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Second Edition
Alan Siaroff
Second edition published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Alan Siaroff
The right of Alan Siaroff to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2000
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Siaroff, Alan, author.
Title: Comparative European party systems : an analysis of parliamentary
elections since 1945 / Alan Siaroff.
Description: Second edition. | New York : Routledge, 2019. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018035916 | ISBN 9781138888050 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781138888098 (paperback) | ISBN 9781315713694 (master
ebook) | ISBN 9781317498773 (web pdf) | ISBN 9781317498766
(ePub) | ISBN 9781317498759 (mobipocket/kindle)
Subjects: LCSH: Political parties—Europe. | Europe—Politics and
government—1945–
Classification: LCC JN50 .S57 2019 | DDC 324.2094—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018035916
ISBN: 978-1-138-88805-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-88809-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71369-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
In memory of my parents, whose lives covered
almost all of the years under analysis here.
CONTENTS CONTENTSCONTENTS
List of illustrations xi
Non-party abbreviations and acronyms xvi
PART I
Comparative analysis 1
2 Data on elections 29
PART II
Individual case analyses of longstanding
democratic polities 169
Andorra171
Austria174
viii Contents
Belgium181
Flanders189
Bulgaria192
Croatia199
Denmark221
Estonia235
Finland240
France249
Corsica267
Germany270
Greece280
Hungary287
Iceland293
Italy310
Latvia326
Contents ix
Liechtenstein334
Lithuania339
Luxembourg345
Malta351
Montenegro356
Norway370
Poland377
Portugal386
Romania392
Serbia409
Slovakia414
Slovenia423
Spain431
Catalonia444
Sweden450
Switzerland459
Turkey467
x Contents
Scotland494
Wales498
PART III
Individual case analyses of oscillating regimes 513
Albania515
Armenia520
Bosnia-Herzegovina524
Georgia528
Kosovo534
Macedonia538
Moldova543
Monaco549
Russia552
Ukraine561
ILLUSTRATIONS ILLUSTRATIONSILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
21.1 Germany: 2014 placement of parties on socio-economic
left-right and LEC-TAN dimensions 275
33.1 Netherlands: 2014 placement of parties on socio-economic
left-right and LEC-TAN dimensions 364
35.1 Poland: 2014 placement of parties on socio-economic left-right
and LEC-TAN dimensions 383
37.1 Romania: 2006 placement of parties on socio-economic
left-right and LEC-TAN dimensions 396
40.1 Slovakia: 2014 placement of parties on socio-economic left-right
and LEC-TAN dimensions 418
42.1 Spain: 2014 placement of parties on socio-economic left-right
and LEC-TAN dimensions 437
45.1 Sweden: 2014 placement of parties on socio-economic left-right
and LEC-TAN dimensions 456
52.1 European Parliament party groups on two dimensions 508
61.1 Russian party system after the 1995 election on two dimensions 555
Tables
1.1 Membership of the Council of Europe and the European Union 4
1.2 Parliamentary elections in Europe 6
1.3 Current major and minor parties in recent national elections by
party family 16
1.4 Party system institutionalization 25
xii Illustrations
Where is Europe?
This work seeks to be a comprehensive analysis of European party systems. In terms
of what and where Europe is, however, debate persists. Geographers would tend
to define it broadly, up to the Ural Mountains at the start of Siberia. In contrast,
historically such areas as Russia and Spain have at times not been included (Wallace
1990). In the current context one may be tempted to begin with the European
Union; however, this only contains 28 members (including still in 2018 the United
Kingdom pending its ‘Brexit’). A better place to start is in fact with the Strasbourg-
based Council of Europe.
The Council of Europe was established in 1949 by 10 European countries. Its
stated purpose is to promote democracy and human rights throughout the conti-
nent. It also is involved in social, cultural, and legal matters – loosely, everything but
defence and economics. However, it did not turn out to be the incipient European
government desired by some of its founders. Nevertheless, compared to the Euro-
pean Union or NATO, the Council of Europe is ‘easy’ to join, in that no barri-
ers are placed or vetoes made on worthy applicants. Membership in the Council
of Europe thus serves as confirmation of at least modest human rights, and also
implicitly of one’s “Europeanness”. Although this latter point may be of relevance
for would-be members of the European Union, it also gives a sense of Europe to
this analysis.
From its original 10 members, the Council of Europe spread into the rest of
Western (and Mediterranean) Europe. From 1990 onwards, various Central and
Eastern European countries joined – as did Monaco in 2004 – bringing the mem-
bership up to 47. The newest member is Montenegro. It is worth noting that the
three Transcaucausus countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia) are all members,
having joined from 1999 to 2001. Table 1.1 gives the dates (month and year) when
TABLE 1.1 Membership of the Council of Europe and the European Union
countries joined the Council of Europe, as well as when they joined the European
Union.
Thus it seems that Europe goes as far east as the Urals/Russia, and as far
southeast as Turkey and the Transcaucausus. Europe also contain several micro-
states – Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City. Of these,
Vatican City lacks polity-based elections but the other four have party systems
which can be analyzed. Finally, for simplicity’s sake, the Russian Federation will
be referred to as Russia, and the “former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” sim-
ply as Macedonia (as of writing an agreement has been reached with Greece on
a compromise name of North Macedonia; however, this agreement still requires
final steps of approval).
What of subnational governments and regions? There are many of these, as
several European states are either federal or have entrenched regional/subnational
governments – Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Of these many regions, eight par-
ticularly distinctive and autonomous ones have been included for separate analysis:
Flanders in Belgium; the Faroe Islands as one of the constituent countries of Den-
mark (the other being Greenland, but geographically that is in North America);
Corsica in France; the Basque Country and Catalonia in Spain; and Northern
Ireland, Scotland, and Wales in the United Kingdom. The party systems in these
regions will thus be analysed essentially like any national one (however, individual
parties will not be classified into party families), although of course the key regional
parties also contribute respectively to the overall national party systems, at least in
Belgium, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The opposite phenomenon is the Euro-
pean Union, which has had parliamentary elections since 1979. It will be analysed
ultimately like any European polity, with its party groups being treated like parties.
Lastly, the government of Northern Cyprus will be analysed in an analogous way
to the regional governments, though in a practical sense it is more a de facto state
that an actual region of Cyprus.
Although being part of Europe is a necessary condition for this analysis, for
a complete analysis it is not a sufficient one. A polity must also be reasonably
6 Comparative analysis
competitive and democratic, as the notion of a party system normally implies two
or more parties and the differences and relations amongst these. In other words, a
polity should have free and fair elections and thus be an electoral democracy. As
the New York-based Freedom House notes, electoral democracies are defined “as
countries in which there are reasonably free and fair elections characterized by
significant choices for voters in a context of free political organization, reasonable
access to the media and secret ballot elections” (Karatnycky 1998: 7–8).
It seems reasonable that, at a minimum, a polity must be or have been an elec-
toral democracy and indeed moreover one of some duration for its party politics to
have relevance, and for its party system to be comparable to other electoral democ-
racies. For the purposes of this analysis the threshold of electorally democratic
party politics is four free and fair elections in a row, in the context of responsible
government.These criteria can be met even if they do not hold for the most recent
election(s), as in the case in Turkey. Table 1.2 provides some relevant data here. The
first column provides the date of the first relevant multi-party parliamentary elec-
tion. Relevant has varying meanings here: For most longstanding (West) European
democracies it is the first postwar election. For other countries it is the first elec-
tion post-independence (or post the creation of an elected subnational regional
government), post-democratization, or at least post-communist. In any case, said
election may be for a constituent assembly. For Corsica the focus is just the cur-
rent context of a single territorial collectivity, though there have been regional
elections there since 1986. For Monaco the first relevant election is the first one
after the 1962 constitution which granted the National Council actual legislative
powers. Czechoslovakia as a whole is not included, but the analyses of the Czech
Republic and Slovakia each starts with its 1990 election when each was still part of
Czechoslovakia. Likewise, Kosovo starts with its 2001 election when it was de facto
detached from Serbia. The second column of Table 1.2 gives the total number of
elections from the first relevant election through October 2018.The third and final
column lists any and all elections that were not properly free and fair.
(Continued)
8 Comparative analysis
Slovenia 1992 8
Spain 1977 13
Basque Country 1980 11
Catalonia 1980 12
Sweden 1948 22
Switzerland 1947 18
Turkey 1950 19 1954, 1957, November
2015, and 2018
elections
Ukraine 1994 7 2002 and 2012 elections
United Kingdom 1945 20
Northern Ireland 1945 17
Scotland 1999 5
Wales 1999 5
European Union 1979–1981 8
* However, the political opposition which came to power in May 2018 has pledged to hold a new
election.
In terms of the total number of elections, Denmark has had the most with 27
since 1945. Yet it has not had the most frequent elections. Denmark’s 27 elections
from October 1945 to June 2015 (836 months) is one election every 31 months –
though these averaged every two years from 1971 to 1981. Overall, the most
frequent elections have been in Greece: with 17 elections from November 1974
to September 2015 (490 months), this works out to one election every 29 months.
At the other extreme, elections are fixed in Norway and Switzerland at every four
years, and fixed for the European Parliament at every five years. Of the polities
without fixed elections, the least frequent elections have been in Luxembourg at
every 52 months (or every 55 months if the partial elections of 1951 and 1954 are
combined), and Malta at every 51 months.
A short-term way in which elections have often been quite frequent are the
various cases where two elections have been held within 12 months. These have
been as follows:
Greece in June 1989, November 1989, and then April 1990 (so three elections
within 10 months);
Greece in May 2012 and June 2012;
Greece in January 2015 and September 2015;
Iceland in June 1959 and October 1959 (the latter following a change to the
electoral system);
Iceland in October 2016 and October 2017;
Ireland in June 1981, February 1982, and then November 1982 (so three elec-
tions within a year-and-a-half);
Latvia in October 2010 and September 2011;
Liechtenstein in February 1953 and June 1953;
Liechtenstein in September 1957 and March 1958;
Liechtenstein in February 1993 and October 1993;
the Netherlands in May 2002 and January 2003;
Portugal in April 1975 and April 1976;
Portugal in December 1979 and October 1980;
Spain in December 2015 and June 2016;
Turkey in June 2015 and November 2015;
the United Kingdom in February 1974 and October 1974;
and Northern Ireland in May 2016 and March 2017.
Returning to democracy as a regime type, for this there must be not just free and
fair elections but also responsible government thus making the elections relevant, in
that they determine or at least constrain government formation – and the govern-
ment so determined must actually govern the country. The first part of this aspect
is lacking in Monaco, where the government is chosen by and accountable only to
the monarch, with the parliament and its composition playing no role in this regard.
The second part of this aspect has not been the case in Bosnia-Herzegovina, or at
least was certainly not until 2006, as the (foreign national) High Representative had
the final say.
Given the aforementioned criteria and the related country information, sev-
eral European countries do not merit a complete analysis due to the lack of
four free and fair elections in a row and/or the lack of responsible government.
These countries can be divided into a couple that have never had a free and fair
parliamentary election nor are likely to have one soon (Azerbaijan and Belarus)
which are henceforth excluded, and the remainder (Albania, Armenia, Bosnia-
Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Russia, and
Ukraine) the individual party systems of which will be noted briefly in Part III
but which are not included in the comparative analysis of the following chapters
in Part I. Such comparative analysis will be based on 48 different party systems
of “longstanding democratic polities” including Flanders, Northern Cyprus, the
Faroe Islands, Corsica, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Northern Ireland, Scot-
land, Wales, and the European Union, and distinguishing the French Fourth and
Fifth Republics.
10 Comparative analysis