties share the same perspective on this issue. As a result, this contamination hypothesis may be formulated as following: H 1b: The parties from other political families tend to include the decentralisation issue in their manifestos. The decentralisation issue is being used in the CMP database, both in saliency and in policy direction, meaning that we can not only observe the frequency of appearance of the theme of decentralisation but also that we can indicate whether the electoral pledges are in favour or not of the increased decentralisation. For example, the issue of decentralisation is to be found in the manifesto of the Italian AN (National Alliance) but mainly in negative terms, meaning that the positive references to the regional autonomy were relatively less important than the positive references to centralisation. The data therefore allowed us to calculate an index subtracting the negative references to the positive references to decentralisation. As a result, the figures used here are not merely percentages of attention to decentralisation in the manifestos but more an index of attention to increased decentralisation. We can observe in Graph 1 that the positive references to the issue of decentralisation constitute a large part of the content of the ethno-regionalist parties’ manifestos, up to more than 17% of the manifestos of the Belgian ethno-regionalist parties taken together in 2003. There are obviously party differences inside each country but as this paper tries to catch global trends and not party specific dynamics, we decided to use the mean of the attention in the different ethnoregionalist parties manifestos dedicated to the issue within each country. As a result, the figures showed here can originate either from one party (in the Finnish case for all the measured elections) up to seven parties (for example, in the Spanish case for the 2000 national elections). Further research should be done to measure the issue attention differentials between parties
6
Even though parties belonging to different party families often do not share the same opinion regarding decentralisation (Swenden, 2006).
within each national case. Indistinctly, the overall trend seems to be an increase of this issue 7, starting in the early 60s, with a noticeable stagnation in the 80s and 90s. Graph 1: References to decentralisation in the ethno-regionalist parties’ manifestos 20
18
16
14
12 FIN BEL ITA ESP
10
8
6
4
2
03
01
20
99
20
97
19
19
93
95
19
91
19
89
19
19
85
87
19
83
19
81
19
19
77
79
19
75
19
73
19
71
19
19
67
69
19
65
19
63
19
61
19
59
19
57
19
55
19
53
19
51
19
49
19
47
19
19
19
45
0
Compared to the ethno-regionalist parties, the manifestos of the other party families also show an increased interest in the issue of ‘self-government’ or decentralisation. Similarly to the case of the ethno-regionalist parties, other party families also increased their positive attention to this theme in the early 60s and it has been since then relatively stable in the manifestos (especially in the 80s and 90s). However, if an overall similarity with ethno-regionalist parties is noticeable, the scale is completely different as only few manifestos go above 4% of positive reference to increased autonomy. Graph 2 : References to decentralisation in state-wide parties’ manifestos
7
Contrary to previous analyses, the addition of the new data for 1998-2003 totally changed the overall trends. With the calculation of the tendency curve (polynomial, order 2), we first observed a concave curve, meaning that the importance of the issue of decentralisation was decreasing in the 90s. The relatively small number of cases (n) explains that any additional manifesto data may totally reverse the trend of the curve.
7
6
5
4
FIN BEL ITA ESP
3
2
1
03
01
20
99
20
97
19
19
93
95
19
91
19
89
19
19
85
87
19
83
19
81
19
19
77
79
19
75
19
73
19
71
19
19
67
69
19
65
19
63
19
61
19
59
19
57
19
55
19
53
19
51
19
49
19
47
19
19
19
45
0
If one calculates the tendency curves 8 (polynomial, order 2) with these data points, this trend is confirmed in the case of Finland and Spain (see Graph 3). However, and surprisingly, the data for Belgium show a tendency to decrease at the end of the observed period. This is especially explained by the ‘poor’ result of the 1999 and 2003 in terms of positive references to autonomy and decentralisation among the non- ethno-regionalist Belgian parties. Graph 3 : References to decentralisation in other party families manifestos (with tendency curves)
8
The reliability of the tendency curves are heavily depending on the number of cases. For Italy, the three coded elections did not allow us to draw valid tendency curves that rely on long term evolutions, compared to Finland (17 cases), Belgium (14 cases) and Spain (8 cases).
7
6
5
4
3
R2 = 0,2921 R2 = 0,4652
2 R2 = 0,2155 1
FIN BEL ITA ESP Polynomial (FIN) Polynomial (BEL) Polynomial (ESP)
03
01
20
99
20
19
95
97
19
93
19
91
19
89
19
19
85
87
19
83
19
81
19
79
19
77
19
75
19
19
71
73
19
69
19
67
19
65
19
19
61
63
19
59
19
57
19
55
19
19
51
53
19
49
19
47
19
19
19
45
0
-1
-2
-3
-4
In sum, we have gathered the data for 42 national elections where at least one ethno-regionalist party’s manifesto was coded. On the average, the ethno-regionalist parties dedicate 6,71% of the total content of their manifesto to positive references to decentralisation. It is more than the triple of the score of the ‘traditional’ parties: in average, only 2,12% of their manifesto deal with positive references to decentralisation and devolution. However, the overall picture is not homogeneous. The SFP (Swedish People’s Party) was not the leading Finnish party in terms of positive attention dedicated to autonomy and self-government. Not only this party did not pay any attention to this issue before 1958, but it was often exceeded by another party: the SK (Finnish Center) devoted for example 14,17% in 1979 and 16,33% in 1983 of the total content of its manifesto to the decentralisation theme. In Belgium, the percentage of self-government references inside ethno-regionalist parties’ manifestos is always higher than in other parties’ manifestos with the exception of the 1991 election where the PS (French-speaking Socialist Party) and PRL (French-speaking Liberal Party) exceed the score of the two ethno-regionalist parties (VU and FDF). The Spanish and Italian cases are nonetheless unambiguous: in all cases, the ethno-regionalist parties scored better than any of the other party families taken together.
3. Second dimension: Left-Right The position of ethno-regionalist parties on a hypothetical left-right axis is to be found often in the literature. The underlying question is generally whether or not it is possible to locate ethnoregionalist parties on this axis or merely that their different ideological nature does not take into account this left-right dimension. The latter approach is to be found in the observations of Muller-Rommel (1991) that considers ethno-regionalist parties as ‘detached small parties’, that is parties that cannot be classified on a left-right axis. On the contrary, other authors argue that the location of the ethno-regionalist parties on the left-right dimension can be approached, but also that their observed position is so widespread that it is impossible to draw any general conclusion (Delwit, 2005; Seiler, 2005). Even if this phenomenon does not concern the majority of the
ethno-regionalist parties, some of them can be found on both extreme points of the axis. More generally, ethno-regionalist parties can be found at every possible place on this dimension. In addition, according to Seiler (2005), when located on a left-right dimension, ethno-regionalist parties tend to disappear as an autonomous category. They constitute the most widespread political family on this axis. On the contrary, some authors (De Winter, 1998; Gomez-Reino et al., 2006) argued that some patterns of ideological location can be found. Limiting to socio-economic aspects of the left-right axis, they analysed the location on this dimension of the studied ethno-regionalist parties. They observed that the majority of the ethno-regionalist parties belong to the left or center-left and that only a few of them can be positioned somewhere else (he identified only few Christian democrats, right-populist or extreme-right ethno-regionalist parties parties). They also remarked that right-wing ethno-regionalist parties have a higher tendency to be included and participate into governments than left-wing parties. But it should also be noticed that the position on this dimension is not always consistent because some ethno-regionalist parties tend to change their left-right location across time. For example, the Belgian VU moved from the right wing of the left-right axis in the 50s to the left-wing in the 90s. As a result, even if global patterns can be found, we can hardly speak of a single and homogeneous location of ethno-regionalist parties on the left-right cleavage as in the case of other party families. This leads us to another hypothesis: H 2 : The manifestos of the ethno-regionalist parties are less homogeneous than the one of other parties on the left-right dimension In order to measure to ideological position of ethno-regionalist parties on a left-right dimension, we used the left-right index developed by the CMP project. Contrary to De Winter, this index does not only take into account socio-economic arguments but also, for example, law and order and international peace issues 9. The overall saliency regarding these issues and the policy orientation can be assessed by looking at the strength and at the sign of the index’s results. A party reaching a result of 20 can be said to be a right-wing party. A party having an index of -5 can be labelled as a center-left party. Graph 4 allows us to visualise the position of the studied ethno-regionalist parties above (right-wing party) and below (left-wing party) the axis. We observe a small tendency to have more left-wing than right-wing parties but, generally, the ethno-regionalist parties seem to be spread all over the left-right dimension (see for example the position of the Finnish SFP). Graph 4 : Left-right position of ethno-regionalist parties’ manifestos
9
For a detailed explanation of the construction of the left-right index used in the case of manifestos, see Laver and Budge (1992).
30
20
10
-10
-20
03
01
20
99
20
19
95
97
19
93
19
91
19
89
19
19
85
87
19
83
19
81
19
19
77
79
19
75
19
73
19
71
19
19
67
69
19
65
19
63
19
61
19
19
57
59
19
55
19
53
19
19
49
51
19
47
19
19
19
45
0
FIN BEL ITA ESP
-30
-40
-50
-60
Including a tendency curve in the graphical representation (Graph 5), we observe a convex tendency, meaning that, in the case of Finland and Belgium, ethno-regionalist parties went from the center-right to the left until the 70s and then moved to the center-right again at the end of the studied period. With the help of a order 4 tendency curve (see Graph 6), we observe a more complex but still parallel pattern of evolution. Ethno-regionalist parties moved to the centre-right in the 40s and 50s, then moved to the center-left in the 60s and 70s, back to the center in the 80s and show since then a complex pattern. This last observed period (years 90s and 2000s) is even more hard to analyse as we can notice the presence of globally center-left Spanish ethnoregionalist parties and right-wing Italian ethno-regionalist parties. Graph 5 : Left-right position of ethno-regionalist parties’ manifestos (with order 2 tendency curves)
30
20
10 R2 = 0,2378 0
01
03
20
99
20
97
19
95
19
19
91
93
19
89
19
87
19
19
83
85
19
81
19
79
19
19
75
77
19
73
19
19
69
71
19
19
65
67
19
63
19
61
19
59
19
57
19
55
19
53
19
19
49
51
19
47
19
19
19
45
R2 = 0,0289
-10
-20
FIN BEL ITA ESP Polynomial (FIN) Polynomial (BEL)
-30
-40
-50
-60
Graph 6 : Left-right position of ethno-regionalist parties’ manifestos (with order 4 tendency curves) 30
20
10
0
03
20
01
20
99
19
97
95
19
19
93
19
91
19
89
87
19
19
85
19
83
19
81
79
19
19
77
19
75
73
19
19
71
69
19
19
67
19
65
19
63
19
61
19
59
19
57
19
55
53
19
19
51
19
49
19
47
19
19
45
R2 = 0,4946
-10 R2 = 0,4221 -20
FIN BEL ITA ESP Polynomial (FIN) Polynomial (BEL)
-30
-40
-50
-60
Unsurprisingly, when comparing the results with the position on the left-right axis of the manifestos of other party families for the same countries and elections, we observe less variance. Besides a few exceptions (mainly in the 90s), the average position of the other parties can be said
to be between the center-right wing and the center-left wing of the axis (see Graph 7). In general, there are no tendencies that can be derived from this graph representation, probably because political parties are too country-specific (diverging evolution patterns for Belgium and Finland are noticeable). In addition, the average positions of all major Spanish parties are all on the center-left (sometimes even left-wing) of the axis while the average points for the Italian parties are on the right-wing (except for the 2001 elections that locate these parties on the center) of the dimension. Graph 7 : Left-right position of other parties manifestos 30
20
10
03
01
20
99
20
19
95
97
19
93
19
91
19
89
19
19
85
87
19
83
19
81
19
19
77
79
19
75
19
73
19
71
19
19
67
69
19
65
19
63
19
61
19
19
57
59
19
55
19
53
19
19
49
51
19
47
19
19
19
45
0
FIN BEL ITA ESP
-10
-20
-30
Each election taken separately, we can observe that the manifestos of the ethno-regionalist parties are slightly more to the left than other party families (in 22 cases out of the 42 analysed elections). This is confirmed by comparing the global averages: the index indicates a result of 6.12 for ethno-regionalist parties while it reaches -2.99 for other party families. Both Italian and Spanish (with the exception of the 90s elections) ethno-regionalist parties are more on the left than their national counterparts among other families, while there are no clear patterns as far as the Belgian and Finnish cases are concerned. Nonetheless, these results are heavily influenced by the presence of extreme values, as the value of the index for the Finnish SVP in 1966 (-53.66) and 1970 (-41.01) 10. Surprisingly, this party was also the one more to the right-wing as it reached 21.28 in 1948, followed by the Italian LN with 18.68 in 2001.
4. Europe The European integration process is usually conceived as a threat to the nation-state and to subnational entities. Their relative power is downplayed by the subsequent delegation of 10
This situation also occurred for other elections (for example in 1972 and 1987), but it is not the only case in Europe. During the 1977 and 1979 Spanish elections, ethno-regionalist parties were also clearly located to the left as they reached an average index of respectively -24.01 and -21.74.
competencies to the European level. Nonetheless, many authors viewed the EU as a resource rather than as a limitation for regions and sub-state levels. The European integration is therefore seen as a positive opportunity for ethno-regionalist parties (De Winter, 2001; Jolly, 2006). The ethno-regionalist parties should be in favour of this integration process and should be pro-EU in general as it offers added value on terms of positions (seats in the EU Parliament and Committee of the Regions), votes 11 and policy (empowerment of the regional actors and development of the EU regional policy, mainly through structural funds). It is assessed that the European integration did not transform the ethno-regionalist parties into anti-EU parties but rather into pro-EU parties (De Winter, 2001). Previous empirical studies confirmed this hypothesis. Ray (1999) studied the relationship between EU and different party families, and among them the ethno-regionalist parties’ family. With the help of expert surveys, he observed that, during the 1984-1996 period, the ethnoregionalist parties’ family was more pro-EU than any other party family (especially between 1984 and 1988). In addition, the ethno-regionalist parties’ family is also becoming more and more pro-EU across time. He nonetheless noticed that, with the exception of the green parties, every party family became also more pro-EU 12. Using the same kind of data, Jolly (2007) observed that, on the 1984-2002 period, ethno-regionalist parties are still more pro-EU than antiEU (even when distinguishing per sub-theme) and above the other party families’ average. Ethno-regionalist parties are therefore more pro-EU than some party families as the greens, the extreme-right and the extreme-left, while still less pro-EU than the christian-democrats, the social democrats and the liberals. The ethno-regionalist family is labelled as a consistent ‘family’ on the EU issue as its supports to European integration does not vary across time and across country. This family is said to be the most homogeneous in terms of standard deviations regarding the UE issue (Ray, 1999). Regarding electoral manifestos more specifically, Gomez-Reino et al. (2006) observed a convergence among ethno-regionalist parties concerning the European integration issue. If the average trend is the one of a positive attitude towards EU in the electoral programs and if some ethno-regionalist parties moved from a euro-sceptical position to a positive one regarding Europe, some of them still remains clearly anti-EU. Nonetheless, we may affirm that, taken together: H 3 : The manifestos of the ethno-regionalist parties are more pro-EU than other parties manifestos We can go step further. As the European integration seems to have foster pro-EU feelings in the case of the ethno-regionalist parties, these authors argue that the integration process was accompanied by an increase of these feelings. In other words, we could hypothesise that the deeper the integration of the EU, the stronger the pro-EU feelings the ethno-regionalist parties should have. We do not expect the relation between these two phenomena to be linear but simply that some parallel trends in time could be observed. The categories of the Comparative Manifesto Project dealing with the EU issues can be divided into two distinct ones. The first one refers positively to European integration while the second 11
The EU as an electoral opportunity was analysed by Jolly (2006) that empirically observed that the larger the European integration, the higher are the electoral successes of the ethno-regionalist parties. In this regard, ethnoregionalist parties have no choice but to become pro-EU as it would be a guarantee of further electoral success. 12 Ray also remarked that if one takes into account in the analyses only the countries where a ethno-regionalist party exists, the social-democrat family is more pro-EU than the ethno-regionalist family.
concerns all negative references to this European integration. As a result, we are not only able to measure the saliency (relative weight) of the EU integration issue in the observed manifestos, but these two categories also allows us to build an index of orientation of the manifesto in this issue. According, to Graph 8, we observe that ethno-regionalist parties’ manifestos dedicate a significant part of their content to EU issues. Nonetheless, not a single reference could be found in any of the manifestos of the Finnish political parties before 1991, so we decided to exclude these elections’ data, leaving 29 elections points in the database. The references to EU integration are mainly positive with the sole exception of the Belgian VU in 1961 that dedicated 1.46% of its manifesto to negative references while only 1.05% of its content concerned positive evaluation of this issue. In average, 3.34% of ethno-regionalist parties' manifestos deal with the EU issue, that is mainly positively (3.03%) and poorly negatively (0.31%). The ethno-regionalist parties that deal the more with the EU integration are the Spanish ones in 1996 with 6.31% followed by the Italian LN in the same election year with 5.95%. In addition, we notice that the tendency curve for Belgian ethno-regionalist parties has an interesting shape, as the overall interest for EU grew in de 60s, decreased in the 80s and grew again at the end of the 90s. No tendency curve could be calculated for the other countries as their R² is too low and the data points are too widespread and do not indicate a clear tendency. As a result, no parallelism in time can draw between the growing integration process and the references made by ethno-regionalist parties to Europe. Graph 8 : References to EU integration in ethno-regionalist parties’ manifestos (with order 3 tendency curve) 7
6
5
4
R2 = 0,2875
3
FIN BEL ITA ESP Polynomial (BEL)
2
1
01
99
97
95
93
91
89
87
85
83
81
79
77
75
73
71
69
67
65
63
03 20
20
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
61
0
-1
As far as the content of the other party families’ manifestos is concerned, we observe that EU integration is an issue that can be found in every country and at every election (see Graph 9). In average, they dedicate 2.51% of their total content to this issue, that is about 25% less than ethno-regionalist parties’ manifestos. But when distinguishing the positive from the negative
references, we observe that other parties are less negative towards European integration: only 0.12% of negative references (compared to the 0.31% of the ethno-regionalist parties). But they also deal relatively less positively with EU than the ethno-regionalist parties because positive references to the EU integration concerns only 2.39% of the total content of their manifestos. However, binary comparisons of the ethno-regionalist parties with other party families indicate that ethno-regionalist parties do not overpass state-wide parties on the EU issues as they are superior to these parties in only 15 out of the 29 analysed elections. This superiority of statewide parties on ethno-regionalist parties concerning this issue is mainly due to the Belgian cases and the more recent elections in Italy and Finland. Independently on the election year, the Spanish ethno-regionalist parties always dedicate more attention to EU integration than the average of all other Spanish parties. The overall tendency of the data seems to be quite stable in time, as it indicates, with the observed exception of the Belgian case, an increase of the references to EU in the 90s and 2000s (even though the curve is quasi horizontal). Graph 9 : References to EU integration in other parties manifestos (with order 2 tendency curve) 6
5
R2 = 0,1918 4
FIN BEL ITA ESP Polynomial (BEL)
3
2
1
01
99
97
95
93
91
89
87
85
83
81
79
77
75
73
71
69
67
65
63
03 20
20
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
61
0
Conclusion The observed results of this analysis are to be taken cautiously. Indeed, there are several methodological limitations we have to keep in mind when trying to analyse the content of the manifestos of ethno-regionalist parties in Europe with the help of the CMP database. In this regard, too few cases have been encoded and probably do not represent the overall situation of this specific family of parties in Europe. This is partly explained by the biases that occurred in the case selection (during the selection of relevant political parties and, if any, for too few elections) and that are common to every scientific work using the same database. One solution to increase the validity of the available data would be obviously to gather information on more ethno-regionalist parties – but the question of the case selection still remains open as no
unambiguous criteria could be found – or to analyse the manifestos for elections at other levels, at the regional level for example when they do not coincide with the national ones. This increase of the number of cases would probably allow us to use more complex statistics instead of merely trends analysis. The problem of using data originating from regional elections is the one of the second-order elections. Usually, state-wide parties conceive the regional elections as second-order elections (Swenden, 2006). Second-order elections are not only characterised by simultaneity with other elections, a lower turnout rate or an electoral sanction of the governing parties, but also by a different emphasis on issues. The less different the content of the manifestos of state-wide parties, the more we can postulate that they consider the regional elections as second-order ones. In addition, we could expect that the electors vote less for ethno-regionalist parties at national elections as these parties could relatively influence less the national government when compared to other party families. Therefore, the issue of decentralisation should be even higher in ethnoregionalist parties’ manifestos for regional elections than for the national ones. The same question applies for the state-wide parties Do they stress more on this issue when dealing with regional elections as the electoral campaign is supposed to be more polarized for regional elections? As we have seen, the content analysis technique is far to be perfect. Reducing the content of each sentence of a party manifesto to a single code out of 56 categories reduce drastically the coded information. In this regard, the comparison of the above analysed dimensions is difficult as the decentralisation and the European ones are based on two codes made of respectively positive and negative references to the object – creating an index made of two directional codes – and as the left-right dimension is based on a complex index of several unidirectional and directional codes. This is why we had to stay at the level of dimensional trends and not to use systematic general comparisons. Nonetheless, our basic hypotheses were partially verified. As expected, we can without a doubt declare that the content of the manifestos of the ethno-regionalist parties is different from the ones of other parties. We more specifically verified this assertion using three main dimensions based on the literature and previous empirical studies. First of all, the decentralisation or autonomy issue is clearly a theme that belongs to the ethno-regionalist parties (H.1a), with the exception of Finland. However, this superiority in terms of space dedicated to this issue inside the manifestos of the ethno-regionalist parties is more or less threatened by the other parties. Not only their attention to the decentralisation issue is stagnating after decades of growth, but other parties seem to have been ‘contaminated’ by the issue (H.1b). We observe that other parties, indistinctly of the countries, used the same issue of decentralisation in their manifestos, with the same tendency to stagnate in the last decades. The second dimension concerned the left-right axis. We observe that the ethno-regionalist parties are, as expected, widespread on this dimension (H.2) but that a centre-left tendency is observed. The analysed ethno-regionalist parties seem to be slightly more on the left than the average of the other parties – this is well exemplified by the cases of Spain and Italy, except in the last years – but no general trends can be clearly derived form any of the two groups of parties. Finally, the European dimension allows us to distinguish between ethno-regionalist parties and other party families. Not only these ethno-regionalist parties deal with the issue of Europe in their manifesto (they could have focus solely on regional or even national issues) but, in the average, they dedicate more positive attention to it than the other parties all together (H3). The Spanish case is in this regard an ideal-type. However, and contrarily to our expectations, the variation in time
and across country of this attention is too large. Instead of ‘following’ the process of the EU integration, the evolution patterns of the different ethno-regionalist parties are diverging. The linearity of these evolutions has obviously not been noticed but it is also impossible to speak about a parallelism between EU integration process and the pro-EU feelings of the ethnoregionalist parties. The question of the existence of a distinct ethno-regionalist party family is yet to be answered. When analysing the content of the manifestos of 12 European ethno-regionalist parties, we observe that their position of the three identified dimensions is quite diverse, especially in the case of the left-right dimension. Even if there is a clear tendency for these parties to emphasize more the presence of the European issue than other party family do, there is so much variance in time and across country in our observations regarding these two dimensions that we can hardly argue that the ethno-regionalist family is homogenous. Apart from the clear and unambiguous emphasis on the decentralisation /autonomy dimension, the basic hypothesis of a distinct ethnoregionalist ideology is not confirmed. Some interesting trends regarding the left-right and European dimensions were observed but definitely not significant enough to argue in favour of a homogenous ethno-regionalist family. However, this homogeneity can be relative as it was compared to the average of the state-wide parties. Among those, we can find various different party families such as the greens, the social-democrats, the liberals, etc. We can probably observe homogeneity differences among the state-wide parties when regrouping them per party family. This hypothesis is yet to be tested by checking for the standard deviations among each party family.
References Brown David, Contemporary Nationalism. Civic, Ethnocultural and Multicultural Politics, London & New York, Routledge, 2000. Budge Ian, Klingemann Hans-Dieter, Volkens Andrea, Bara Judith and Tanenbaum Eric, Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors and Governments, 1945-1998, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001. Caciagli Mario, Regioni d’Europa. Devoluzioni, regionalismi, integrazione europea. Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006. Connor Walker, Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994. Dandoy Régis, De Winter Lieven, “L’analyse des programmes électoraux des partis”, paper presented to the Conference JJDD, workshop n° 3 “Comment gouverner la sécurité sociale ? Perspectives institutionnelles”, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 15-17 December 2005, 16 p. Della Porta Donatella, La Politica Locale. Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006. Delwit Pascal, « Petites patries, petits partis ? Les partis régionalistes en Europe », in Delwit P. (Ed.), Les partis régionalistes en Europe. Des acteurs en développement ?, Ed. de l’Université de Bruxelles, Brussels, 2005, pp. 7-20.
De Winter Lieven, « Conclusion: a comparative analysis of the electoral office and policy success of ethnoregionalist parties », in De Winter L., Türsan H. (eds.), Regionalist parties in Western Europe, London, Routledge, 1998, pp. 204-247. De Winter Lieven, The impact of European integration on ethnoregionalist parties, Working Paper n° 195, Institut de Cièences Politiques i Socials, Barcelona, 2001. Duverger Maurice, Political parties: their organization and activity in the modern state, London, Metheun, 1954. Gellner Ernest, Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1983. Gomez-Reino Margarita, De Winter Lieven, Lynch Peter, “Conclusion: the Future Study of Autonomist and Regionalist Parties”, in De Winter L., Gomez-Reino M, Lynch P (Eds.), Autonomist parties in Europe: Identity politics and the revival of the territorial cleavage, ICPS, Barcelona, 2006, pp. 247-269. Jolly Seth, “Another Reason To Party? European Integration and Regionalist Political Parties”, Working Paper, University of Chicago, October 2006. Jolly Seth, “The Europhile Fringe ? Regionalist Party Support for European Integration”, in European Union Politics, vol. 8 (1), 2007, pp. 109-130. Katz Richard, Mair Peter, “Changing models of party organization and party democracy. The Emergence of the cartel party”, in Party Politics, 1995, 1 (1), 17-21. Kirchheimer Otto, “The transformation of the Western European party system”, in LaPalombara J., Weiner M. (Eds), Political parties and political development, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1966, pp.177-200. Klingemann Hans-Dieter, Volkens Andrea, Bara Judith, Budge Ian, McDonald Michael, Mapping Policy Preferences II. Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments in Eastern Europe, European Union and OECD, 1990-2003, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, 267 p. Laver Michael, Budge Ian (Eds.), Party Policy and Government Coalitions, MacMillan Press, Houndmills, Hampshire, 1992. Lipset Seymour Martin, Rokkan Stein, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-national Perspectives, New York, Free Press, 1967. Lynch Peter, Minority nationalism and European Integration, Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 1996. Mair Peter, “La trasformazione del partito di massa in Europa” in Calise Massimo (Ed.), Come cambiano i partiti, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1992, pp.99-120. Mair Peter (Ed.), The West European Party Systems, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990
Montabes Pereira Juan, Ortega Villodres Carmen, Pérez Nieto Enrique G., «Sistemi elettorali e voto ai partiti regionalisti in Europa occidentale», Quaderni dell'Osservatorio Elettorale, n° 51, June 2004, pp. 53-79 Müller-Rommel Ferdinand, “Small Parties in Comparative Perspective: The State of the Art”, in Müller-Rommel F., Pridham G. (Eds), Small Parties in Western Europe, Sage Pub., London, 1991, pp. 1-22. Neumann Sigmund, Modern political parties, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1956. Panebianco Angelo, Political Parties. Organization and Power, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988 Rasmussen Jorgen, “They Also Serve: Small Parties in the British Political System”, in MüllerRommel F., Pridham G. (Eds), Small Parties in Western Europe, Sage Pub., London, 1991, pp. 152-173. Ray Leonard, “Measuring Party Orientations towards European Integration: Results from an Expert Survey”, in European Journal of Political Research, 36 (2), 1999, pp. 283-306. Rokkan Stein, Urwin Derek, The Politics of Territorial Identity: Studies in European Regionalism, London, Sage, 1982. Rokkan Stein, Urwin Derek, Economy, Territory, Identity, Sage Pub., London, 1983. Sandri Giulia, “Minority nationalist parties and the challenges of political representation: the case of Union Valdôtaine”, paper presented to the conference From Protest to Institutions: Minority Nationalist Parties and the Challenges of Political Representation, Aberystwyth, UK, 27-29 October 2006, 35 p. Seiler Daniel-Louis, “Défendre la périphérie », in Delwit P. (Ed.), Les partis régionalistes en Europe. Des acteurs en développement ?, Ed. de l’Université de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, 2005, pp. 21-50. Smith Gordon, “In Search of Small Parties: Problems of Definition, Classification and Significance”, in Müller-Rommel F., Pridham G. (Eds), Small Parties in Western Europe, Sage Pub., London, 1991, pp. 23-40. Swenden Wilfried, Federalism and Regionalism in Western Europe. A comparative and Thematic Analysis, Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2006. Swyngedouw Marc, Billiet Jaak, Goeminne Bart (Eds.), De kiezer onderzocht. De Verkiezingen van 2003 en 2004 in Vlaanderen, Leuven, Universitaire Pers, 2007. Tronconi Filippo, “Identità etnica e competizione politica. Un’analisi del voto ai partiti etnoregionalisti in Europa occidentale”, Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, vol. 35, n. 1, 2005, pp.77-106 Türsan Huri, “Introduction: Ethnoregionalist parties as ethnic entrepreneurs”, in De Winter L., Türsan H. (Eds.), Regionalist parties in Western Europe, London, Routledge, 1998, pp. 1-16.
Volkens Andrea, “Manifesto coding instructions”, in WZB Discussion papers FS III 02-201, Wissenschaftzentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Berlin, 2002. Wolinetz Steven, “Beyond the Catch-all Party: Approaches to the Study of Parties and Party Organization in Contemporary Democracies”, in Linz Juan, Montero Jose Ramon and Gunther Richard (eds), The Future of Political Parties? Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 136165.
