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European Citizenship in Party Euromanifestos: Southern Europe in Comparative Perspective (1994–2004)

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13608746.2010.497246

1743-9612

Nicolò Conti,

Social Policy and Reform Studies

Abstract The aim of the paper is to analyse party attitudes towards the European Union (EU) and the issue of citizenship as voiced by the party central office in the official programmatic platforms. For this purpose, Euromanifestos have been coded by applying the common framework of the IntUne project. Accordingly, the article attempts to assess the degree of convergence between the attitudes of both the party central office and the MPs towards the EU in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The article attempts as well to assess the validity of the main theoretical arguments available in the literature that explain these attitudes. Keywords: Party AttitudesEUEuromanifestosGreeceItalyPortugalSpain Acknowledgements This research was funded by a grant from the IntUne project (Integrated and United: A Quest for Citizenship in an Ever Closer Europe) financed by the Sixth Framework Programme of the European Union, Priority 7, Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge Based Society (CIT3-CT-2005-513421). Notes [1] See the Comparative Manifestos Project (renamed Manifesto Research on Political Representation) of the Social Science Research Centre Berlin and the Euromanifesto Research Project of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, which is part of the European Election Studies. [2] The countries included in this analysis are the following: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and the United Kingdom. This group includes all countries of the IntUne elite survey with the exceptions of Bulgaria, Denmark and Serbia. In particular, due to Bulgaria's status as a recent member of the EU and Serbia's status as a non-member, no Euromanifesto was available from these countries at the time when this analysis was carried out. [3] For example, Hix et al. (Citation2007) have recently specified this thesis, showing, in particular, an influence—although more limited—of the fact of being in government or in opposition. Hooghe et al. (Citation2004) make reference to the influence played by the division between parties representing values of new politics and conventional parties. [4] Not every party issued a proper programmatic platform for each European election, so we only show data for the available Euromanifestos. On the other hand, some parties involved in electoral alliances presented both a joint and an individual manifesto; in such case we have analysed both documents. [5] This is, for example, the strategy adopted by Gabel and Hix (Citation2004). [6] A clear advantage of the manifesto analysis is its reliance on primary sources (party official platforms), instead of relying on previous knowledge and the second guessing of the experts who judge party positions. [7] With reference to the liberal party family, most observations refer to the Portuguese Social Democratic Party, the British Liberal Democratic Party, the Belgian Flemish Liberals and Democrats and the francophone Reformist Movement. Although, as typical of this party family, over the years some of its components have experienced shifts in their position along the ideological spectrum, their overall stance in the period 1994–2004 still suggests their classification as centre-right parties. [8] It is important to note that, following the literature on territorial change in party attitudes that shows a difference between old and new member states (Lewis Citation2008; Taggart & Szczerbiak Citation2004), I have introduced control of this geographic variable dividing countries in two clusters. Although such difference will not represent the main focus of my analysis, it is worth mentioning that parties in the new member states keep silent on many of the analysed themes, failing in the end to produce any particular pattern of party competition. In addition to this, in the new member states I have observed in some domains a more pronounced caution among mainstream parties on solutions geared towards deeper integration. For example, they are more reluctant than parties in the old member states about the supranational mode of decision-making, and more concerned about the defence of national identity, as well as about the supposed threat represented by the out-group of non-Europeans. [9] I make use of this kind of regression analysis and not of linear regression because of the categorical nature of the content analytic variables. [10] In this as in the following tables I will leave the 'no reference' category in order to control the occurrence of no salience of the analysed themes. [11] In the South European countries, I considered the following to be radical parties: Synaspismos, Greek Communist Party, LAOS (Popular Orthodox Rally), Partido Comunista Português, Coligação Democrática Unitária, Bloco de Esquerda, Izquierda Unida, Partito dei Comunisti Italiani, Rifondazione Comunista, Alleanza Nazionale (only in 1994) and, in line with the definition given by other authors (Gold Citation2003), the Lega Nord. [12] I considered as extreme left the Greek Synaspismos and Communist Party; the Italian Rifondazione Comunista and Partito dei Comunisti Italiani; the Portuguese Partido Comunista Português, Coligação Democrática Unitária and Bloco de Esquerda; the Spanish Izquierda Unida, [13] I considered as extreme right the Greek LAOS, the Italian Alleanza Nazionale (only in 1994) and the Italian Lega Nord. Even though when in government the public office of the Lega Nord takes a less principled and more pragmatic approach, its rhetoric is usually radical and typical of populist far right parties. [14] An influence of this factor has been hypothesised by Sitter (Citation2001) and rejected by Hooghe et al. (Citation2004). In a more recent study, a moderate influence of the same factor has been found by Hix et al. (Citation2007) on the attitudes of MEPs. [15] The greater likelihood of support for the EU on defence than on foreign policy is due to countries such as Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia, where parties are more keen to back the former than the latter. [16] The picture of EU party discourse in the new member states is more nationally introverted, where preferences about future developments of the EU are not fully shaped yet, although they present inner elements of resistance to deeper integration. In this context, the opposition to the EU of extreme parties could prove particularly strident, if the mainstream parties lack a level of support for the EU that is as solid and articulated as in the old member states.