Abstract
West European party systems have undergone a systematic realignment of party policy positions over the past several decades. The traditional economic cleavage that initially structured many of these systems is still important, and economic issues continue to define voters’ interests and needs. In addition, a new cultural cleavage has emerged, consisting of issues dealing with social equality, diversity, morality, and related topics. Using the Chapel Hill Expert Surveys (CHES) from 2006 to 2019, we track the evolution of party positions on both cleavages over time. These analyses show the emergence of far-right parties across Western Europe and their policy evolution over time. Far-right parties now generally represent centrist views on economic policy combined with starkly conservative positions on the cultural cleavage. We discuss the implications of these patterns for parties and voters in European party systems.
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Notes
- 1.
See appendix at the end of our book chapter.
- 2.
Despite the continuing relevance of the economic cleavage, the nature of the cleavage has changed in significant ways. The shifting composition of the labor force has produced new class alignments, and many parties have shifted their policy positions accordingly (Häusermann and Kriesi 2015; Evans and Tilley 2017; Dalton 2018).
- 3.
Hooghe and Marks (2018) make a strong case that European integration forms a significant third dimension, especially in European Parliament elections.
- 4.
Using the 2014 CHES as an example, the number of experts per country ranged from 6 to 22, with an average of 10.5 expert ratings per party. For further information on the survey see https://www.chesdata.eu/. We appreciate the principal investigators’ sharing of these data with the international research community, especially the assistance of Ryan and Winifred Bakker
- 5.
There is a potential bias of academic expert surveys, especially involving radical-right parties. Academics who are predominately liberal may tend to see these parties as more extreme than appears to the average voter or the parties’ actual policies. There also might be a bias to less extreme views of liberal parties. However, by comparing the same measures over time may lessen this problem by making comparative judgements of how radical-right parties have changed.
- 6.
Some of these patterns are applicable to the post-communist democracies of Eastern Europe, but these nations are still institutionalizing their party systems and face other issues that are not well-represented in the CHES surveys, such as foreign direct investment, establishing democratic institutions, legal reforms, etc. (Rohrschneider and Whitefield 2012). We therefore decided to focus on only established West European democracies.
- 7.
The end points of the economic and cultural issue dimensions may raise a terminological issue. The Left/Right labels (“Links/Rechts”) are typically used for the economic dimension, or in some nations this is labeled “liberal/conservative”. Researchers describe the ends of the cultural dimension with varying terms including liberal/conservative. To standardize our terminology, we use the same liberal/conservative terms for the ends of both issue dimensions, without partisan, theoretical, or philosophical meaning beyond these issue dimensions (Dalton 2018).
- 8.
This is essentially the EU15 except for Luxembourg that was not included in all the CHES surveys.
- 9.
Supporting this conclusion, oblimin rotations of the principal components found a more distinct definition of the two issue dimensions and a relatively strong correlation between both dimension (.55 to .61).
- 10.
The original scales are scored 0 - 10. We added the relevant issues and divided by the number of issues, so both indices also have a 0 - 10 range.
- 11.
The Pearsons r correlations are based on parties weighted by their vote total in the previous election to reflect the overall balance in the party system (2006 = .70, 2010 = .71, 2014 = .61, 2019 = .73).
- 12.
The CHES scores for the German parties in 2019:
Party
Culture
Economic
CDU
6.23
6.02
SPD
3.59
3.20
FDP
3.86
8.55
GRUNEN
1.64
3.29
LINKE
2.14
0.87
CSU
7.56
6.46
AfD
8.55
6.52
- 13.
The CDU’s perceived cultural position changed from a 7.23 score in 2006 to 6.23 in 2019.
- 14.
The Polarization Index measures the dispersion of parties along each dimension, analogous to a standard deviation of the distribution of party positions (Dalton 2008). The formula is: PI = Σ(party vote sharei)*(party issue scorei − party system average issue score/5)2
(i represents individual parties).
- 15.
The European average for the three-issue cultural polarization index was 3.95 in 2006 and 4.06 in 2019. These statistics also show that cultural polarization in 2006 was already high even without the two immigration items. Germany appears to be a case where the immigration issue played a major, albeit still moderate, role in increasing cultural polarization.
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Appendix. CHES Policy Dimension Scales
Appendix. CHES Policy Dimension Scales
CHES experts placed the parties on the following scales:
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SPENDVTAX: Position on improving public services vs. reducing taxes. 0 = Strongly favors improving public services; 10 = Strongly favors reducing taxes.
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DEREGULATION: Position on deregulation. 0 = Strongly opposes deregulation of markets; 10 = Strongly supports deregulation of markets.
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REDISTRIBUTION: Position on redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. 0 = Strongly favors redistribution; 10 = Strongly opposes redistribution.
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CIVLIB_LAWORDER: Position on civil liberties vs. law and order. 0 = Strongly promotes civil liberties; 10 = Strongly supports tough measures to fight crime.
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SOCIALLIFESTYLE: Position on social lifestyle (e.g. homosexuality). 0 = Strongly supports liberal policies; 10 = Strongly opposes liberal policies.
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RELIGIOUS_PRINCIPLE: Position on role of religious principles in politics. 0 = Strongly opposes religious principles in politics; 10 = Strongly supports religious principles in politics.
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IMMIGRATE_POLICY: Position on immigration policy. 0 = Strongly opposes tough policy; 10 = Strongly favors tough policy.
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MULTICULTURALISM. Position on integration of immigrants and asylum seekers (multiculturalism vs. assimilation). 0 = Strongly favors multiculturalism; 10 = Strongly favors assimilation.
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Dalton, R.J., Berning, C.C. (2022). Ideological Polarization and Far-Right Parties in Europe. In: Brinkmann, H.U., Reuband, KH. (eds) Rechtspopulismus in Deutschland. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33787-2_2
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