1. 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

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

3. 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?

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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 ( )

9. Political crisis

10. 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

11. 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

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

13. 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

14. Contingent factors: government composition

15. Contingent factors: government composition

16. 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)

17. Contingent factors: government composition

18. 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)

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. Structuration of conflicts

25. 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

26. Thank you for your attention!