Hanspeter Kriesi, EUI ITANES-Università die Siena, November 13, 2017 The Great Recession: a critical juncture for the structuration of European party systems? Hanspeter Kriesi, EUI ITANES-Università die Siena, November 13, 2017

….everybody is talking about populism today… ….but populism is only of secondary importance for the structuration of party systems….

Questions Did the Great Recession constitute a critical juncture for the structuration of national party systems in Europe? Did it give rise to a transformation of the European party systems or did it leave them unchanged? In functionalist terms: did it serve as a catalyst for reinforcing long-term trends towards a ‘partyless democracy’ (Mair 2013), or did it reverse these trends in favor of the mainstream parties? In structuralist terms: did it transform the dimensionality and the configuration of the party space? Did it reverse the increasing relevance of cultural issues?

Overview Pre-existing structure of the national party systems Economic crisis and political crisis: latent potentials of grievances and their mobilization Contingent factors: timing of the crisis, strategy of opponents, composition of incumbents Structuration of conflict in the party space: the outcome of crisis politics

Pre-existing structures in the three regions Northwestern Europe: Highly institutionalized party systems Subject to long-term processes of change as a result of two waves of mobilization (by New Left and New Right) Tripolar party systems Southern Europe: Bipolar party systems with Weak roots in the social structure: vulnerable to external shocks New Left and New Right: weak or non-existent Central- and Eastern Europe: Little institutionalized: lack of social roots, high levels of volatility Post-communist left vs fragmented right rooted in anti-communism A variety of more or less short-lived new parties, but no New Left

Pre-existing structures: varia-tion within the three regions Northwestern Europe: established New Right: Austria, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland ‘catching up’: Germany and the UK no New Right: Ireland Southern Europe: Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain Spain (Italy): regional conflicts Central- and Eastern Europe: Poland, Hungary: more stable party competition Latvia, Romania: less stable party competition

Economic crisis and olitical crisis crisis situation – a latent political potential: economic and political grievances political crisis: the result of political mobilization Bottom-up: encompassing (Indignados) vs group-specific/local Top-down: ‘movement parties’ (M5S) vs mainstream opposition parties (Fidesz), executives (Romanian/Latvian Presidents) Combination of the two: e.g. by way of referendum (Greece) Two kinds of political crises: crisis of representation: erosion of mainstream parties Legitimacy crisis: wholesale rejection of established political elites crisis outcomes: restructuration of party competition

Political crisis Indicators for political crisis: Decline of turnout Erosion of mainstream parties’ vote shares Electoral volatility Fragmentation: effective number of parties Polarization: variance of party positioning on key issues Pre-crisis elections (2000s) vs crisis elections (2008-2015)

Political crisis

Political crisis Country-specific variation: NWE: countries with established New Right (A, CH, F, NL) and ‘catching up’ countries (GER, UK): limited crisis Ireland: profound political crisis SE: Portugal: limited crisis Greece, Italy, Spain: profound political crisis CEE: Poland, Romania: limited crisis Hungary, Latvia: profound political crisis

Contingent factors: timing and opposition strategy Timing of economic crisis: gradual deterioration vs sudden shock Gradual: less visible, more insidious, difficult to attribute responsibility Opposition strategy: accomodating vs adversarial Accomodating: mainstream opposition supporting the austerity measures/moderate challengers Adversarial: mainstream opposition exploiting the economic crisis to create a political crisis/radical challengers Expectation: political crisis is unlikely, if economic deterioration is gradual and the opposition is accomodating political crisis is likely in any other combination

Contingent factors: timing and opposition strategy Countries hit hard by the economic crisis in SE, CEE (+Ireland)

Contingent factors: government composition Composition of the government at the time of the crisis: Roberts (2013): Latin-American neoliberal structural adjustment programs lead to… political crisis (i.e. de-alignment of party systems and rise of the radical left), if implemented by mainstream left no political crisis (i.e. alignment of party systems), if implemented by mainstream right Roberts (2017): can be applied to SE …. and to other countries in CEE and even in NWE

Contingent factors: government composition

Contingent factors: government composition

Contingent factors: government composition Country-specific variation within regions: SE: losses of mainstream left much bigger in Greece and Spain than in Italy and Portugal CEE: destruction of the post-communist left in Poland (before the crisis) and Hungary (during the crisis), but not in Latvia (was in opposition) and not in Romania (cohabitation in semi-presidential system) NWE: lasting heavy punishment of centre-left as minority partner (GER, IRE, NET, UK (Liberal democrats) and SWI)

Contingent factors: government composition

Structuration of conflicts in the space of party competition Dominant conflicts: NWE: economic+cultural conflicts (accentuation of long-term trends, limited pol crisis) Representation crisis is articulated in substantive terms Reinforced polarization on economic and cultural issues SE: economic+political conflicts (economic+deep political crisis) Deep political crisis gives rise to mobilization of concerns around corruption/democratic renewal CEE: cultural+political conflicts (political crisis) Economic issues are salient, but not structuring: valence issues Corruption is a key issue, but also a valence issue Reframing of economic conflict in nationalistic terms: defensive nationalism (against internal and external enemies)

Structuration of conflicts Underlying structure: NWE: little change, but increasing differentiation along the cultural axis SE: bipolar alignment of economic and cultural issues is replaced by alignment on economic and political issues CEE: surprising stability, even consolidation, with cultural conflicts (cultural liberals vs conservative nationalists) contributing most of the structuring capacity

Structuration of conflicts Variation within NWE: Countries with established New Right: increasing polarization, driven by the New Right New Right does not systematically shift towards welfare protectionism Countries with rising New Right (GER, UK): Rise of the New Right closely linked to euro crisis Ireland: not much change, in spite of seismic developments 2016 elections: ‘elections that nobody won’ Economic issues dominate, no second dimension

Structuration of conflicts Variation within CEE: Poland: stabilization of a two-party system, increasingly divided by cultural issues Nationalism: ‘us’ (‘true’ Poles) vs ‘them’ (‘second sort’ of citizens) Hungary: stable underlying structure, but massive quantitative change Destruction of post-communists Rise of Fidesz and Jobbik Latvia: stable structure, dominated by ethnic conflict and nationalism: ethnic Latvian neo-liberal parties vs Russian post-communists Romania: stable underlying structure, but high instability of ideological structure Nationalistic post-communists: against EU+neoliberalism Key role of semi-presidential system and polarizing President

Structuration of conflicts Variation within SE: quantitative indicators may be deceptive Greece: ‘paradigmatic case’ of a profound transformation: destruction of PASOK, rise of Syriza, doubling of the number of parties, bailout/political renewal: new structuring dimension and yet: after 5 crisis elections, return to a bipolar structure Spain: from a stable imperfect bi-partisan system to a fluid multi-party system political renewal (aligned with economic issues): key issue – centre-right vs centre-left+new parties territorial conflict: second dimension reinvigorated

Structuration of conflicts Portugal: qualitative change in a seemingly stable system Political renewal (aligned with economic issues): centre-right vs centre-left+New Left System remains bipolar, but increasing polarization+new coalition Italy: from a bipolar, unidimensional structure into a multipolar, two-dimensional conflict space Democratic renewal becomes the second dimension Lack of structure: convergence of mainstream parties on economic issues and lack of programmatic substance of new challenger

Structuration of conflicts

Conclusion Question: the Great Recession – a critical juncture? The short answer: yes in SE, no in NWE/CEE The best answer: it is too early to tell Contingent nature of transformation: timing, strategy and the type of incumbents The drivers: New Right (NWE) vs New left (SE) vs mainstream (CEE) The role of populism in this story: The challengers from the New Right and the New Left are populists, but their ‘host ideology’ matters more for the structuration Where they lack a host ideology: de-structuring effect The telling case of Greece: underwent a ‘perfect storm’, mobilized by the most populist parties in Europe, but after the storm, the new configuration looks very much like the old one

Thank you for your attention!