Paul A. Taggart (Auth.) - The New Populism and The New Politics - New Protest Parties in Sweden in A Comparative Perspective-Palgrave Macmillan UK (1996)

THE NEW POPULISM AND THE NEW POLITICS
The New Populism and

the New Politics
New Protest Parties in Sweden in a
Comparative Perspective
Paul A. Taggart
Lecturer in Politics
University of Sussex
First published in Great Britain 1996 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-13922-4 ISBN 978-1-349-13920-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-13920-0
First published in the United States of America 1996 by

ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
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New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-16204-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Taggart, Paul A.
The new populism and the new politics: new protest parties in
Sweden in a comparative perspective / Paul A. Taggart.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-16204-7 (cloth)
1. Political parties—Sweden. 2. Populism—Sweden. 3. Political
parties—Europe, Western. 4. Populism—Europe, Western. I. Title.
JN7995.A1T34 1996
324.2485'08—dc20 96-10525
CIP
© Paul A. Taggart 1996
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1996
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96
For Bhavna
Contents
List of Tables viii
List of Figures x
Acknowledgements xi
1 Introduction 1
2 The New Populism and the New Politics 11
3 The Decline of the Postwar Settlement and the Rise
of the 'New1 Protest Parties 47
4 A Tendency to Differ: New Party Elites 82
5 Organising Anti-Parties 110
6 Constituencies of Protest 148
7 Tracing the Contours and Mapping the Future 177
Appendix: List of Interviewees 187
Notes and References 188
Bibliography 191
Index 210
vii
List of Tables
2.1 Number of years of cabinet membership of social
democratic parties in Western Europe, 1948-1988 14
2.2 Social welfare expenditures as percentage of total
government expenditure, 1960-1985 16
2.3 New Politics Parties in Western Europe 30
2.4 Electoral highlights of New Populist and Neo-Fascist
Parties in Western Europe 42
3.1 Levels of New Politics mobilisation 49
3.2 Levels of New Populist mobilisation 50
3.3 Rank ordering of Welfare State in terms of combined
de-commodification, 1980 52
3.4 Levels of postindustrialism, 1988 56
3.5 Relative economic strength, 1988 60
3.6 Average number of parties represented in the legislature
per year, 1948-1988 69
3.7 Factors influencing 'New' Protest Party mobilisation
(countries clustered by New Populist mobilisation) 72
3.8 Factors influencing 'New' Protest Party mobilisation
(countries clustered by New Politics mobilisation) 74
4.1 Ideal types of New Party activists 87
4.2 Seats won in Riksdag after 1988 and 1991 Elections 97
4.3 Party activists in the Green Party 103
4.4 Party activists in New Democracy 103
5.1 Direct membership of Swedish smaller parties, 1981-88 134
6.1 Percentage of national vote for five major parties in
Sweden, 1964-1994 150
6.2 Support for partisan blocs in Sweden at parliamentary
elections, 1948-1994 151
6.3 Elections to the Swedish Riksdag, 1988-1994 154
6.4 Age characteristics of Swedish voters for the Green
Party (Mp) and New Democracy (ND), 1991 156
6.5 Male and female voting for the Greens (Mp) and New
Democracy (ND), 1991 157
6.6 Percentage of the party vote taken by New Democracy
and the Green Party by age groups and gender 158
6.7 Education and voting for the Greens (Mp) and New
viii
List of Tables ix
6.8 Family class of voters for the Greens (Mp) and New
6.9 Percentage of the party vote taken by New Democracy
and the Green Party by class groups and gender 161
6.10 Residency of voters for the Greens (Mp) and New
6.11 Occupation of voters for the Greens (Mp) and New
6.12 Sector and type of work of voters for the Greens
(Mp) and New Democracy (ND), 1991 164
6.l3 National level party vote as percentage of local level
party vote, 1991 166
6.14 Party vote in 1991 as percentage of party vote in 1988 168
6.15 Prior voting record (1988) of New Democracy and
Green voters in 1991 including non-voters 168
6.16 Support for the Danish Progress Party by education
compared with New Democracy 172
6.17 Social basis of Ecology activists in Milan compared
with the general population in Milan 174
List of Figures
2.1 'New' Protest Party comparisons 45
3.1 New Populist mobilisation and Welfare State
3.2 New Politics mobilisation and Welfare State
3.3 New Populist mobilisation and postindustrialism 58
3.4 New Politics mobilisation and postindustrialism 59
3.5 New Populist mobilisation and economic strength 61
3.6 New Politics mobilisation and economic strength 62
3.7 New Populist mobilisation and party system
cartelisation 66
3.8 New Politics mobilisation and party system
cartelisation 67
3.9 New Populist mobilisation and system openness 70
3.10 New Politics mobilisation and system openness 71
3.11 New Politics mobilisation and New Populist
mobilisation 75
x
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the help and support
of a large number of people. The members of the Green Party and
New Democracy in Sweden who agreed to be interviewed proved them-
selves to be generous with both their time and their thoughts, and, at
the same time, proved the advantages of conducting research in a country
which values accessibility in its political system. The hospitability, help
and humour of David and Eva Hynes made the interviews in Stock-
holm a real pleasure. The research and writing owe much to the help
and support of colleagues at the Department of Political Science and
the West European Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh
and the Politics and School of Social Science faculty at the University
of Sussex. In particular I would like to record my thanks to Alberta
Sbragia, David Patrick Houghton, Anthony Zito, Francis McGowan and
B.D. Graham who all, in their own ways, taught me things I probably
should already have known and consequently eased the process of writing
for me. The Department of Political Science at G6teborg University
put up with me as a visiting researcher in Sweden and my thanks
there go to Mikael Gilljam, Martin Bennulf and S6ren Holmberg for
giving me help and access to the electoral data. Part of Chapters 2
have appeared as 'New Populist Parties in Western Europe' in West
European Politics, 18 (1995) and I am grateful for their permission to
reproduce those parts here. Sharing something of the same process
meant that Helen Thompson was a constant source of reference and
advice. Without the help, friendship and support of Jon Pierre, this
book would not have left the launch pad. B. Guy Peters was instru-
mental in helping to clarify my own thinking and his unflagging sup-
port and encouragement throughout was far more important to me than
he realised. Without doubt, Anders Widfeldt has contributed most to
the content of this book with his unceasing help, hospitality, enthusi-
asm, thoughtfulness and friendship and I am deeply endebted to him.
Those who know me know that it is Bhavna Sapat who is behind all I
do and who has taken on board the costs associated with the comple-
tion of this book. It is to her that I, without question and with love,
dedicate this book.
Brighton PAUL TAGGART
Xl
1 Introduction
In the past twenty years the party systems that were previously de-
scribed as 'frozen' and relatively unchanged since their formation in
the 1920s, have witnessed the emergence of new types of parties that
have not only challenged the hegemony of the dominant parties but
have also suggested new modes of party behaviour. It has become more
and more difficult to sustain the notion that nothing has changed. Es-
tablished parties have watched their constituencies erode, voters be-
come more volatile and many new parties prosper. Each development
has been damaging to the established parties.
Many of the new parties that have entered various West European
polities question the normal functioning of political systems. In differ-
ent countries, sometimes in slightly different forms, two new types of
political parties have emerged that represent this new critique, one on
the left of the political spectrum and one on the right. In their message
and in the way they operate they have championed an 'anti-politics'.
Both types of parties raise questions about the functioning of West
European versions of liberal democracy. More specifically, they both
challenge the legitimacy and efficiency of the postwar settlement based
on a potent mix of welfare state capitalism, corporatism, Keynesianism
and social democracy. As profound social, economic and political changes
have changed Western Europe in irreversible ways these parties, in
their critiques, pull apart the vestiges of what, for them, are inefficient,
illegitimate and malfunctioning polities. It is because they dig deep on
a critical level that both types of parties define themselves in opposi-
tion to the prevailing ideological and organisational structures. They
refute any contention that the left-right spectrum is an appropriate
description of their positions and they question the validity of the pre-
vailing form of party structure.
Just as they both portray themselves as ideological misfits, so they
have attempted to act in a manner that befits these miscast players.
Both parties have operated in ways that are self-consciously uncon-
ventional. They have revelled in marking themselves out as different
and acting as enfant terribles in their party systems. They have acted,
organised and presented themselves in novel ways to show that they
are different from the politicians that have dominated for so long.
Despite the fact that they derive from the same source and that they
2 The New Populism and the New Politics
reject the same things, these types of parties occupy very different
places in the political spectrum. In this book, they are termed the 'New
Politics' and the 'New Populism'. On the left, the Green and alterna-
tive parties that represent the 'New Politics' derive from the 'new so-
cial movements' whose agenda fuse political ecology, environmentalism,
feminism and pacifism with the politics of the anti-nuclear movements.
They have focused on decentralised, loose party structures and have
appealed to a disproportionately young, predominantly female, well-
educated, public-sector constituency in the name of an ideology which
critiques the political system for being too closed and proffers an open,
inclusive alternative form of politics (Milller-Rommel, 1989a; Dalton
and Kuechler, 1990).
On the right, the 'New Populists' have taken the economic -agenda
of the neoliberals and have fused this with an appeal to the frustrated
'mainstream' of society by demonising politicians, bureaucrats, immi-
grants and welfare recipients (Betz, 1993, 1994; Ignazi, 1992). Their
constituency is generally young, low in education, private-sector em-
ployed and male. To capture this group, the New Populists mobilise
around different issues - taxation, immigration and even regionalism.
The New Populists are frequently accused of kinship with the agenda
of neo-fascism and the issue of racism. In some countries, the New
Populism has significantly overlapped with neo-fascist movements but
they are not the same movement. Neo-fascism and the New Populism
are both elements of the far right but, while neo-fascism is first and
foremost an ideology of extreme nationalism that may give rise to anti-
system politics, the New Populism is primarily an anti-system ideolo-
gy that may include extreme nationalism. In their institutional form,
the New Populist movements become centralised parties with domi-
nant charismatic leaders.
Both the New Politics and the New Populist parties are symptomatic
of profound social changes. Together they represent what will be here
termed the 'New' Protest parties. They are also both indicative of crises
within political systems. As social changes render polities less rep-
resentative, a cycle of protest develops: the existing parties, with in-
creasing intensity, seek to shore up their positions of dominance, but
do so on the basis of social cleavages that are of decreasing salience.
As they seek to maintain the old structures in new circumstances, they
increase the dissatisfaction of those who feel uneasy or excluded in
contemporary society. The rising tide of protest, of discontent, increases
the established parties' sense of insecurity and they redouble their ef-
Introduction 3
forts to maintain their positions of prominence. Spinning out of this

spiral come the 'New' protest parties.
SWEDEN
Swedish politics has always stood as a by-word for consensus. With

the rise of the Social Democratic Party (SAP) as the standard bearer
of the left, government came to be synonymous with a moderate form
of social democracy that was vaunted as a middle way between the
extremes of free-market capitalism and state socialism (Childs, 1948).
Although often supported by coalitions with other small parties, the
SAP exercised a degree of electoral hegemony from the 1930s that
was the envy of other social democratic parties across Europe (Mis geld,
Molin and Amark, 1992).
The structure of the political system reflects the emphases of Swed-
ish culture with the stress on consensus, compromise and pragmatism
(Heclo and Madsen, 1987). After the constitutional reforms of the early
1970s, a system of proportional representation was introduced for elec-
tions to the Swedish parliament (the Riksdag), with parties having only
to cross a threshold of 4 per cent to gain representation. The consti-
tutional reforms also created a unitary, uni-cameral system. Despite
the apparent accessibility of the political system to new parties, until
1988 five parties dominated the Riksdag and the right has never coa-
lesced into a single party to match the mass parties of the Christian
democratic and conservative right that have become established else-
where in Western Europe.
Swedish politics is often characterised as being a system of bloc
politics with the Social Democrats and the Left (Communist) Party
forming the socialist bloc on the political left. Opposing them are the
Liberal Party, the Centre Party and the Moderate Unity Party. The
Liberal Party resembles other liberal parties in Western Europe while
the Centre Party is essentially a modernised agrarian party. The Mod-
erate Party is essentially a conservative party. Together these three
have been characterised as the 'bourgeois' parties or as the 'non-socialist
bloc' .1
In 1980 Swedish politics had been turned upside down by a number
of contentious issues and events that seemed alien to the functioning
of a polity famed for stability, social democracy and social consensus.
Dramatically the Social Democrats, who had governed the country for
the past fifty-one years, lost control of the government in 1976 and
the bourgeois parties experienced a turbulent period of difficult coali-
tion governments. The Social Democrats were themselves undergoing
no less difficult times, as the contentious issue of the Wage Earner
Funds was dividing the party. At the second general election that had
failed to secure the Social Democrats the control of government, in
1979, nuclear power was the most controversial issue. The issue came
to a head in March of 1980 with a national referendum on the subject.
Sweden has, compared to the rest of Europe, a high reliance upon
nuclear energy. Each of the three options in the Referendum were opposed
to the expansion of nuclear power but differed in· the rate of the move
away from the energy source. Line 3 was the most drastic proposal,
involving the phasing out of nuclear power in ten years. Line 3 was
therefore the focus for the antinuclear movement. Support for the dif-
ferent proposals followed party lines with the Moderate Party support-
ing Line 1, the Social Democrats and Liberal Party Line 2, and the
Centre and Left Parties Line 3 (Jasper, 1990, p. 228). In the event, as
is so often the case in Sweden, the Social Democrat line was taken
and nuclear power was therefore set to be phased out by 2010. To the
antinuclear forces this was a devastating blow.
It was in the face of the disillusionment with the political process
that a number of activists who had been involved in the antinuclear
movement began to see the need for a Green party in Sweden. The
Centre Party, whose commitment to the anti-nuclear cause had pre-
viously marked them out as a environmental party proved that its ef-
fectiveness was limited even when it formed part of the government
(Jamison, Eyerman and Cramer, 1990, p. 41). It had campaigned against
nuclear power in the 1976 Election, but when the Social Democrats
lost their governmental position, the Centre Party was thrust into coa-
lition with parties that did not share its commitment to the anti-
nuclear cause. In government it compromised its antinuclear stance in
order to maintain the shaky coalition (Affigne, 1990, p. 118; Jamison,
Eyerman and Cramer, 1990, p. 42).
The main impetus for a national party came from Per Gahrton who
was an ex-Liberal Party parliamentarian. Using a campaign of letter-
writing, books, advertisements in national newspapers, and addressing
small local environmental parties, he attempted to drum up support for
the foundation of a Green Party (Bennulf, 1990, p. 26). He found an acti-
vist constituency in the antinuclear movement (Bennulf, 1990, p. 19).
At the first meeting of the fledgling Green Party in 1980, eighteen
people were elected to prepare the national party.
Introduction 5
On September 19, 1981 a Green Party was founded at Orebro. It

was called Miljopartiet (Environmental Party). It was not the first such
party in Sweden. Local parties had formed in the 1970s but had not
met with much success. The first was formed in 1972 in Angelholm
and this was replicated in other parts of Sweden (Vedung, 1989, p. 139;
Partiet For Miljoskydd och Medbestammande, 1979). The attempt to
extend the umbrella organisation of environmental groups, Miljovards-
gruppernas riksfOrbund (MIGRI), as a national organisation meant that
its chairman Bjorn Gillberg became synonymous with Swedish envi-
ronmentalism. His authoritarian rule became a problem and led to splits
within MIGRI (Jamison Eyerman and Cramer, pp. 48-55). Proposals
that were mooted by Swedish environmental activists in the 1970s to
form a party never translated into reality.
The Party's programme focused on environmental issues stressing
solidarity with nature and of course opposition to nuclear power. This
was extended to support for the poorer parts of the world. Combined
with this there was a commitment to extending democracy into all
parts of life and to improving the situation of women in society. Other
policies are a reduction in the length of the working week, opposition
to membership of the European Community, opposition to commercial
television, and a reduction in the levels of military spending (Miljopartiet
de Grona, 1990, 1991). The party was, in line with other Green parties
across Western Europe, concerned with the environment but was just
as committed to the agenda of the wholesale social and political re-
form. The party saw itself as advocating not just new policies but a
new politics.
Despite the hopes of the newly formed Green Party and its support
levels in opinion polls of more than 4 per cent, it did not meet with
immediate electoral success. The first election, contested in 1982, brought
it only 1.7 per cent. In 1985 the Party had added De Grona to its
name to stress its relationship with other European Green parties. 2 It
did a little better in the local level elections winning 126 seats on 96
kommun councils, the lowest level of government in Sweden (Miljopartiet
de Grona, 1990, p. 7). The fortunes of the nascent party did not pick
up much in the 1985 election, when their national share of the vote
dropped to 1.5 per cent. However, at the local level they did improve
their representation this time, translating their 13 per cent share of the
vote into 237 seats on 148 councils (Vedung, 1989, p. 148; Miljopartiet
de Grona, 1990, p. 7).
It was not until 1988 that the Greens were to be rewarded with
parliamentary representation. The 1988 election marked a drastic change
in fortunes for the fledgling party and allowed them to become a par-
liamentary party for the first time (Gilljam and Holmberg, 1990;
Sainsbury, 1989; Arter, 1989). Their success owed much to the prep-
aration of the previous seven years. Their claim that they were not
given fair treatment in the media was upheld by a study of the 1985
Election conducted by the semi-official body charged with ensuring
media impartiality in the media (Parkin, 1989, p. 192). In addition,
and perhaps crucially, environmental issues were dominating the media
as dead seals were being washed up on Swedish shores and the memory
of Chernobyl was still in the minds of the voters. One Green parlia-
mentarian commented: 'The seals won the election. Maybe we got 2.5
per cent and the seals got the rest'. The party attained 5.5 per cent of
the vote. This took them over the 4 per cent threshold necessary for
representation in the Riksdag. Twenty deputies were elected and, as
they entered the Riksdag, they represented the first new parliamentary
party for seventy years.
Two years after the Green deputies were elected to the Riksdag and
one year before they faced the prospect of the next general election,
the seeds were sown for another new party. In November of 1990
after having realised that, despite their very different backgrounds, they
shared a common desire to reform Swedish politics, Ian Wachtmeister
and Bert Karlsson wrote a 'Debatt' article in an national newspaper
arguing that Sweden should not be immune from the winds of change
that had been sweeping across Europe - both East and West. It put
forward a new agenda for Swedish politics stressing constitutional re-
form, privatisation, opposition to monopolies and a host of other poli-
cies (Dagens Nyheter, 25 November 1990, p. A4).
Bert Karlsson was a fun-fair owner who had gained public attention
for criticising food prices and the functioning of Swedish politics. Ian
Wachtmeister was a businessman who had published books that lam-
pooned the political process and who has associated with a right-wing
think tank Den Nya Viilfarden ['the New Welfare'] (Wachtmeister, 1990).
Both are familiar faces to the Swedish public, but they present very
different images. Wachtmeister came from an aristocratic background
and dressed in smart suits with outlandishly bright ties. Karlsson ap-
peared as a 'man of the people', looking casual and often somewhat
ruffled. One observer described him as 'something of a caricature of
the small town guy' (Berggren, 1991, p. 14). The two figures came to
know of each other when, asked in a newspaper article to name who
would be in his government if he had such a thing, Karlsson named
Wachtmeister instead of himself as the prime minister. Wachtmeister
Introduction 7
made the first contact by telephoning Karlsson to thank him for the
compliment. The two first met at Stockholm's Arlanda airport in Sep-
tember of 1990 and resolved to put forward their common agenda in
what was to become the catalytic Dagens Nyheter article.
As a result of the attention the Dagens Nyheter article and its authors
gained, there was an initial meeting on the February 4, 1991 in the
town of Skara, with some of those who had expressed an interest in
the project and the decision was made to form a new party. Out of the
thirteen people at the meeting a party committee of six was also formed.
Realising that to translate their potential support into votes in the elec-
tion due in seven months was a challenge, the leadership of the party
used the media to push the message of a new party.
The party gained much media attention and sought to establish itself
as an enfant terrible of the Swedish party system. Its initial campaign
focused around issues of taxation, immigration and liberalising the al-
cohol laws (Ny Demokrati, 1991b) but was perhaps more notable for
its style and tone than its content. Through poking fun at the existing
parties and through using somewhat unconventional means, New Democ-
racy staked a position out for itself as a fun-loving, establishment-
bating party. The two leaders recorded and marketed their own theme
song. They adopted the logo of a smiling face as their party symbol.
They chuckled, mocked and ridiculed their way into the political sys-
tem. As a consequence they drew the fire of the existing parties. The
most famous incident was when Bengt Westerberg, the Liberal Party
leader, left the sofa of a TV talk show because the discussion was
going to include Wachtmeister.
The party programme extended the agenda originally suggested in
the newspaper article. It put forward a strong line on law and order,
proposed reducing immigration, rationalising local (kommuner) govern-
ment, abolishing county governments (landsting), privatising parts
of the public sector, supporting nuclear energy, support for Swedish
membership of the European Community and stamping out abuse of
the welfare system by stemming absenteeism (Ny Demokrati, 1991b).
In the campaign these policy issues were spiced up with a commit-
ment to reform the alcohol laws and to abolish 'meter maids'. Playing
on their assets, the party focused attention on Wachtmeister and Karlsson
who travelled the country on trains and gave impromptu speeches at
small outlying towns. Using two piles of beer crates to represent the
two blocs of Swedish politics, Karlsson suggested, in his speeches that
New Democracy represented the chance to put another crate across the
divide between the stacks to change the whole way the system worked.
It was no coincidence that the props were ordinary, brightly-coloured

and connected with a 'fun' social activity. The two leaders even re-
corded a single as their theme song and seemed to thrive on being
dismissed by the other politicians as unserious. The tone was set.
In the 1991 election Sweden experienced an important change (Gilljam
and Holmberg, 1993; Widfeldt, 1992; Worlund, 1992; Sainsbury, 1992).
The Social Democrats lost control of the government leaving a four
party coalition of non-socialist parties to take over. One of those par-
ties, the Christian Democratic Society Party, was a newcomer to the
Riksdag. 3 It had been campaigning in elections for twenty years and,
once in the Riksdag, was clearly within the ambit of the 'bourgeois'
parties as is adduced by its membership, with three seats of the Mod-
erate Party-led cabinet. More startling was the success of New Democ-
racy. It garnered 6.7 per cent of the vote and 25 deputies. In contrast,
after three years in the Riksdag the Greens lost their places, managing
only 3.4 per cent of the vote.
By the election of 1994 the symmetry in the parliamentary fortunes
of the two new parties was complete. Just as the Greens had entered
the parliament as a rising new force in 1988 only to be rejected by the
voters at the subsequent election, so New Democracy found that its
meteoric rise in popularity with the voters in 1991 was reversed at the
following election when the party was effectively wiped out with only
1.2 per cent of the vote. The similarity is by no means coincidental.
Both parties faced the difficulties of sustaining their position as parties
while having gained initial success on the basis of being anti-parties.
In the space of three years, two new protest parties had entered the
Riksdag and had challenged the five-party system that had held sway
so pervasively throughout the post-war period. Over the same period,
the apparent electoral hegemony of the Social Democrats appeared to
have been challenged. A country that had prided itself on its neutrality
had begun the process of joining the European Union. A country famed
for being a 'middle way' between capitalism and communism seemed
to be lurching from the middle to the right with a conservative govern-
ment and cut-backs in the welfare state. The shift in Swedish politics
and the emergence of two new protest parties was not unconnected.
Sweden serves as an excellent test case for a phenomenon that is
occurring across Western Europe. In a short amount of time, a politi-
cal system famed for its stability and consensus, was rocked by change
- twice. With the arrival of the Greens in the Riksdag in 1988 the
first blow was dealt, but with the arrival of New Democracy in the
same place three years later, a fatal strike seems to have been de-
Introduction 9
livered to the assumptions of how the party system that reflected the
postwar settlement par excellence could survive indefinitely.
This book is focused on the fate of protest parties in contemporary
Western Europe. More specifically the question addressed is how and
why protest parties form and develop. The question of formation can-
not be satisfactorily dealt with using data from one country, and so a
comparative analysis is used in the first part of this book to examine
theoretically and empirically the factors which affect the formation of
the 'New' Protest parties. Once we turn our attention to the subse-
quent development of 'New' Protest parties, we can use the cases of
the Green Party and New Democracy to isolate the factors which pro-
mote and inhibit different forms of development. We can rule out both
time and country differences as causing the two very different paths
followed by New Democracy and the Green Party because we are look-
ing at the same country and the same time period.
OUTLINE OF THE BOOK
Chapter 2 builds up definitions of New Populism and New Politics

that stress their common bases and their ideological symmetry. The
New Politics ideology is defined as left-leaning, anti-system and in-
clusive, while the New Populism is defined as right-leaning, anti-system
and exclusive. In Chapter 3 a theory is constructed to explain the similar
roots of the New Politics and New Populism, which is subsequently
tested across seventeen West European countries. The five factors which
are used to explain the levels of mobilisation of these new parties are
the socioeconomic factors including levels of welfare state develop-
ment, postindustrialism and economic strength; the political factor of
how 'cartelised' the party system has become; and the structural factor
of how open the political system is to new parties.
Three different research methods are employed here (elite interviews,
secondary sources and electoral data) and the three subsequent chap-
ters present the result of the research and attempt to place this within
the theoretical context provided by the two theoretical chapters of the
book.
Chapter 4 uses material from interviews with Swedish parliamen-
tarians to illustrate the ideologies of the New Populism and the New
Politics, and then goes on to examine the way in which these ideol-
ogies are translated into action in the areas of legislative behaviour,
elite recruitment and patterns of activism. Through this analysis an
argument is developed to suggest that both parties have evolved dif-

ferent tendencies which are either pragmatic or fundamentalist in their
ideological orientations, and that this embodies the fundamental con-
flict endemic to both types of parties that derives from trying to be
anti-system parties while trying to remain in the system.
From the elite study the book moves on, in Chapter 5, to an analysis
of the different forms of party organisation used by New Democracy
and the Green Party. The data comes here from both primary and sec-
ondary sources as well as from the interviews. The contrast is drawn
between the emphasis placed on a centralised structure and on charis-
matic leadership in New Democracy and the decentralised leadership-
averse structure of the Greens.
Chapter 6 uses electoral data from the 1991 General Election to
examine the constituencies of both parties and to demonstrate that there
is both an overlap and a symmetry between the demographic groups
that disproportionately support the Greens and the New Democrats.
The concluding chapter summarises the main findings and themes of
the book and relate these to questions of the functioning of liberal
democracy.
2 The New Populism and the
New Politics
2.1 INTRODUCTION: FREEZING, THAWING AND FLUX
The suggestion that West European countries are still confronting the
'frozen' party systems of the 1920s seemed somewhat tenable in the
1960s when it was first postulated (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967). Since
that decade, the rise of the new social movements, the new left, the
New Politics, the new right and the decline of old voting patterns, old
class constellations and even old political systems, renders such sugges-
tions less sustainable. Given the history of the last three decades this
is hardly surprising.
Western Europe has seen profound changes: the growth of the Euro-
pean Community (EC) has produced unprecedented political super-
structures. State socialism in Eastern Europe has been felled from the
inside, thereby challenging even the nomenclature of Western Europe.
Some of the mainstays of domestic politics have come under attack as
welfare states, corporatism and social democracy have lost ground to
an ever-growing tide of criticism. Compounding these changes has been
the loss of economic stability as European economies stagger under
the weight of mass unemployment, fiscal crises and decline. Mass politics
has not remained immune to these changes.
While the globalisation of the economy and the construction of in-
ternational institutions like the EC has challenged the frozen polities
from the outside, domestic movements have exercised the 'voice' op-
tion, and expressed their protestations within. While George Bush was
calling for the community of nations, many West European states were
facing up to challenge of being nations of communities with regional
and nationalist forces making their presence felt through the ballot-
box and through the bomb in some cases. The new social movements
crystallised into potent feminist, peace, anti-nuclear and environmental
movements. But the party systems built around the cleavages formed
by industrialisation did not melt away. The old cleavages were im-
printed into the polities through institution, action, and habit. The best
that critics of the old politics could muster was a thawing of the frozen
party systems.
11
Observers have identified the thawing when they witnessed the wave
of New Politics parties sweep through party systems and allegedly portend
the first major re-orientation since the 1920s. With the Green election
success in Germany in 1983 a beacon was lit for the transformative
power of the New Politics. The initial estimations of the practitioners
of these New Politics have not been matched by their performance,
and the light has since burned somewhat less brightly. Green parties
and New Left parties have become tenuously established in some West
European party systems as minor parties, and certainly not as parties
of government. In others they have been condemned to electoral
irrelevance.
At the same time as many saw fit to declare the waning of the
green wave, others pointed to the 'resurgence' of extreme right. While
Europe was integrating, Germany unifying and East European regimes
were undertaking the transition to liberal democracy, a fistful of new
actors on the far right seemed to offer an antithesis to the politics of
unity by proclaiming the message of difference and of xenophobia.
While neo-fascist parties identified themselves with the politics of the
boot-boys and spoke the language of the street, the new breed of far
rightists are dressed in sharp suits and talk the language of the legis-
latures in which they have won seats. And these 'New Populists' are
not exclusively focused around the issues of race and immigration.
What makes them 'New' is that they challenge the very assumptions
of the form of the old politics which has yielded extended bureaucratic
states without solving basic social issues. Just as the Green parties are
not simply concerned with environmental politics, so the New Populists
emerge to critique the nature of post-war West European politics.
If we untangle the complex web of phenomena, it is possible to see
a very clear trend: 'New' Protest parties of both left and right have
flourished on the fertile source of flux in West European politics. On
the left the New Politics parties of a green and alternative hue have
colonised the margins of parliamentary protest, and on the right a new
breed of 'New Populist' parties have colonised the opposite margins.
By examining the New Politics parties and the New Populists, we can
trace the contours of protest in contemporary West Europe.
This chapter presents an interpretation of post-war West European
politics as an elucidation of the bases of the 'New' Protest parties
(NPPs). We then turn to definitions of the New Politics and the New
Populism that draw from the different experiences of these types of
parties across Western Europe.
The New Populism and the New Politics 13
2.2 FROM THE PILLARS TO THE •POST' : THE DECLINE OF

THE POSTWAR SETTLEMENT
Political parties arise along the fault lines of social change. The fault
line may be distorted by many factors before it manifests itself in a
political party (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967, p. 26). Indeed the distortions
in liberal democracy may be so great that some fault lines will not
give rise to parties at all. Others will create parties that continue to
exist in the face of profound social change. There is no mechanistic
process by which fault lines give rise to parties. Most parties that do
exist can trace their sources to some social change or division. Bour-
geois parties trace their roots to the capitalist classes as social demo-
cratic parties draw on the labour movements. Regionalist parties look
towards territorial divisions. Agrarian parties derive from the agricul-
tural support. In the appearance of New Politics parties and New Populist
parties, we can see the, sometimes distorted, traces of contemporary
social change.
The change that the newest wave of parties signify is the decline of
the postwar settlement. Taking as a starting date the end of the Sec-
ond World War we can, with a nod to national variations, pick out
four elements that have characterised the domestic politics of Western
Europe in the ensuing four decades: social democracy, corporatism,
the welfare state and Keynesianism. It is on the fertile ground of the
foundering of these four pillars that the new parties have taken root.
Social democracy took a hold on West European politics in a way
that has been unparalleled and unprecedented (Paterson and Thomas,
1977). This can be seen in two senses. First, social democratic and
labour parties had their best period of governmental representation during
this period. In Scandinavia, the social democratic parties held power
for such extensive periods that they looked virtually hegemonic. In
Austria, the Socialist Party of Austria (SPO) has been in the cabin.et
for 41 of the 45 years from 1945 to 1990. In countries like the Federal
Republic of Germany, social democratic parties held office for- the first
time since their formation. Table 2.1 illustrates the sucess of such par-
ties in gaining access to power by being a member of the cabinet and
shows how widespread that success was across Western Europe.
The other sense in which social democracy can be seen as prevalent
lies in the fact that non-socialist parties of government tended to share
many of the goals of social democracy. Thus, full employment and the
public provision of social goods were examples of goals that were
shared by most parties of government. In the United Kingdom, we
Table 2.1 Number of years of cabinet membership of social democratic

parties in Western Europe, 1948-1988
Country Party Years %

Austria Socialist Party of Austria (SPO) 36 90
Belgium Flemish Socialists (SP) and
Walloon Socialists (PS) 20 50
Denmark Social Democratic Party (SD) 27 67.5
Finland Social Democratic Party 25 62.5
Germany! Social Democratic Party (SPD) 16 40
Italy Social Democratic Party (PSDI)
and Italian Socialist Party (PSI) 28 70
Ireland Labour Party 17 42.5
Netherlands Labour Party (PvdA) 16 40
Norway Labour Party 28 70
Sweden Social Democratic Party (SAP) 34 85
United Kingdom Labour Party 13 32.5
Note:
France, Portugal, Spain and Greece have been excluded as they have seen
fundamental constitutional change during the 1948-1988 period.
1. 1949-1989.
Sources: Blondel and Muller-Rommel (1988); Damgaard (1992).
find terms like 'Butskellism' used to characterise the inter-party con-

sensus of the post-war years. In the Federal Republic of Germany,
there was consensus around the 'social market economy'. Recent years
have seen less success for social democracy and some have talked of
the crisis of social democracy as the dominant feature of the past dec-
ade while most observers have seen the need for the transformation of
social democracy in the face of the recent electoral success of the
right (Scharpf, 1991; Piven, 1991; Esping-Andersen, 1985; Gillespie
and Paterson, 1993; Paterson and Thomas, 1984a).
Partly as a consequence of the dominance of social democracy and
the rising power of labour movements, most of Western Europe had
some experience of corporatism (Schmitter, 1974; Peters, 1991a, Ch. 6).
For some countries this triangular arrangement between labour, capital
and the state became the dominant form political organisation. In par-
ticular, corporatism has been seen as most strongly characterising Austria
and the Nordic states. In other countries, more riven by ethnic div-
ision, corporatism has become transmuted into consociationalism, where
the societal interests involved are ethnic, religious or regional groups
rather than fractions of the economy (Lijphart, 1968). Elsewhere, in
the United Kingdom and Italy, corporatism has had a more fleeting
existence, although it has made an important impact during the post-
war years. Most countries had some examples of social and economic
councils that engaged in long-term economic planning and interest
mediation. Examples range from the French Economic and Social Council
and the Dutch Social and Economic Council to the less developed
National Economic Development Council ('Neddy') in the United King-
dom (Peters, 1991a, pp. 175-6; Hall, 1986, pp. 86-7).
The nature of corporatism, and the way academic observers have
described it, has changed over time. The access and proximity of in-
terest groups to the process of policy making and implementation has
altered as different types of interest groups have evolved and as the
policy process itself has been transformed, leading to the term 'neo-
corporatism' (Beyme, 1983). The growing strength of regional move-
ments have led some corporatist arrangements to take place on a
sub-national level giving rise to the term 'meso-corporatism' (Cawson,
1985). Other commentators have described the emergence of a process
whereby the interest groups are granted access but are less constrained
in their activities. This has been called 'corporate pluralism' (Heisler,
1979). Despite these variations, the inclusion, incorporation and incul-
cation of organised societal interests into the process of governance
has been the hallmark of much of West European politics for most of
the post-war period.
The third pillar of the post-war settlement is the welfare state. Al-
though something of a misnomer, all West European states developed
extensive public sectors and the universal provision of certain social
goods, usually comprising education, housing, and health care. The
core idea of these expenditures was the idea of social citizenship: that
being a citizen not only endowed one with political rights but also,
now, with social rights and benefits (Marshall, 1950). As Table 2.2
below illustrates, social welfare expenditure has rapidly and consist-
ently risen in a period of only twenty-five years. This shows how the
extended social rights were met by increased state obligations.
Some observers have stressed the inherent contradictions of the welfare
state or its present crisis (Offe, 1984; O'Connor, 1973; Gough, 1979;
Mishra 1984), but nearly all observers are agreed that its emergence in
the post-war period represented a critical change for, not only social
welfare provision, but also for the conduct of politics in general (Flora
and Heidenheimer, 1981; Esping-Andersen, 1990). Richard Parry defines
the welfare state as those systems in which social provision has become
a stake in the electoral contests of political parties (Parry, 1990, p. 12).
Table 2.2 Social welfare expenditures as percentage of total government

expenditure, 1960-1985
Country 1960 1970 1980 1985

Austria N/A 56.5 57.4 61.7
Belgium 57.2 68.2 72.8 73.0
Denmark N/A 63.3 61.9 64.0
Finland 58.2 63.9 66.4 67.9
France N/A N/A 60.5 62.5
Germany 65.3 63.2 66.0 68.1
Greece 36.2 38.8 40.0 51.1
Italy 56.4 64.2 64.2 60.4
Ireland 36.4 45.0 52.3 56.7
Netherlands 54.2 71.7 62.4 64.4
Norway 44.3 55.0 55.8 57.3
Sweden 49.3 52.9 53.2 56.7
Switzerland N/A 59.3 65.7 1 66.2
United Kingdom 41.9 48.9 49.8 48.6
Note:
1. 1978
Source: Peters (1991a, p. 236).
The stakes in this sense have not only been raised but also changed.
The final pillar pertains to political economy. One of the keys to
the success of the welfare state was the vital fact that the states could
afford to increase their public commitment. The welfare state was un-
equivocally premised on economic growth. The apparent resilience and
strength of Western Europe's economies during this period also had
the consequence that Keynesian demand management became the or-
der of the day (Hall, 1989). Depending upon the perspective taken, it
was because of, or despite the conduct of Keynesianism that econ-
omies grew. Either way, with governments appearing to manage de-
mand and to pump up the economy at regular periods that were, not
coincidentally, concurrent with election campaigns, Keynesianism be-
came entrenched as the dominant mode of political economy. Some-
what ironically an economic theory developed during times of economic
slump and crises became inextricably bound up with a period of econ-
omic stability and growth.
The theory was adapted to the national conditions and the demands
of politicians. From the 1950s onwards there was 'Austro-Keynesianism'
in Austria (Lauber, 1992). But Keynesian influence extended further
than simply to periods of economic growth. The early 1970s saw the
British Labour government attempting some ill-fated incomes policy

measures, and, in the early 1980s, the French Socialists attempted to
implement a radical 'redistributive Keynesianism' (Hall, 1986).
The four pillars of the postwar settlement have not remained im-
mune from change. Social, economic and political shifts have under-
mined each in tum. Electoral dealignment has challenged the social
democratic consensus of the major parties by lowering their support
levels forcing the breakdown of the consensus and the rise of the New
Right and the fragmentation of the left. The New Right itself has chal-
lenged the unalloyed commitment to the welfare state and the growth
of the public sector. The new social movements have challenged the
exclusion of social groups and certain issues from the political agenda
that has taken place under corporatism. And the monetarist economic
theorists and the 'stagflation' of the 1970s have undermined Keynesia-
nism's dominant place in political economy. Each of the four pillars
has undergone either crisis or demise since the late 1970s.
The phenomena of electoral dealignment, the new social movements,
monetarism, and the New Right are all indicators of deeply rooted
changes. The oil crises of the 1970s seemed to spell the end of the
cosy assumptions of economic growth and stability, and with those
assumptions the unchallenged nature of the welfare state and the effi-
cacy of Keynesianism seemed to go the way of all flesh. The shift to
a postindustrial economy undermined the class basis of social demo-
cratic parties by giving rise to unprecedented class constellations with
a 'new middle class' and an 'underclass' that superseded the traditional
middle-class/working-class division. With the waning of the social
democratic powerbase, the strength of the labour movements was re-
duced and so corporatism seemed an outmoded model in a workforce
that was becoming less unionised.
It was into this setting that the newest surge of political parties rode.
In the past two decades the waves of crisis that hit Western Europe in
the 1970s provided the momentum for the tides of protest that have
characterised the 1980s and 1990s. This protest first came from the
left with the Green parties, the alternative politics and what was to
crystallise into the New Politics. We are only now witnessing the equiv-
alent protest on the right. Melding together issues of taxation, immi-
gration and radical regionalism, across Western Europe new parties of
the right are protesting not only the policies, but the politics of the old
parties. This New Populism is, in many respects, the mirror image of
the New Politics, but they both derive from the same deep wellsprings of
change that have come about with the crises of the postwar settlement.
What binds together all the NPPs is an antipathy towards the four
pillars. Their presence reflects a swell in society at large away from
support for the existing consensus. Their ideologies and programmes,
sometimes, explicitly reject all or some of the four pillars. Their con-
currence arises out of the growing crises of the postwar settlement and
therefore their roots lie in the most profound change in politics in
recent years.
2.3 PARTY FORMS AND THE FORMING OF PARTIES
Although Maurice Duverger, in his seminal work on political parties,

focused mainly upon dominant parties, he also recognised that minor
parties could both play an influential role in parliamentary politics
and could reflect the concerns of political minorities (Duverger, 1964,
p. 292). In explaining the emergence of minor parties, he argued that
electoral systems are of crucial importance (Duverger, 1964, p. 296)
but he also stressed that parties' fortunes are inextricable from their
organisation. His distinction between mass and cadre parties was based
on the belief that different social and political contexts required dis-
tinct organisational forms.
Lipset and Rokkan argue against a 'Duvergerian' view that sees the
party system as a dependent variable and the electoral systems as in-
dependent, by arguing that the two are both manifestations of deeper
factors within the social and political contexts of the different polities
(Lip set and Rokkan, 1967, p. 30). They suggest that societies are criss-
crossed by fundamental cleavages and there are hierarchies of cleav-
ages (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967, p. 6) and that, to account for different
national experiences of party systems, we need to examine the con-
stellations of conflict that arise from these cleavages within each pol-
itical system (Lip set and Rokkan, 1967, p. 14). They identified the
relevant lines of cleavage as those around the religious and territorial
axes (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967, pp. 10-11) and argued that these cleav-
ages have emerged as a result of two critical revolutions: the national
and the industrial (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967, pp. 13-23). This leads
them to the conclusion that 'the party systems of the 1960's reflect,
with few but significant exceptions, the cleavage structures of the 1920's'
(Lipset and Rokkan, 1967, p. 50) and that the institutional hindrances
to the emergence of anti-system parties was high, thus rendering their
success improbable (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967, p. 55).
Panebianco takes up the assumption of Lipset and Rokkan that the
form of parties reflects the genesis of parties but attempts to fuse this
with the neglected organisational approach of Duverger (Panebianco,
1988). He argues that the process of institutionalisation reflects the
origins of parties. Some arise as a result of territorial penetration (where
the centre controls the periphery) and some as a result of territorial
diffusion (where the centre arises from local level activity) (Panebianco,
1988, p. 50). His stress is upon parties as organisations, and this is
part of the approach adopted here. While political parties reflect social
cleavages, their success is very much tied to the organisational forms
they choose to adopt.
In this book we take the existence of the NPPs as evidence of a
new protest cleavage. Their formation follows one of two paths: they
either develop as social movement organisations or they stem from the
innovations of political entrepreneurs exploiting a protest potential within
the electorate. The New Politics parties follow the former logic and
the New Populists the latter. With the NPPs we witness not only the
phenomenon of new parties breaking into the party systems, but also
entirely new types of party. The New Populism and the New Politics
are both new types of party but they differ from each other. This of-
fers us a comparative insight into what new types of party will be
more successful at sustaining the momentum which they have so far
gained. Parties, then, are here seen as symptomatic of larger changes.
Institutional and structural forms of liberal democracy fundamentally
condition how demands are made on political systems. Parties then
emerge as a function of social cleavages that reflect larger social changes.
The development of political parties subsequent to their initial for-
mation follows patterns partly determined by party ideology. These
ideologies are vital because they determine the behaviour of activists,
the organisation of the party and the type of potential electorate that
will be liable to vote for the party. Structural characteristics of liberal
democracies do not give equal weight to different organisational forms
and different types of elite behaviour and so this implies that different
ideologies will have different experiences when translated into the political
system.
In this sense the approach here is what Patrick Dunleavy and Brendan
O'Leary term a 'neo-pluralist' perspective: the political systems of liberal
democracies seen as input-state-output systems (Dunleavy and O'Leary,
1987; Lindblom, 1977). The assumption is that parties do reflect social
demands, but while all demands are theoretically equal, it is clear that
some are 'more equal' than others. Diverging from the neo-pluralist
perspective, structural neo-Marxism offers a more fruitful model of
system distortions (Offe, 1985b; Habennas, 1976), but these distor-

tions should not be seen purely as a reflection of class interests or
even as mechanistically reflective of economic conditions. In this book
the different fates of left and right NPPs are examined and this shows
how the structures of liberal democracy play out in two contrasting
cases. What is presented then, in the general approach, is a fusion of
neo-pluralism and structural neo-Marxism.
Organisational fonns have a crucial bearing on the fate of new par-
ties, but the organisational fonn that parties take is conditioned by the
ideologies of the parties. The ideology of the party determines what
fonn institutionalisation will take and the various ideologies are them-
selves functional responses to the crises and cleavages thrown up by
the socio-economic transfonnations in contemporary Western Europe.
In the particular case of the NPPs it is not the case that the new pro-
test cleavage is fundamentally cutting across existing party systems so
that all parties will eventually align to the left or the right of the new
protest cleavage. What is happening is that, in the face of the unfreezing
of party systems, of the dealigning of electorates and of the cartelisation
of the established parties, the NPPs offer the chance for the politics of
protest to be taken up by those elites and masses seeking solace for
the waning relevance of their traditional political cues. In the state of
flux, small parties of protest testify to larger processes of change and
can, even though they represent only a small minority of the elector-
ate, play a part in the re-orientation or indeed the transformation of
West European party systems.
2.4 NEW POLITICS: ON THE LEFf, AGAINST THE SYSTEM,

OF THE 'WHOLE'
Considering that they are relatively small parties, Green parties have
attracted a vast amount of academic attention. Peeping through the
variety of different approaches is the unifying theme that the emerg-
ence of Green parties constitute an indicator of larger social change.
That is as far as the consensus extends. To tap the divergence between
the theories of the New Politics we can identify four themes around
which different approaches converge: class, cleavages, opportunities
and values.
The foremost theory of Green party success is undoubtedly the 'post-
materialism' thesis of Ronald Inglehart (Inglehart, 1971, 1977, 1990).
The argument stresses the phenomenon of value change. Those who
were socialised during the post-war boom years amidst the growth of
welfare states, so the argument runs, had so much more material secur-
ity than older generations that they could engage in more abstract pol-
itical concerns. The position stresses that West European protest
movements are mobilised because, in Harold Macmillan's words, they
'never had it so good'. The environment is considered to be an ab-
stract concern. Green parties then are likely to emerge in countries
with high post-materialist mobilisation (Inglehart, 1990, p. 279). Draw-
ing on extensive poll data, Inglehart has charted the growth of post-
materialism.
Inglehart's approach is not without problems. The main weakness
with his approach relates to the applicability of the postmaterialism
thesis to the emergence of Green parties. The difficulty lies in whether
postmaterialism explains the emergence of Green parties or whether
green parties are evidence of postmaterialism. Green parties are therefore
both indicators of change and the cause of the change. The strength of
Inglehart's approach lies in its attempt to map the broader contours of
social change, but this limits its applicability to specific political facts.
In contrast to the postmaterialism thesis is the approach of a number
of authors who stress that the emergence of the new social movements,
on which the greens are based, follows from contradictions in contem-
porary society and the working out of modernity or welfare capitalism
(Offe, 1985b; Habermas, 1981). Rather than seeing the green phenom-
enon as indicative of the success of society, these authors see it as an
indictment of society's failings. The failure of capitalist welfare states
leads then to new cleavages that are expressed through the new social
movements and their parties. 1
The major difficulty of the new social movement approach is that it
is broadly structural and therefore cannot account for the particular
form and timing of the different Green parties. Staying within the cleavage
approach, Rildig argues that it is not the generalised discontent but
rather the specific cleavage around the ecological issue that determines
the rise of Green parties. A division arises around those who would
pursue policies that damage the long-term viability of human life and
those who oppose such policies (Rildig, 1990b, p. 18).
Both the value change and the cleavage approaches assume a struc-
tural perspective. Tracing the contours of larger social change has the
advantage of presenting the broader forces of history as instruments of
particular changes. It has, however, the disadvantage of not being able
to account for differences in timing and forms of mobilisation in dif-
ferent countries.
Another approach stresses the New Politics parties as the function

of the emerging social classes (Alber, 1989; Boy, 1981; Biirklin, 1985b).
Jens Alber highlights the emergence of a new highly educated class
that is frustrated in its attempts to enter the workforce: he describes
the German Green party as 'a party of frustrated academic plebeians'
(Alber, 1989, p. 205). This theory is largely based on the German
experience and, while it does tap an important insight into the over-
educated nature of green mobilisation, it is a generalisation that is not
always fully supported in other national contexts.
The final approach is that of Kitschelt which takes on board ele-
ments of the cleavage approach and, to this, appends the idea of 'pol-
itical opportunity structures' (Kitschelt, 1989). He argues that social
movements both reflect grievances (i.e. cleavages) and the opportunities
that exist in political systems to redress those grievances (Kitschelt,
1986). This allows both the breadth for cross-national comparison and
the specificity for us to be sensitive to particular contextual variables.
In this book this approach is followed but, because Kitschelt is only
concerned to account for New Politics parties, his socioeconomic and
structural variables are modified in order to give an account that can
explain both the New Politics and the New Populism. He identifies
five factors as determining the emergence of New Politics (or 'left-
libertarian' to use his terminology): economic affluence, the welfare
state, levels of corporatism, leftist parties in government and the nu-
clear power controversy (Kitschelt, 1989, pp. 16-38). These are refor-
mulated in the following chapter, after the definitions of the New Politics
and the New Populism have been addressed.
2.4.1 Defining the New Politics
The New Politics is that set of movements and parties which have
arisen out of the crises of the post-war settlement and which opt for
decentralised, anti-authoritarian/bureaucratic solutions, placing a con-
cern for equality alongside a concern for liberty. The New Politics
rejects three central tenets of the 'old politics' - class, industrialism
and the bureaucratic-professional state. The New Politics arises out of
a postindustrialism and lays much of the blame for social, political
and ecological problems at the feet of industrialism. But the solutions
it seeks, and the movements it engenders are explicitly inclusive. The
openness of Green party politics is symptomatic of a rejection of the
class-basis of the old politics. The New Politics does not claim to speak
for a particular class - it sees itself as inclusive and destructive of the
very conditions that give rise to social divisions.
The New Politics sees the consolidation of the bureaucratic-professional

state as evidence of the political failure of industrialism. As the
unsustainable economic system seeks to secure itself, it resorts to the
state. The state becomes over-extended and, in addition to its own
inefficiency, it presents the public with a more insidious danger - the
colonisation of the private sphere and the erosion of a space for mean-
ingful personal action.
The terminology of the New Politics has been applied in a number
of ways. For many authors, sympathetic and otherwise, it refers to the
postmaterialism thesis associated with Inglehart. This is the most re-
strictive sense of the term. Others have used it more widely, drawing
the 'New' from the new social movements and thus use it to refer to
those parties that reflect the new social movements' agenda.
Here the New Politics is defined along three lines: its ideology, its
organisation and its support base.
2.4.1.1 Ideology
The ideology of the New Politics suffuses the various new social move-
ments, the activists and its electorate. The elements of the ideology
can be seen in party programmes. It can also be seen in the actions
and orientations of activists. To bind these disparate elements together
conceptually and to illustrate the unity that, in practice, exists, it is
necessary to consider not simply the platforms of Green parties but
rather that which drives these policies and programmes.
In his study of green political thought, Andrew Dobson addresses
the issue of whether it fits into the left or the right and makes the
observation that while we can easily talk of the green movement in
this light 'to argue that ecologism is unequivocally left-wing is not so
easy' (Dobson, 1990, p. 30). There is a sense in which we may take
greens at their word that they are 'Nether left nor right but out in
front'. In their opposition to corporatist-social democratic modes of
politics, they stress the importance of liberty. Hence Kitschelt's term
- left-libertarianism - which draws that out. But it still places the New
Politics on the left. Despite the rhetorical contortions and protestations
of absolute novelty, academic commentators, no matter how sympath-
etic, have placed the New Politics on the left. There is justification
for their consistent classification in this manner. 2
Kitschelt places the New Politics on the left because such parties
'affirm solidarity and equality and reject the primacy of markets as
the final arbiters of social development and justice' (Kitschelt, 1989,
p. 2). Thomas Poguntke argues that the New Politics have an inherent
leftism because they share with the traditional left a concern with issues
like societal control of the economy and an emphasis upon egalitarian-

ism (Poguntke, 1989, p. 181). While the New Politics does have ele-
ments that contrast with the traditional left and which leads some
commentators to suggest that they have transcended the left-right div-
ide (Milller-Rommel, 1990, p. 217) or have transformed it (Dalton,
1988, p. 121), it can still be categorised usefully as on the left. Out of
the crises of the postwar settlement, the New Politics has emerged as
the main left-leaning protest movement.
The crises of the postwar settlement lie as the basis of the New
Politics. By the nature of any settlement, the consensus of the post-
war years became institutionalised. This was part of its efficacy and
of its strength. Social democracy was institutionalised in parties that
became established parties of government. Corporatism was institution-
alised in social and economic councils. The welfare state was institution-
alised in social legislation and in the public provision of health, education,
housing and other social services. Keynesianism became entrenched in
economic policies and in the thinking of key economic agencies. The
New Politics, in challenging the postwar settlement, is thus confronted
by a powerful array of institutions. It is therefore, by its very nature,
forced to be an anti-system party.
Sartori defines an-anti-system party as one that 'undermines the legit-
imacy of the system it opposes' and pointedly argues that an 'anti-
system party may operate from within no less than from without' (Sartori,
1976, p. 133). In 1979, Suzanne Berger argued that the emergence of
new green movements heralded the emergence of 'antipolitics' (Berger,
1979). The New Politics parties construct themselves in a manner that
is often confrontational and conftictual. They are anti-system because
they seek not only access to but also changes in political institutions.
In elections they have placed a high emphasis upon symbolic actions.
In legislatures they have attempted to differentiate themselves from
the established parties not only in the content of their policies but also
in their parliamentary style.
The final element of the ideology of New Politics parties lies in the
fact that they claim to represent 'the whole'. The New Politics'
inclusiveness is, negatively, a rejection of class-based politics. On the
positive side, it is an assertion of unity (and therefore, by implication,
of community). It is essentially holistic in its perspective. In this sense
it is often ecological (as opposed to environmental). The 'whole' which
functions are the core of their ideology is interpreted in a number of
ways. These can be seen as a series of concentric circles.
The outermost circle is that which specifically relates to green pol-
itical theory: the whole in this sense is the natural world. Thus, for the
most part greens will stress that humankind is part of a larger natural
unit, the elements of which cannot be sustained independently.3 The
social sphere is thus one part of the natural world and cannot be con-
sidered in isolation.
Moving inward, New Politics parties stress that, when we are con-
sidering human life, we should do so inclusively. This means that div-
isions of gender, race and geographical region are considered irrelevant.
The most concrete embodiments of this are the provisions to encour-
age women to participate in the party and the role that international
solidarity plays in New Politics rhetoric and practice. At its most rad-
ical, the New Politics challenges the notion of nations as the most
effective and democratic political institutions. When New Politics par-
ties consider the domestic sphere this is self-consciously constructed
to be a politics that does not confine itself to a particular class. It is a
repudiation of the class basis of politics.
The innermost circle is that which relates to the movement and party
itself. In this sphere inclusion relates to the importance placed upon
participation. The organisation of New Politics parties has often been
designed to facilitate participation rather than to guarantee efficiency.
This has, not surprisingly, led to problems. The organisational embodi-
ment of the ideology is therefore another important identifying feature
of New Politics parties.
2.4.1.2 Organisation
In their 1983 Manifesto, the German Greens declared:
In all political spheres we support the idea of strengthening the par-
ticipation of the people affected by introducing elements of direct
democracy ... Our internal organisational life and our relationship
to the people who support and vote for us is the exact opposite of
that of the established parties in Bonn ... Because of this we have
decided to form a new type of party organisation, the basic struc-
tures of which are set up in a grassroots-democratic and decentra-
lised way. (Die Griinen, 1983, p. 8)
The tone, tenor and implications of their statement have been followed
through in the practice of most New Politics parties. While there have
been different national variations and changes within parties that have
come about as a result of experimenting with initially very radical
modes of party organisation, there has always been the attempt to be
unconventional.
The inclusiveness of New Politics ideology has found its embodi-

ment in ideas of participatory democracy (Poguntke, 1989, pp. 180-1;
Muller-Rommel, 1990, p. 217). Meetings of party committees are often
open. Participation of women is often encouraged through having quotas
of women candidates. While the parties have been anxious to involve
many members in the decision-making process, they have, concomi-
tantly, sought to restrict the role of individual leaders. Poguntke labels
this 'elite-challenging participation' (Poguntke, 1992b, p. 240). This
has been achieved usually through having collective leadership so that
there is not an over-individualisation of power. In addition, green par-
ties have often adopted (with different degrees of commitment and
success) the principle of rotation of representatives in legislatures, so
that after a given period the representatives are replaced by other greens.
By the 1990s, and following their initial attempts at organising around
radically different lines, Jonathan Porritt, a leading British Green, sadly
concluded that the (British) Greens could not organise to walk a dog
round the block (Feinstein, 1992, p. 437). The national response was
for the British Greens to pass the 'Green 2000' resolution that created
a party executive and acknowledged the need for party leadership. Similar
changes have taken place in the German Green Party (Frankland and
Schoonmaker, 1992, pp. 114-15) prompted by the organisational di-
lemmas that unification presented (Poguntke, 1992a). A similar organ-
isational change took place in the Swedish Green Party in 1990-1
(Lundgren, 1991; Chapter 5 below). These changes reflect some of
the problems of unconventional organising, but do not detract from
the observation that most organisational forms of New Politics parties
are driven by commitments to decentralisation and participation and
by a distaste for leadership.
The nature of New Politics party organisation revolves around three
central concepts: decentralisation, a distaste for leadership and partici-
pation. New Politics parties seek to embody their disdain for the prac-
tice of 'politics as usual' by organising around the practice of the politics
of the unusual.
2.4.1.3 Electoral Base

New Politics parties have a clearly defined electoral bases. While there
are, of course, some national variations, there is a remarkable degree
of cross-national congruity. We can note this with some confidence
because there has been some academic attention to this question in
different national contexts. For those theories of the New Politics that
stress the class basis of the parties (Alber, 1989), this demographic
dimension is of crucial importance. It is also important for other the-

ories because it means that, as long as there is a disproportionate tend-
ency for groups with identifiable social characteristics to support New
Politics parties, that they have a core constituency. This unites the
party with its support and means that the party is not merely a vehicle
for expressing passing dissatisfactions with the other parties.
The changing nature of society with the shift to a postindustrial struc-
ture and the rise of mass structural unemployment has broken up old
constellations, put some groups in new classes and even perhaps cre-
ated a new class. The effect of this can be seen in basic socioecon-
omic demographic variables. An economy which is knowledge-based
yields higher levels of education among its workforce. However, the
high levels of unemployment yields a well-educated but under-employed
young cohort. With the decline in importance of manual labour, women
are increasingly incorporated into the workforce as traditional gender
models weaken. Add to this potent mix the weakening hold of class
and of the old parties on an increasingly disconsolate electorate, and
we have fertile ground for new parties of protest (Dalton, Flanagan
and Beck, 1984; Franklin, 1985) The New Politics parties reflect dis-
proportionately these new constellations.
Inglehart has placed the education revolution as one of the central
features of the shift to postmaterialism (Inglehart, 1990, p. 6), but it is
not necessary to accept the value change thesis to recognise the cen-
trality of rising education levels. With the predominance of the service
sector that is postindustrialism, so there is an increasing demand for a
technologically advanced workforce. Combine this with the structural
mass unemployment that has beset West European economies since
the 1970s (and which, with postindustrialism, has forced the crises of
the post-war settlement) and there is an important scramble among
those entering the workforce for the first time, for high levels of edu-
cational attainment. Those with high education levels and without the
long-established ties to existing parties that build up over an individ-
ual's lifetime, are therefore liable to be attracted to parties which pro-
fess a disdain for traditionalism and carry the appeal of novelty. This
is the reason that the New Politics electorate has, as its most notable
attribute, high education and youth. Studies of New Politics party sup-
port bear this out.
In his survey of voters for New Politics parties in six West Euro-
pean countries, Ferdinand Muller-Rommel argues that such voters are
highly educated and young (Muller-Rommel, 1990, p. 220). Another
survey of French, German and British green voters concurs with the
importance of youth as a variable (Rtidig and Franklin, 1992, p. 42).

The importance of both youth and education is borne out in research
on individual countries. In their research on the British green vote in
the 1989 election, Rtidig, Bennie and Franklin single out a high level
of education as the single most likely attribute of green voters and
also suggest that they are mostly young (Rtidig, Bennie and Franklin,
1992, pp. 15-16). This is reflected in studies of Green voters in Aus-
tria (Haerpfer, 1989, p. 30), Danish Green Party voters (Schtittemeyer,
1989, p. 57), the Belgian Agalev and Ecolo parties (Kitschelt, 1988,
p. 87), France (Prendiville, 1989, pp. 95-6), the Swedish Green Party
(Taggart, 1992a: p. 16; Bennulf, 1990, p. 48) and the German Greens
(Frankland and Schoonmaker, 1992, p. 87). We can generalise with
both confidence and breadth, then, that New Politics parties appeal
disproportionately to the young and the well-educated. This is not the
only feature we can detect but it is the strongest.
With the increasing incorporation of women into the workforce, ris-
ing levels of political efficacy for women are not wholly matched by
commitment to the established parties. Women therefore tend to figure
prominently in the New Politics electorate. This is true, for example
of the Swiss green voters (Ladner, 1989, p. 160), for the Swedish Green
vote (Taggart, 1992a, p. 13; Bennulf, 1990, p. 48), as it is for the
German Greens who have come to see women over-represented among
their voters over time (Frankland and Schoonmaker, 1992, p. 224).
The fact that women are more usually public-sector employees and
that New Politics parties draw heavily from these groups has led com-
mentators to suggest that the New Politics constituency is the 'new
middle class' which is predisposed towards increased female partici-
pation (Dalton, 1988, p. 170). The New Politics parties draw from
those who are working for the state, and therefore have a strong grounding
to their anti-system ideology.
It is because the New Politics parties draw on the 'dealigned' elec-
torate that they have a volatile support base. It follows that a party
that presents itself as an 'anti-party' should draw to itself an electorate
that is also 'anti-party' and therefore is u~easy at being drawn· too
close to the party. There are two senses in which the New Politics
electorate is volatile; firstly it has a generally low level of loyalty to
particular parties. Secondly, it draws from across the political spec-
trum. Another way of putting this is that, although there is a small
identifiable social core, New Politics parties pull in from across the
political spectrum and cannot be assured of the continued and unquali-
fied support of these voters in the future.
Although the activists of New Politics parties seem to be drawn

heavily from the left, this is less true of their supporters. Examples of
elite-supporter discrepancies can be drawn from the most successful
and the least successful West European green parties: the German and
the British respectively. Poguntke points out that this discrepancy be-
tween German Green Party activists and their voters has nothing to do
with social backgrounds which they largely share (Poguntke, 1990,
p. 41). Riidig, Bennie and Franklin's work on British Green activists
and voters finds that 51.3 per cent of activists had previously been
members of the Labour Party while only 16.3 per cent of green voters
had previously voted for parties of the left (Riidig and Franklin, 1992,
p. 47; Riidig, Bennie and Franklin, 1991, p. 31).4 We see something of the
same discrepancy between New Populist activists and their support base.
In summary, the three definitive features of New Politics parties are:
• Ideologically the parties are left-leaning, anti-system in orientation,
and offer an inclusive definition of politics that claims to speak
for the 'whole' of society.
• Organisationally the parties are decentralised, with a heavy em-
phasis on participation and a general distaste for leadership.
• Electorally the parties are supported by a constituency that is dis-
proportionately well-educated and young while it is also usually
female, employed in the public sector and volatile.
Using the criteria established above we can identify all the parties
in Western Europe that fit the description (cf. Kitschelt, 1989, p. 11;
Miiller-Rommel, 1990, pp. 214-15; Poguntke, 1989, p. 184).
From the list we can see that Green parties are predominant in the
list of New Politics parties. While other parties do come under the
rubric (Denmark and Norway's Socialist People's Parties and Italy's
Radical Party), these are the exceptions. They do meet the criteria above
whereby they have a New Politics ideology and this is combined with
a New Politics support base and they attempt to organise in a manner
that sets them apart from the established parties. It is reasonable to
talk of Green parties as practically synonymous with the New Politics.
It is notable that the best vote of the individual parties in national
elections, with only three exceptions, have occurred in the 1980s and
1990s. This means that the New Politics phenomenon still should be
seen as a contemporary trend, even if some commentators claim that
the green wave has reached its highest level and is now on the decline.
Table 2.3 New Politics Parties in Western Europe
Country New Politics Party Best Year

Vote I
Austria The Greens 4.8 (1986)

United Green Party (VGO) 1.4 (1983)
Alternative List of Austria (ALO) 1.9 (1983/90)
Belgium Agalev 4.9 (1991)
Ecolo 5.1 (1991)
Denmark Socialist People's Party 14.6 (1987)
Greens 1.4 (1988)
Finland Greens 6.8 (1991)
France Generation Ecology 3.6 (1993)
Greens 4.0 (1993)
Germany The Greens 8.3 (1987)
Greece Environmental Movement 0.8 (1990)
Italy Radical Party 3.5 (1979)
Green lists 2.8 (1992)
Ireland Comhaotas Glas/Greens 1.5 (1989)
Luxembourg The Green Alternative 4.2 (1984)
Alternative List 0.9 (1979)
Ecologists for North 1.1 (1989)
Green Left 3.7 (1989)
Netherlands Green Progressive Accord 4.1 (1989)
Greens 0.2 (1986)
Norway Socialist People's Party 11.2 (1973)
Green Party 0.4 (1989)
Portugal Greens
Spain Green Party 0.4 (1986)
Sweden Green Party 5.5 (1988)
Switzerland The Greens 6.2 (1991)
Progressive Organisation 2.2 (1983)
Alternative Greens 2.7 (1987)
United Kingdom Green Party 1.5 (1991)
Note:
I. Best Vote refers to the highest level of the national vote gained in national
elections.
Sources: Mackie and Rose (1991); Muller-Rommel (1989); Kitschelt (1989);

Parkin (1989); Muller-Rommel and Pridham (1991); Financial Times (Vari-
ous, 1989-1993); West European Politics Election Reports (Various, Vols
14-16,1991-3); Elder, Thomas and Arter (1988); Urwin and Paterson (1990).
2.5 NEW POPULISM: ON THE RIGHT, AGAINST THE

SYSTEM, OF THE 'MAINSTREAM'
The 1980s have witnessed, not without some sense of alarm, a rising
tide of right-wing extremism. 5 The demise of the Cold War and the
collapse of communism has given succour to the far right. The changing
agenda of West European politics has provided refuge and ammuni-
tion for an ideology that sees extreme nationalism and issues of immi-
gration as its lode-stone. It is tempting to see this as an echo of the
last wave of fascism that swept across Europe in the earlier part of
this century. To succumb to such a temptation is to point to a very
tenable, and therefore chilling, explanation. But it is only partial.
The rise of the far right in its contemporary incarnations is some-
times very different from its former identities. The thesis presented
here is that there are two intersecting trends. There is certainly the
resurgence of fascism (what we shall call neo-fascism). This follows
from the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe and from the
resulting increased saliency of issues of immigration, the precarious
position of the nation-state, challenged from below by regionalist/na-
tionalist movements and from above by supra-national institutions
such as the European Union. Combine this potent cocktail of the structural
changes with the touch-paper of economic recession and it gives rise
to attacks on refugees in Germany, the desecration of a Jewish cem-
etery in France, and the flourishing of far right movements across
Europe. 6 However, the growth of neo-fascism is not inherently tied to
the crises of the postwar settlement.
The second trend is what differentiates the current situation from
previous fascist waves, and is tied directly to the crisis of the post-war
settlement: the rise of the parliamentary far right. Representation of
the far right in parliament is not altogether new. What is new is the
types of parties that have come to gain entrance into the political sys-
tems of Western Europe. These parties tend to share much of the agenda
of the extra-parliamentary far right but have tempered this with a pol-
itical style that, while hinting at an antipathy towards parliamentary
democracy, works within the system and even adopts a formal com-
mitment to the democratic process. Although commentators often con-
flate them, there are two trends: there is neo-fascism and there is the
New Populism. Sometimes these trends are conflated in the form of
political parties, but often they are distinct. Differentiating the trends
demonstrates that neither the neo-fascism nor the New Populism ex-
clusively can explain what is happening or can account for the strength
of the far right at present. For the purposes of this book the term 'far
right' is used as an embracing term to include both neo-fascism and
the New Populism.
It is the aim of this chapter to provide a definition and theory of the
New Populism that will be applied in subsequent chapters to the Swedish
case.
2.5.1 Defining New Populism
The practice of an ideology is always an important test of its efficacy.

Frequently ideologies are revised in order to take account of the dis-
tortions that occur in practice. We cannot simply take what elites say
about ideologies as gospel. A theme running through this book is that
ideologies are not simply ex-post-facto justifications of actions taken
but rather they fundamentally condition, constrain and even determine
the actions taken. In order to cut across the different dimensions of the
New Populism we will address the beliefs of its elites, the organisa-
tion and strategy that those beliefs engender and the electoral bases to
whom the incarnation of these beliefs, as a party, appeals.
2.5.1.1 Ideology
The term 'populism' is a notoriously difficult term. Any term that
encompasses radical Agrarian movements in the United States, the nine-
teenth century intellectual movement of narodnichestvo in Russia, Peronist
dictatorship in Argentina via Swiss direct democracy, George Wallace
and Polish Solidarity necessarily verges on being a conceptual tinder-
box. Nonetheless there are some elements that run through many of
the different uses of the term (Ionescu and Gellner, 1969; Canovan,
1981). Stripping popUlism of its contextual and social features, it is
employed here (admittedly guardedly) to stress two elements that seem
to run throughout the various meanings. These two elements are its
negativity and its breadth. These factors place the New Populism on
the right and 'in the mainstream'. An anti-system element is drawn
from the same sources from which have also sprung the New Politics
(Milller-Rommel, 1990; Kitschelt, 1989; Poguntke, 1993).
In ideological terms, the New Populism is on the right, against the
system, and yet defines itself as in the 'mainstream '. It is right-wing,
anti-system and populist. It is of the people but not of the system. The
growth of the New Populism is itself the repudiation of any idea that
politics as usual is a politics that works. This anti-system orientation
has had implications for how the party both organises and behaves. It
enjoys 'breaking the rules' because they are the rules of a system it
sees as defunct.
Hofstadter (1955, p. 61) described American populism as nativistic
and anti-Semitic. The idea of intolerance is often central to analyses
of populism. There is, in populism then, a strong element of the nega-
tive. It is opposed to the system and to those that run the system. And
it frequently invokes a notion of 'the p.eople' that is characterised more
by who it excludes than by who it includes. Central to this impetus is
a politics of the 'heartland'.7 Implicit and integral to populism is a
vision of the heartland: a sense of what is 'normal' and, consequently,
comfortable. The politics of the heartland is a vague notion, but a
potent mobilising force. Unable to fully articulate those instincts, populism
frequently resorts to attacking those that appear to be threatening to
notions of the heartland. By challenging the legitimacy of others, populists
are engaging in the politics of identity construction by default. They
may not know who they are, but they know who they are not.
High on the list of the excluded for the New Populists are poli-
ticians, immigrants, bureaucrats, intellectuals and welfare recipients.
While the list varies slightly from country to country according to cir-
cumstances, the core logic of exclusion remains a constant. In his ex-
amination of the Kansas populists, Walter Nugent terms this a 'selective
nativism' and we see something of that in the New Populism with its
emphasis upon the politics of race and immigration (Nugent, 1963,
p. 9). When the New Populists talk of the 'ordinary man' and his
exclusion from contemporary politics it sometimes seems to be an evo-
cation of the excluded rather than the included. The 'ordinary man' is
the typical occupant of the heartland.
The 'people' have always been central to the rhetoric of populists.
As Lawrence Goodwyn notes, it is this mass nature of populism that
has been so vital to the accepted academic interpretations of populism
(Goodwyn, 1991). The alleged breadth of New Populists' constituency
is the well-spring for the New Populists' indignation at their exclusion
from political life. While they may not be the elite ('the political class')
they are, so the claim goes, the many ('the mainstream'). Like Richard
Nixon's 'silent majority', it is the size of the support rather than its
silence which is its salient feature.
The reason for describing the New Populism as 'New' is two-fold.
Firstly, it is to stress that this is a historically-contingent manifestation
of populism that, although bearing strong similarities to other populist
movements, has some idiosyncratic features rendering it distinct. The
New Populism is that populist instinct that is engendered by the collapse
of the postwar settlement in Western Europe. In this sense it is indeed

novel because it is contingent upon a particular historical and political
context. It ties itself to the collapse of many of the prevailing 'meta-
narratives': the 'end' of the Cold War, the 'collapse' of communism,
the 'crisis' of welfarism and the 'passing' of fordism.
The second reason for the 'New' lies in the common basis that it
shares with New Politics movements such as Green parties and the
new social movements. In many ways, the New Populism lies across
the same fault lines which have given rise to the New Politics. It clearly
faces in a different direction but it shares the same anti-system orien-
tation and is a consequence of the particular social, political, and econ-
omic changes that we may characterise as the 'postwar settlement'.
This settlement can be portrayed as the consensus that grew around
ideas such as social democracy, the welfare state, corporatism and
Keynesianism in most West European countries following the end of
the Second World War. The New Populism has emerged as the post-
war settlement has effectively broken up. The crises of the postwar
settlement have served as the facilitators of the New Populism.
The reason many observers conflate the New Populism with neo-
fascism is that they both lie somewhere on the right of the political
spectrum. Although many New Populists seek to deny the efficacy of
the left-right distinction, there is more tenacity in that distinction than
they would like to see. The denial of being on the right may well be a
rhetorical device that serves to avoid alienating those on the left who
are attracted by parts of its ideology. There is a good strategic reason
for the New Populists cultivating an electoral base that crosses from
the left to the right. In terms of activist beliefs and programme orienta-
tion, there can be little doubt that the New Populism lies on the right.
The New Populism is markedly neo-liberal in its economic orienta-
tion. The market is the legitimate and effective site for conflict resolu-
tion. The state is viewed as largely illegitimate, over-extended and
ineffective. Liberty is, consequently, a key concept for the New Populism.
This liberty is defined in negative and individual terms. For the New
Populists, freedom consists largely of the absence of state restraints on
individual action. The alleged over-extension of the scope and scale of
the state as a consequence of the postwar settlement is the basis of
much of the New Populist critique. It therefore makes sense that they
should emphasise the importance of the individual as an ethical norm.
They are unmistakably parties of the right in this sense.
The leader of the Lombard League, Umberto Bossi, declared after
their election success in 1992: 'This was just the first blow against
the system, the second will be decisive' (quoted in Ruzza and Schmidtke,
1993, p. 1). New Populism exists as a reaction to certain systemic and
political factors that appear to be manifest as crises. It is therefore not
surprising to find that a core belief is that the 'system' has failed. In
identifying the 'system' with those who people it, the New Populists
are betraying their populist roots. This anti-system attitude can mani-
fest itself in an anti-party ideology. Such a position has important
implications for the way they operate as parties. It also gives rise to
the quintessential dilemma that they share with New Politics parties:
how to be an effective party at the same time as being an 'anti-party'.
It is the exclusionary element of the New Populism that justifies the
description as populist. In rhetorical terms, this exclusion is usually
expressed in terms of their representation of the 'mainstream'. The
New Populism is an appeal to majority politics: it argues that corporat-
ism and the growing strength of interest groups have, in effect, ex-
cluded the middle ground and alienated the 'ordinary' voter. Of course,
such an appeal makes some very contentious assumptions. It assumes
that the multicultural vision of society is illegitimate and implies that
the ordinary person is working in the private sector, white and most
probably male. Although these assumptions are contentious, they are
important factors in the construction of an electoral constituency.
The New Populist parties differ from neo-fascist parties in a number
of ways. The most concrete difference is also very difficult to verify
but is related to historical continuity: neo-fascist parties tend to have
some direct link to the fascist parties of the previous era while New
Populist parties appear to lack such a historical link. For example, the
Italian Social Movement was formed in 1946 by Fascists set on main-
taining the tenacity of their ideas in the face of the defeat of the re-
gime (Chiarini, 1991, p. 26; Ignazi, 1993, pp. 77-9). Other neo-fascist
parties have been associated with a fascist tradition. Ignazi makes a
similar point in his differentiation between old and new far right par-
ties (Ignazi, 1992, pp. 9-11). He provides us with a list of those far
right parties linked to fascism (Ignazi, 1992, p. 10).
Ignazi's list includes the German People's Party (DVU), and the
National Democratic Party (NPD) in Germany (also see StOss, 1988,
pp. 41-4; Minkenberg, 1992, p. 56; Roberts, 1992b, pp. 334-6). In
Greece, Spain and Portugal he highlights the National Political Union
(EPEN), the National Front and the Christian Democratic Party (PDC)
respectively as having strong links with the former fascist regimes in
these countries. Similarly, the Italian fascists have clearly found a modern
incarnation in the Italian Social Movement (MSI). In countries without
such legacies, Ignazi links the British National Front and the British
National Party to fascist roots, and he traces a similar genealogy for
CP'86 in the Netherlands. Even at first glance the absence of major
far right parties such as the French National Front, or the Republicans
in Germany, is notable.
The second difference is that, while New Populist parties often have
an explicit or implicit anti-immigrant stance, this is rarely the sole
source of their identity. The anti-immigrant stance is often conflated
with other salient issues. For example, the Swiss Automobilists' Party
was formed as a reaction to the demands of environmentalists. The
Progress Parties in Denmark and Norway and New Democracy in Sweden
are most famously associated, sometime primarily, with an anti-taxa-
tion agenda. The Italian Lombard League has, as its ideological centre-
piece, a commitment to regional devolution and is often analysed primarily
as a regional movement - albeit an exceptional one (Ruzza and
Schmidtke, 1993, pp. 1-4). In contrast, the neo-fascist parties, while
they do develop other policy positions, are almost exclusively anti-
immigrant parties.
New Populism, like neo-fascism, is an ideal type party. We should
consider both as ideals towards which parties of the far right may
gravitate. Some parties are more unequivocally New Populist than neo-
fascist. A further complication is that New Populism and neo-fascism
are not necessarily contradictory. A neo-fascist party may assume a
New Populist orientation, or a New Populist party may move towards
a neo-fascist agenda if it begins to stress the immigration issue to the
effective exclusion of all others. However, in practice, parties do tend
to be either neo-fascist or New Populist. Examples of parties that blur
the distinction are the Republicans in Germany, the National Front in
France and the Flemish Bloc in Belgium.
Ideologically, New Populist parties bear the imprint of their origins.
The parties are on the defensive because of threats to a perceived heart-
land. Their ideology therefore defines itself in largely negative terms
as who it is not and who are the 'enemy'. The effect of that ideology
is to draw on a certain social constituency. It also has profound impli-
cations for the way they institutionalise as parties.
2.5.1.2 Organisation
New Populist parties have two qualities that pertain to their organisa-
tion: they are very centralised and they set great store in the leader-
ship which is both personalised and charismatic. These characteristics
are not, in themselves, peculiar to New Populist parties, but they do
point to a central feature of such parties: that they can reconcile anti-
systemic elements with organisational elements that potentially aid their
institutional and electoral survival. They are also the organisational
articulation of key elements of the New Populist ideology.
The element of charismatic leadership is essential to the nature of
the New Populism. New Populism is an explicit attempt to offer mod-
els of party qua party that differ from prevailing models. It is because
the prevailing party model is the 'catch-all' professional-bureaucratic
party, that charismatic-based models are themselves a form of protest
(Panebianco, 1988; Katz and Mair, 1995). The other alternative is the
New Politics model of devolved, decentralised and depersonalised lead-
ership. Both are challenges to the conventional ideas of parties as
organisations.
A simple rule of thumb to decide whether to exclude a party from
the list of New Populist parties is to see if there is a name of an
individual leader that comes to mind with the name of the party. If
there is no such association, then the party will probably not be a New
Populist phenomenon. In identifying such parties across Western Eu-
rope, it is easy to single out leaders whose names seem inextricable
from the parties they lead (or led). In one case the name has been
more than identified with the party: the Norwegian Progress Party was
originally called the Anders Lange Party. In its latter incarnations it
was revived under, and became identified with, the leadership of Carl
I. Hagen. Mogens Glistrup's name goes with the Danish Progress Par-
ty, Veikko Vennamo's with the Finish Rural Party, and Jean-Marie Le
Pen's with the French National Front. Some commentators have even
talked of the phenomenon of 'Lepenisme' in the latter case (Vaughan,
1991, pp. 221-5). With the Swedish example of New Democracy, the
Party has become associated with an unusual but definitely personal-
ised double-act of Ian Wachtrneister and Bert Karlsson. Something similar
has occurred with the leadership of the Ticino League in Switzerland
where Giulano Bignasca and Flavio Maspoli have indelibly stamped
their mark on their fledgling creation (Kniisel and Hottinger, 1994).
In the case of the Austrian Freedom Party it has been the leadership
of Jorg Haider that has in fact transformed the party into being a New
Populist party, and it is with his leadership that the party has come to
be identified. In Germany, Franz SchOnhuber's role has been crucial
to the development of the Republicans.
Clearly other non-New Populist parties are also identified with par-
ticular leaders so this is merely a minimal criteria for New Populist
parties. For the New Populists, leadership is not merely an ingredient:
it is the essence of both their message and their party. In New Popu-
list parties, the charismatic basis of their leadership is an essential
element because it represents a symbolic challenge to the prevailing
models of party organisation. It serves the dual function of legitimat-
ing the parties' claim to be essentially different from other parties and
allows a degree of control over the party machinery by the leadership
that is designed to maximise the impact of their relatively small elec-
toral consti tuency .
It is partly a consequence of the centralised structure that New Popu-
list parties employ charismatic leadership. In seeking to reject the tra-
ditional idea of a political party, the New Populists construct a party
organisation that explicitly challenges the model of bureaucratic and
hierarchical structure associated with mass parties. This means that
they employ centralised organisational patterns. Where the traditional
parties are strictly hierarchical and pyramidal, New Populists aim to
be selective and small in structure. New Democracy has striven to
make its national party independent of the encumbrances of the local
or county levels, with the justification that this allows a direct line of
communication between the 'people' and the national elites.
The regional basis of some of the New Populist parties (the Italian
Northern Leagues and the Swiss League of Ticino, for example) can
also be seen as an attempt to reject the basic rules of party organising
that usually result in parties that are explicitly national in scope. It is
an essential element of the Lombard League that it has advocated a
radical form of federalism and of 'macroregions' (Thompson, 1993,
pp. 8-16; Miglio, 1991-92, pp. 41-2). It is a combination of unorthodoxy
with centralisation and personalised leadership that leads Dwayne Woods
to describe the Lombard League as 'a centralised political movement
with decision-making concentrated in the hands of Bossi and national
committee of his supporters' (Woods, 1992b, p. 125). Such a descrip-
tion is typical of the organisational form favoured by the New Populists.
These parties of 'ordinary people' seem to consistently depend upon
the personal appeal of the most extraordinary of men to lead them.
2.5.1.3 Electoral Base

The final element of New Populists that makes them distinct is their
electoral profile. The contours of the New Populist base clearly over-
lap with profile of the far right that has traditionally been drawn. Neo-
fascist movements have traditionally been portrayed as having an inner
city, working-class, protest constituency or as poor and under-educated
and predominantly male (e.g. Whitely, 1979, pp. 370-81; Husbands,
1992b, p. 120). In terms of some basic demographic characteristics we

can summarise from the literature that neo-fascist parties draw from
poor, under-educated, urban and male constituencies (Falter and
Schumann, 1988, pp. 96-110). The New Populists are drawing from
that constituency but the net is cast somewhat wider.
The reason for assuming that New Populists will draw from a wider
range of electors than neo-fascists, is that New Populism is, at root, at
least in the electorate, a protest phenomenon. If the parties are suc-
cessful at portraying themselves as a different type of party, then they
will be at relative liberty to attract voters from across the political
spectrum because they have not defined themselves out of any particu-
lar ideological milieu. In a similar vein, they aim to mobilise the citizens
who have previously expressed their dissatisfaction with the dominant
parties by simply not voting. It is because their ideology contains the
idea that they are a 'mainstream' phenomenon that they can, and do
attract voters from across a broad range. Within this swathe there is a
clear propensity for some demographic groups to be more attracted to
the New Populists. This means that, at one and the same time, they
can portray themselves as beyond the sullied constraints of normal
class-centred electoral base-building, and yet count on the support of a
core group of voters - albeit a small group.
The New Populist constituency is predominantly male. On a wider
note than neo-fascism, it is not necessarily poor or unemployed, but is
employed in the private sector. It is not poorly educated but does draw
from the middle to low educational strata. It also draws from a wide
range of prior voting positions and may draw in those that previously
did not take part in elections. It is also predominantly young, with
those who are voting for the first time having fewer ties to break with
the established order. We may see examples of this in a number of
parties.
Mitra's study of the French National Front demonstrates how there
is an over-representation of the youngest cohort (18-24) in the party's
electorate and also shows that the National Front's vote actually in-
creases with higher levels of education (Mitra, 1988, pp. 54-6; Cf.
Safran, 1993, p. 24). Nonna Mayer and Pascal Perrineau (1992, pp.
127-8) also demonstrate that Le Pen's voters 'cross the left-right div-
ide more often than any other electorate'. Andersen and Bjorklund (1990,
p. 204) demonstrate that the vote for both the Danish and Norwegian
Progress parties is predominantly from the private sector. Eva Kolinsky
demonstrates that the German Republicans are disproportionately male,
while Veen, Lepszy and Mnich concur with this conclusion and also
point out that the voters are 'a disproportionately young "homeless"
pool of voters' (Kolinsky, 1992, p. 82; Veen, Lepszy and Mnich, 1993,
p. 31). Kntisel and Hottinger describe the voters for the Ticino League
as 'predominantly masculine, a little older and less educated than the
average, living mostly in large towns, [and] Catholic but not necess-
arily church-going' (Kntisel and Hottinger, 1994). There does appear
to be some sort of a sociological profile that emerges when we com-
pare New Populist voters.
Summarising we can say that New Populist parties are recognisable
along three dimensions:
• Ideologically the parties are on the right, anti-system in orienta-
tion, and claim to be speaking for the 'mainstream' of society.
• Organisationally the parties are characterised by strongly central-
ised structures with charismatic and personalised leadership as an
integral component of their institutional development.
• Electorally the parties are defined by a constituency that is dis-
proportionately male, private sector, young and which draws from
a wide range of political orientations.
Table 2.4 below provides us with a typology of New Populist and
Neo-fascist parties in seventeen West European countries. The differ-
entiation is based upon the above three criteria. It includes those par-
ties on the far right that are still active or have been active in the past.
The focus is primarily upon those parties that have taken part in elec-
tions. This is essential to all New Populist parties, as they do not usually
derive from a social movement basis but tend to be top-down crea-
tions that rely on elections as the currency of their existence. This is
because they are without the self-sustaining culture of the new social
movements that underlies the New Politics parties, or the labour move-
ment of social democratic parties. It excludes extra-parliamentary far
right movements whose focus is racist violence. The table includes,
with the names of the parties, their best electoral performances in national
elections. The reason for this is that we are focusing on those parties
that can truly said to be national phenomena.
Table 2.4 allows us to make some important observations. The table
illustrates why the New Populism is such a pertinent topic at this time:
the New Populist parties are clearly in the ascendancy. The best elec-
tion results have been gained mostly in the past few years. The two
parties which seem to buck this trend by gaining their best result at an
earlier time have both experienced revivals. The Danish Progress Party
dropped to 4 per cent in the 1984 Election but revived its support
to 9 per cent in 1988. Similarly the Finnish Rural Party dropped to a

low-point of 4 per cent of the vote in 1975 but pushed this back up to
10 per cent in 1983. There does seem to be a wave of New Populism
sweeping across West Europe. While New Politics parties and the more
established parties appear to be losing support, the New Populists, while
clearly a small minority, are a rising force.
In contrast, the neo-fascist parties have not, on the whole, been as
successful as the New Populist parties in the recent period with many
of them gaining their best results in the period before the success of
the New Populists. The other comparison allows us to conclude that
the neo-fascist parties have never been as electorally competitive as
the New Populists. Where most of the New Populists have garnered
over 5 per cent of the vote at one time or another, the neo-fascist
parties have consistently failed to gain this level of support. By conflating
these two tendencies commentators have confused what is, in reality,
a very clear picture. New Populism is growing in electoral muscle and
has been more popular than neo-fascism among voters. The new wave
of activity on the far right is therefore not a continuation of the long
term trend of neo-fascism.
The second observation that may be made from Table 2.4 is that the
electoral strength of German neo-fascism and German New Populism
has been unduly stressed, compared to other countries. It has to be
acknowledged that the far right have done very well at gaining rep-
resentation at the Lander level. 8 This has yet to be translated into a
national shift. Clearly, with Germany's Nazi legacy, any rumblings of
the far right are bound to incur more attention than they would in
other countries. But the electoral performance at a national level does
not yet merit such attention. Indeed the danger is that an overemphasis
on the German case has occluded those cases where the far right has
assumed a more dangerous position. The emphasis on Germany's far
right may well follow from the rise of extra-parliamentary violence
against immigrants which may be at the highest level of any European
country. But this does not amount to the same thing as a rise of the
far right in electoral terms. It behoves us to be clear about which phenom-
enon we are addressing: racist violence or the electoral rise of the far
right. 9
The third conclusion that can be made is that none of the three
countries which have experienced transitions from authoritarian rule
in the post-war period have given rise to significant New Populist
movements and, perhaps even more surprising given the fascist past,
none of the neo-fascist parties have gained more than a single percentage
Table 2.4 Electoral highlights of New Populist and Neo-Fascist Parties in Western Europe ' ~
IV
Country New Populist Party Best Vote (%) Neo-Fascist Parties Best Vote (Year)
(Year)
Austria Freedom Party (FPo) 23 (1994) I (1991)

Belgium Flemish Bloc (VB) 7 (1991) National Front (FNb)
Denmark Progress Party (FRP) 16 (1973)
Finland Rural Party II (1970)
France 2 National Front (FN) 12 (1993)
Germany Republicans (REP) 2 (1990) National Democratic Party (NPD) 4 (1969)
German People's Union (DVU) 0.6 (1987)
Greece National Political Union (EPEN)3 0.6 (1985)
Ireland
Italy Northern Leagues 4 9 (1992) Italian Social Movement (MSl)s 14 (1994)
Forza Italia 21 (1994)
Luxembourg
Netherlands Centre Party (CP'86) 0.8 (1982)
Centre Democrats (CD) 2.5 (1994)
Norway Progress Party (FRPN) 12 (1989)
Portugal Christian Democratic Party (PDq 1 (1979)
Spain National Front (FNs) 2 (1979)
Sweden New Democracy 7 (1991)
Switzerland Automobilists Party 5 (1991) National Action (NA)6 4 (1983)
Ticino League 1 (1991)
United Kingdom National Front 0.6 (1979)
British National Party (BNP) 0.1 (1983)
Mean 7.4 2.2
Notes:
I. Best Vote refers to the highest percentage of the national vote gained in national elections for the lower house of the
legislature and therefore excludes both regional and European elections.
2. French figures are for vote in 1st ballot. FN received 6 per cent in the 2nd ballot in 1993.
3. EPEN was dissolved in September 1989.
4. Northern League incorporates the Lombard League, the Venetian League and the Autonomous Piedmont League.
5. Changed its name to National Alliance in the 1994 Election.
6. The Swiss NA changed its name to Swiss Democrats (SDs) in 1990.
Sources: Mackie and Rose (1991); Hainsworth (1992); Cheles, Ferguson and Vaughan (1991); Financial Times (various 1989-
1994); West European Politics Election Reports (Various, Vols 14-16, 1991-3); Elder, Thomas and Arter (1988); Craig
(1989).
~
V)
of the vote. Panayote Elias Dimitras concludes a study of the far right
in Greece with the comment that 'most observers ... agree that in the
near future, unless there are dramatic developments, no extreme right
party will playa significant role on the Greek political scene' (Dimitras,
1992, p. 267). In the same volume, Tom Gallagher (1992, p. 243)
describes the marginalisation of the far right in Portugal resulting from
Salazar's period of military dictatorship in which he suppressed any
movement of the far right as he saw this as a threat: the result was
that the contemporary far right has been denied a historical basis. John
Gilmour concludes his study of the Spanish far right with the observa-
tion that the far right 'wallowing in nostalgia and traditionalism, is
now nothing more than a margin ali sed movement which appears to be
set on a downward course into oblivion' (Gilmour, 1992, p. 229).
These three countries, due to their authoritarian periods, did not
experience the consensus of the postwar settlement in the same way as
the rest of Western Europe. There do seem to be common elements to
the three countries' experiences such that some commentators argue
for a 'Mediterranean model' of liberal democracy (Pridham, 1984; Cf.
Lijphart, Bruneau, Diamandouros and Gunther, 1988). The nature of
their authoritarian regimes, and the transitions away from those re-
gimes, point up the difficulties of mobilising a viable alternative right
formation because, in the words of one commentator "'Franco-ism without
Franco", "Spinolismo" in Portugal, or monarchical oligarchy without
the colonels were simply not viable options' (Schmitter, 1986, p. 7).
We can perhaps speculate that in periods of consolidation of liberal
democracy there is a teridency for the public to eschew extreme alterna-
tives (Gillespie, 1990). Another common feature was the discrediting
of highly personalised fascist regimes. We can observe that an ex-
treme form of both populism and fascism had been given a long period
in command of a regime. The fact that these states experienced revolu-
tions can be seen as a repudiation of the far right. As a result Spain,
Portugal and Greece have seen the right forming broad-based alliances
to gain wider support and to lose the taint of fascist legacies.
The application of two models of the far right to recent election
results is a relatively simple exercise but it shows a strong trend and
debunks over-simplified notions of a simple re-running of history through
the re-emergence of fascism. This only applies to electoral mobilisa-
tion and should not be taken to imply that the rise of racist violence is
not a very real and growing phenomenon. On the contrary, compara-
tive examination shows that in legislatures across Western Europe new
actors and new potential partners for the neo-fascists are appearing,
New Populism New Politics

Ideology
System Anti-System Anti-System
Left-Right Right Left
Inclusiveness Exclusive Inclusive
Organisation
Structure Centralised Decentralised
Leadership Individual Collective
Electorate
Age Young Young
Volatility High High
Education Low High
Gender Male Female
Work Sector Private Public
Note:
Symmetrical variables italicised.
Figure 2.1 'New' Protest Party comparisons
but it is necessary to recognise the different character of the parlia-

mentary arm of the extreme right.
Comparing the nature of the New Politics and the New Populism
points us very clearly to an aggregate observation about the NPPs:
both types of parties draw young volatile voters and. beyond this simi-
larity. there is remarkable degree of symmetry between New Populist
and New Politics supporters. Where the New Politics draws dispro-
portionately from one social group, the New Populists draw dispro-
portionately from its opposite number. This is laid out below in Figure 2.1.
2.6 CONCLUSION
The New Populism and the New Politics represent two of the most
prominent new movements in West European politics. Through exam-
ining their ideology, it is clear that their commonality lies in the fact
that they are reactions to recent developments in West European poli-
tics. They are united in what they oppose. They stand in opposition to
what they see as the failed post-war settlement. In their actions and
organisations there is a self-conscious effort to contrast themselves with
the 'old' established politics.
By defining the phenomena of the New Politics and the New Populism,
it becomes clear that there is something of a symmetrical pattern in
ideological, organisational and electoral features of the parties. They
seem to be mirror images of each other, taking divergent paths from
the same place. They represent two sides of the same coin: the New
Politics is the 'New' Protest of the left while the New Populism is the
'New' Protest of the right.
Before moving on to a detailed examination of two specific cases
of such parties, we will turn to an examination of the common bases
of the New Politics and New Populist parties. In the following chapter
we will build up a theory that will account for the different patterns of
New Populist and New Politics mobilisation across Western Europe. If
these parties are a reaction to transformations in West European so-
ciety, then we need to examine the basis of those changes if we are to
account for the formation of the parties of protest.
3 The Decline of the
Postwar Settlement and the
Rise of the 'New' Protest
Parties
3.1 INTRODUCTION
The well-spring from which both the New Politics and the New Populism
draw is the politics of discontent of a Western Europe in flux. It is a
frustration born out of perceptions of unresolved crises, and of the
collapse of stability. The stability may never have been much more
than an illusion based on unprecedented economic growth, but it was,
even if just an illusion, the basis on which an order was constructed.
That order varied across different countries but many of the basic ele-
ments remained constant. That constancy was the postwar settlement:
a social consensus, a set of distinct political structures and a number
of shared economic goals.
It is in order to chart the demise of the postwar settlement that we
examine, in this chapter, five measures of constraint and change in
Western Europe. This is done with reference to, and by way of illus-
tration from, seventeen West European countries. Through this model
we seek to explain the relative strength and weakness of the New
Populism and the New Politics in these countries.
The postwar settlement was impossible without economic growth,
and therefore we can assume that those countries with low economic
growth had the weakest levels of social and political consensus, so
economic strength is compared cross-nationally. The welfare state was
built on the fruits of that prosperity, but with the contradictory nature
of that institution and with the underlying changes in the economy in-
volved in a shift to postindustrial production, the cracks in the consensus
have shown through. We address therefore the relative postindustrial-
ism of the economies and the nature of the welfare states. Turning
then to the political consequences of the postwar settlement, the argu-
ment is made that in the face of the crises of the past two decades,
party systems in a defensive posture have turned in on themselves to
47
form a type of political cartel. Finally we also examine the relative

accessibility of the political systems to new demands and to new par-
ties in general.
While it would be agreeable to be able to argue that, in the intersec-
tion of these five variables, we have a full explanation of the forma-
tion and strength of the 'New' Protest parties in different countries,
this would be to oversimplify. In focusing on five different variables,
we are asserting that there is a relationship between them and the for-
mation of the 'New' Protest parties. It is impossible to fully isolate
the effects of the five variables on each other, or to isolate the effects
of 'New' Protest party mobilisation on the variables. The 'New' Pro-
test parties stem from the collapse of the postwar settlement but they
also play a role in triggering or accelerating parts of the collapse.
3.2 LEVELS OF MOBILISATION
The focus of this book is upon parties as vehicles for protest. This
does not mean that parties are the only means of protest: social move-
ments represent a prevalent alternative form of protest. However, as
the attention is on parties, it is necessary to measure their success by
evaluating how effective they are at doing what they were designed to
do. At the most basic level, a party is a means of gathering votes: a
label for electors and elected (Epstein, 1967).
In order to fully capture the differences between the various West
European countries' experience of the New Politics and the New
PopUlism, it is necessary to contrast the levels of mobilisation. This
can be done through differentiating between their electoral records. There
is a slight difference in the way we measure mobilisation as percent-
ages of the vote between the New Populist and the New Politics parties.
Simply having a New Politics party does not allow us to satisfac-
torily distinguish between different levels of mobilisation, as all the
countries have at least one New Politics party. We need to contrast
the experience of those countries that have experienced a strong New
Politics influence on the agenda of their politics or on the functioning
of their party systems, and those that have not. The simplest way of
achieving such a differentiation is to see which countries' New Poli-
tics parties have attained the highest percentage of the vote in national
elections. Combining the vote for New Politics parties ensures that we
do not pin the fortunes of New Politics on one particular party when
the reality in the particular national elections does not do that. An
The Rise of the 'New' Protest Parties 49
Table 3.1 Levels of New Politics mobilisation
Country Best Combined Vote' Year

Denmark 15.9 1987
Norway 11.2 1973
HIGH Belgium 10.0 1991
Switzerland 9.0 1987
Luxembourg 8.5 1989
Germany 8.3 1988

France 7.6 1993
Finland 6.8 1991
MEDIUM Austria 6.4 1990
Sweden 5.5 1988
Italy 5.1 1987
Netherlands 4.1 1989

United Kingdom 1.5 1991
Ireland 1.5 1989
LOW Greece 0.8 1990
Spain 0.4 1986
Portugal 0
Mean 6.0
Note:
I. Best percentage achieved by combined New Politics parties.
obvious example here would be the two Belgian New Politics parties
that compete for different (Walloon and Flemish) electorates. Table
3.1 below lays out the result of such an attempt to differentiate national
levels of New Politics mobilisation.
In order to differentiate between levels of New Populist mobilisa-
tion, three clusters can be described: there are those countries with
high levels of the vote for New Populist parties; those countries with
low levels of the vote for such parties; and those countries that do not
have any significant parties that fit the New Populist description.
Table 3.2 below lays out the three clusters.
3.3 TOWARDS A THEORY OF THE 'NEW' PROTEST PARTIES
The New Populism and the New Politics have their bases in common
factors. The New Populism represents the 'New' protest of the right,
Table 3.2 Levels of New Populist mobilisation
Country Best Vote I Year

Austria 16.6 1990
Denmark 15.9 1973
HIGH Norway 13.0 1989
France 12.4 1993
Finland 10.5 1970
Italy 8.7 1992

Sweden 6.7 1991
MEDIUM Belgium 6.6 2 1991
Switzerland 6.5 1991
Germany 2.4 1990
Luxembourg
Netherlands
United Kingdom
LOW Ireland
Greece
Spain
Portugal
Mean 5.8
Notes:
I. Best percentage achieved by New Politics parties in national elections.
2. Automobilist and Ticino League combined vote.
while the New Politics is the same phenomenon from the left. This
section is an attempt to elucidate and demonstrate the common bases
of these 'New' Protest parties (NPPs).
There are three types of factors that will determine whether NPPs
will emerge. There are, first, the macro-level socioeconomic changes
that have undermined the basis of the postwar settlement. These are
the social shifts engendered by the growth of the welfare state and the
evolution of a postindustrial economy. The second factor is the way in
which the party system has responded to the decline of the postwar
settlement, and the degree of dealignment that mass publics have dem-
onstrated in response to party system changes. And the third factor is
the structural constraints that different systems impose on the forma-
tion of new parties. No one set of factors explains the emergence of
the NPPs alone, but in the nexus of the three we have an explanation
that is theoretically grounded and relatively accurate.
3.3.1 Welfare State
The NPPs are contingent upon a developed welfare state. The welfare
state is one pillar of the post-war settlement and its growth is there-
fore an essential prerequisite for laying the terrain for the NPPs. We
would expect therefore to see developed welfare states corresponding
with high levels of NPP mobilisation. The reasons are two-fold: the
more developed the welfare state is, the more the traditional class div-
isions will have been undermined, leaving space for NPPs to mobilise
these newly dealigned electorates. The second reason gives the reason
for the emergence of protest: the more developed the welfare state, the
greater the level of crisis that is engendered. As welfare states develop
more fully, so we can see more clearly the contradictions inherent within
them. To put this more simply: the social goods provided by the state
as legitimation are in greatest demand when legitimacy is low, and
legitimacy is lowest at the times that the state can least afford to pro-
vide those social goods - in times of economic crisis. It is into such
settings that the New Populists emerge to challenge some of the basic
premises of the welfare state.
New Politics parties have, in contrast to the New Populism, a cer-
tain ambiguity to the welfare state. They are attracted to the social
provisions that are redistributive and egalitarian, but they are cautious
about wholesale endorsement of an institution that exemplifies the
'bureaucratisation' tendency in the modern state. In many ways, the
tension in the New Politics' approach to the welfare state resembles
the inherent crisis within the welfare state itself. While old politics
movements such as social democratic movements can, without com-
punction, endorse the welfare state as a liberating mechanism for their
class interests, the New Politics movements' own emergence mirrors
the dilemma of the welfare state as it equalises in theory but differen-
tiates in practice. If we illustrate the correspondence between welfare
state strength and New Politics mobilisation, it comes as no surprise
therefore to note a relatively strong relationship.
There is a difficulty in measuring welfare state development through
social expenditures. The problem is that the amount of money spent
on social welfare does not indicate what the money is being spent on.
G0sta Esping-Andersen makes a powerful case for arguing that it is
insufficient to classify such a complex phenomenon as the welfare state
under one such simplified measure. He argues that there are three differ-
ent clusters of welfare states that have very different emphases in their
social welfare spending: liberal regimes which have a low level of
Table 3.3 Rank ordering of Welfare State in terms of combined de-

commodification, 1980
Country De-Commodification Score

Sweden 39.1
Norway 38.3
Denmark 38.1
Netherlands 32.4
Belgium 32.4
Austria 31.1
Switzerland 29.8
Finland 29.2
Germany 27.7
France 27.0
Italy 24.1
United Kingdom 23.4

Ireland 23.3
(Canada 22.0)
(New Zealand 17.1)
(United States 13.8)
(Australia 13.0)
Mean 27.2
Note:
Bracketed countries represent non-West European countries included by Esping-
Andersen.
Source: Esping-Andersen (1990, p. 52).
benefits which are targeted at the poorest sectors of society; corporatist

regimes where the rights of social citizenship were more broadly at-
tached to class and which use states rather than markets to distribute
social goods but without radical redistributive effects; and finally social
democratic regimes which, based on ideas of universalism, attempt to
extend social goods to all of society and therefore view welfare as an
improving mechanism for those who lived below the mean rather than
seeing social benefits as a last-ditch safety-net (Esping-Andersen, 1990,
pp.27-8).
The clustering of regime-types is a consequence of Esping-Andersen's
central idea that the measure of the welfare state is how far it 'de-
commodifies' social status: in other words, as the market categorises
citizens in terms of how much they are worth as commodities, so the
welfare state, through its universalism, treats each citizen with the same
weight thereby detaching them from their commodity value. He con-
structs a scale out of the de-commodifying potential of social policies
in various countries. The scale takes account of the rules and stan-
dards of welfare patterns and he includes how wide the eligibility rules
are, how much income replacement is allowed for, and how much pro-
tection there is for the basic social risks of unemployment, old-age,
disability and sickness (Esping-Andersen, 1990, p. 47). Combining the
de-commodification effects of pension, sickness and benefits, he comes
up with a ranking of welfare state regimes. The relevant results are
laid out below. I
As we can see from the clustering that Esping-Andersen identifies
around the mean, we can make some geographical generalisations about
where we will find the different regime types. The liberal regimes are
basically the Anglo-American democracies, while the corporatist regimes
are those of continental Western Europe, and the social democratic
regimes are, not surprisingly, those of the Nordic region. However,
for the purposes of NPP mobilisation we can dichotomise the listing
around the mean giving us 'high' and 'low' levels of welfare state de-
commodification. Figure 3.1 below illustrates that strength of this relation-
ship between welfare state development and New Populist mobilisation.
Welfare State de-commodification, 1980

HIGH LOW
Austria
Denmark
HIGH Norway
France
Finland
Levels of Switzerland
New Populist Germany
mobilisation MEDIUM Belgium
Sweden
Italy
Netherlands
LOW United Kingdom
Ireland
Correlation Coefficient = 0.478
Figure 3.1 New Populist mobilisation and Welfare State

de-commodification, 1980
Source: Tables 3.2 and 3.3 above.

Figure 3.1 above demonstrates a strong relationship between the most

de-commodifying welfare states and New Populist mobilisation. The
Netherlands is the only country definitely in the wrong box, while
Italy also demonstrates that there is not a pure fit (remembering that
those categorised as having LOW New Populist mobilisation do not
have any relevant New Populist parties). We can however speculate
that those countries with either social democratic or corporatist wel-
fare regimes are likely to give rise to significant New Populist mobil-
isation. Thus, this factor may be a good explanation of negative cases
of New Populist mobilisation. Something of the same strong relation-
ship exists between New Politics mobilisation and de-commodification.
New Politics mobilisation corresponds with welfare state develop-
ment in much the same way as does the New PopUlism. There is a
remarkable degree of correspondence with the Netherlands being the
only clear-cut exception and Italy being out of alignment with the other
countries with moderate levels of NPP mobilisation. We have again
the one empty cell which demonstrates that there are no high de-
commodified welfare states without high levels of NPP mobilisation.
The relationship seem strong. NPP mobilisation bears a very strong
relationship to the variable of welfare state type.
Welfare State de-commodification, 1980

HIGH LOW
Denmark
Norway
HIGH Belgium
Switzerland
Luxembourg
Levels of Germany
New Politics France
mobilisation MEDIUM Finland
Austria
Sweden
Italy
Netherlands
LOW United Kingdom
Ireland

Figure 3.2 New Politics mobilisation and Welfare State
de-commodification, 1980

3.3.2 Postindustrialism
One of the most important changes in the socioeconomic context of

Western Europe in the past few decades has been the shift to a
postindustrial economy. As the economies have transferred their foci
from industrial manufacturing to the service sector, the surrounding
societies have been profoundly changed. With this change has come
economic restructuring, industrial class decomposition and the emerg-
ence of new cleavages. And with these changes has come the under-
mining of the pillars of the post-war settlement. The weakening of
labour movements undermines corporatist structures. The globalisation
of the economy and the attendant growth of supra-national governing
bodies (e.g. GAIT and EU) weaken the ability of national govern-
ments to control domestic economies through old-fashioned demand
management tools.
Daniel Bell categorised those countries which have more than half
the total work-force employed in the tertiary sector as postindustrial
states (Bell, 1974; cf. Porat, 1977; Castells, 1989). Since Bell first
established this criteria all but two of the West European countries
under examination here have become postindustrial. This gives us a
very low amount of variance. We can therefore use the criteria of
employment in the service sector of the economy but can differentiate
those West European countries that are more postindustrial and those
that are less. However, such a measure is an oversimplification.
Simply measuring the percentage in the workforce employed in the
service sector does not measure the degree to which the individual
lives of citizens have been transformed by the information revolution.
As we are focusing on mass politics, we need to capture the degree to
which the work and domestic spheres have been transformed by the
macro changes of a shift to services. One way of doing this is to pro-
vide a measure of postindustrialism that includes both the percentage
of those employed in the service economy and also with the spread of
information technology. This can be done by including the number of
telephones in a country as a statistic. Telephones are an essential in-
strument of informationalising economies, and the greater their pres-
ence, the more we can also assume that they have become integrated
into everyday (i.e. non-working) lives. Table 3.4 below provides a ranking
of the postindustrialism of our seventeen countries through combining
these two statistics.
We can see from the table that Switzerland and the Scandinavian
countries are the most highly postindustrialised, while the newer West
Table 3.4 Levels of postindustrialism, 1988
Service Sector IT Postindustrial

Country Employment I Diffusion 2 Index
Switzerland 59.2 x 1334 78972.8
Sweden 66.7 x 890 3 59363
Denmark 67.1 x 783 = 52539.3
Norway 67.1 x 622 4 = 41 736.2
France 62.9 x 614 = 38620.6
Finland 59.6 x 615 = 36654
Germany 56.1 x 641 5 = 35960.1
United Kingdom 68.0 x 521 4 = 35428
Belgium 69.3 3 x 414 = 28690.2

Netherlands 68.8 x 410 5 28208
Luxembourg 65.0 x 425 5 27625
Italy 57.7 x 448 = 25849.6
Austria 54.5 x 460 6 = 25070
Spain 53.1 x 381 = 20231.1
Greece 46.23 x 273 = 17232.6
Ireland 56.8 x 235 6 13348
Portugal 44.2 x 166 6 7337.2
Mean 60.1 548.9 33697.9
Notes:
1. As percentage of the working population employed.
2. Telephones per 1,000 inhabitants.
3. 1987.
4. 1984.
5. 1986.
6. 1983.
Source: Data taken from OEeD (1990).
European democracies of Portugal, Greece and Spain represent the

extremes at the other end of the spectrum, along with Ireland. We can
dichotomise the results so that those above the average can be categor-
ised as having a (relatively) 'high' level of postindustrialism and those
below as having a (relatively) 'low' level of postindustrialism.
As the NPPs are a postindustrial phenomenon, we would expect to
find a relationship between how postindustrial the economy has be-
come and how much NPP mobilisation we can see: the higher the
level of employment in the service sector the higher the rate of NPP
mobilisation. The reasons for expecting a relationship between post-
industrialism and NPP mobilisation are two-fold. Firstly, at the more
abstract level, it is the postindustrialisation of the economy that has

contributed to the undermining of the postwar settlement. Secondly,
and more substantively, this undermining has been effected through
changing class constellations and thereby whittling away the power of
the labour movement, upon which social democracy and corporatism
were dependent. It is not so much what postindustrialism has created,
but rather what it has undermined, that justifies our attention on the
shift to a new economic base.
New Populism will tend to emerge in postindustrial societies be-
cause the traditional right has become identified with the interests of
corporate capital. Lost in the gap between the corporatised economy
and the bureaucratised state lies the central rhetorical constituency of
the New Populists - 'small business'. The globalisation and depen-
dence upon high-cost high technology of the postindustrial economy
forces companies to operate in an environment that is conducive to
large-scale operations (Barnet and Muller, 1974). The 'small people'
of which the New Populists speak are those that operate in small busi-
nesses. The New Populists are a rightist reaction to the displacement
of political and economic norms that has taken place under the shift to
a postindustrial society and that has engendered profound crises of the
post-war settlement. The relationship between New Populist mobilisa-
tion and postindustrialism is illustrated below in Figure 3.3.
Predicting New Populist mobilisation on the basis of postindustrialism
does present us with a number of cases that seem to go against the
expected relationship. Austria does not have the levels of postindustrialism
that we might expect, given its high level of New Populist mobilisa-
tion. At the other end of the scale the United Kingdom qualifies as
being highly postindustrial but is without New Populist mobilisation.
Postindustrialism does however work in differentiating the new Medi-
terranean democracies of Greece, Spain and Portugal which cohere on
other variables in the same way.
New Politics parties, as we have seen, are on the left. They reject
however the primacy of the labour movement as the liberating agent
of social change. Kitschelt argues that the emergence of left-libertarian
movements is bound up with how successful the traditional left has
been in staying in government (Kitschelt, 1989: 23). It is with the
changed social constellations that postindustrialism engender that an
alternative (New) left can emerge. New Politics parties draw exten-
sively on the lines of cleavage created in the postindustrial workforce.
In a less abstract manner the ecological emphasis of Green parties is
often a reaction to industrialism and, commentators have suggested,
Postindustrialism
HIGH LOW
Denmark Austria
HIGH Norway
France
Finland
Switzerland
Levels of Sweden
New Populist MEDIUM Germany
mobilisation Belgium
Italy
Netherlands
Luxembourg
United Kingdom
LOW Ireland
Greece
Spain
Portugal

Figure 3.3 New Populist mobilisation and postindustrialism
the strong relationship between postindustrialism and New Politics

mobilisation (lnglehart, 1971; Biirklin, 1985a; Frankland and Schoon-
maker, 1992, pp. 42-6; Taggart, 1992b). Others, tracing a wider frame,
have argued that there is a strong relationship between the emergence
of the new social movements and the shift to postindustrialism (Touraine,
1988). This is illustrated in Figure 3.4.
The expected relationship between postindustrialism and New Poli-
tics mobilisation is reasonably strong, although not as strong as the
welfare state variable. We are presented with three clear cases of un-
expected findings: Belgium and Luxembourg have low levels of
postindustrialism where we would expect high and the United King-
dom has a high level where we would expect a low level. Austria and
Italy, in addition, seem to also cast doubt on the relationship. Other-
wise, the relationship is as expected. It is clearer that the relationship
works more strongly as a negative variable: in other words, that low
postindustrialism leads to an absence of significant levels of New Politics
mobilisation (with the UK as an exception). Postindustrialism works
as an explanation of NPPs. It is not as strong as the welfare state
variable discussed above, but there clearly is a relationship.
Postindustrialism
HIGH LOW
Denmark
Norway
HIGH Belgium
Switzerland
Luxembourg
Germany
Levels of France
New Politics MEDIUM Finland
mobilisation Austria
Sweden
Italy
Netherlands
Ireland
LOW United Kingdom
Greece
Spain
Portugal

Figure 3.4 New Politics mobilisation and postindustrialism
3.3.3 Economic Strength
Underlying the postwar settlement has been the premise of economic

growth. With a strong economy comes the ability to construct and to
fund a strong and universal welfare state. With the resulting levels of
stability comes a greater likelihood of corporatist modes of decision-
making. It was with the oil shocks of the 1970s that a death blow was
dealt to the unquestioned economic growth of Western Europe, lead-
ing to the crisis of the postwar settlement. It is reasonable to expect
that those countries that have been most economically successful are
to be more prone to the emergence of new protest movements that
stem directly from the crises of the postwar settlement. We can com-
pare the relative economic strength of seventeen West European coun-
tries. The results of such a comparison are laid out in Table 3.5 below.
Table 3.5 clearly shows how the Scandinavian states generally rank
very highly whereas the new Mediterranean democracies are grouped
together at the bottom of the table with Ireland. As a more all-embracing
measure we can categorise those countries above the mean as having
Table 3.5 Relative economic strength, 1988
Country GDP Per Capita (US$)

Switzerland 27581
Sweden 21546
Finland 21287
Norway 21241
Denmark 20926
Germany 19581
Luxembourg 17592
France 17002
Austria 16748
Netherlands 15461
Belgium 15180
Italy 14430
United Kingdom 14413
Ireland 9182
Spain 8722
Greece 5244
Portugal 4265
Mean 15905.9
Source: OEeD (1990).
'high' relative economic strength and those below as 'low'.

Systematically laying out the relationship between economic strength
and New Populist mobilisation, Figure 3.5 demonstrates a very clear
relationship between New Populism and economic strength. Luxem-
bourg represents the only clear exception to the relationship. The case
of Italy might perhaps give strength to those who argue that the Northern
Leagues are peculiarly Italian phenomena whose rise is unrelated to
the far right elsewhere in West Europe (Thompson, 1993, p. 8). While
the strength of the rise of the Lombard League in recent years might
well be accounted for by the particular decomposition of the Italian
party system in the early 1990s, the similarities that exist with other
New Populist parties justifies its inclusion in this category. The case
of Italy demonstrates that the socioeconomic factors can be enhanced
by particular national contextual factors.
Figure 3.6 lays out the same relationship between economic strength
and the New Politics. It demonstrates a very strong relationship be-
tween New Politics mobilisation and economic strength. The empty
cell shows that none of the countries with low levels of economic
strength have significant New Politics parties. Only the case of Belgium
Economic strength
HIGH LOW
Austria Austria
Denmark
HIGH Norway
France
Finland
Switzerland
Levels of Germany
New Populist MEDIUM Belgium
mobilisation Sweden
Italy
Netherlands
Ireland
Luxembourg
LOW United Kingdom
Greece
Spain
Portugal
Figure 3.5 New Populist mobilisation and economic strength

counteracts the conclusion that the reverse also applies: that the econ-
omically strongest countries of Western Europe have given rise to rela-
tively strong New Politics mobilisation.
A consideration of the variable of economic strength of the different
cases demonstrates that the NPPs are not a function of economic weak-
ness. The NPPs have emerged on the crest of economic prosperity.
While many of the strongest economies of Western Europe have seen
profound downturns in recent years, they have turned down from a
position of economic height. This is not to imply that the NPPs are
the result of the increased prosperity of the protesters. The figures are
aggregate and, as relative deprivation theory suggests, the result of an
increased disparity between individual feelings of satisfaction and ag-
gregate levels of prosperity can be increased political activism.
In general there seems to be a strong relationship between economic
strength and the mobilisation of the NPPs. This applies to all the larger
socioeconomic factors which we have examined. We turn now to some
specifically political factors. First we examine the nature of the politi-
cal system for allowing the emergence of any new parties and then we
will turn to a factor which relates more directly to the specific case of
the NPPs.
Economic strength
HIGH LOW
Denmark
Norway
HIGH Belgium
Switzerland
Luxembourg
Germany
Levels of France
Sweden
Italy
Netherlands
United Kingdom
LOW Ireland
Greece
Spain
Portugal
Figure 3.6 New Politics mobilisation and economic strength
3.3.4 Party System Cartelisation
KitscheIt makes the point for social movements to mobilise they need
to have both grievances and opportunities to redress those grievances
(Kitschelt, 1986; cf. Eisinger, 1973). The grievance that he draws out
for his theory of left-libertarian parties refers to how unresponsive the
political systems have become (KitscheIt, 1989, p. 19). This he quan-
tifies basically in terms of how corporatist the systems are. However,
this does not apply equally to the New Populists and the New Politics
cases. It may well indicate unresponsiveness to the demands of the
new social movements whose basis means that they are unrepresented
by either the labour movement of organised business. This means that
the measure is biased towards the left and will only indicate where
leftist movements are excluded. But, by virtue of some of the same
shifts in political systems, the populist right claims to be also excluded.
We need therefore to construct a measure that is broad enough to take
in unresponsiveness to both left and right, at the same time as being
sensitive enough to detect differences between West European states.
T.J. Pempel has noted how some liberal democracies have become
subject to one-party dominance and he refers to such cases as 'uncom-
mon democracies' (Pempel, 1990a). In these countries the dominant
parties 'must dominate the electorate, other political parties, the for-
mation of governments, and the public policy agenda' (Pempel, 1990b,
p. 4). The two West European cases that best fit Pempel's criteria are
Sweden and Italy with their dominance exercised by the Social Demo-
crats (SAP) and Christian Democrats (CD) respectively. But he also
makes the point that we need to examine not only the party that is
dominant but the relationship of the party to the regime in which it is
dominant (Pempel, 1990b: 30). Such one-party dominance has an im-
portant impact on social coalitions: Esping-Andersen illustrates how
Sweden's SAP has used its position of dominance to ensure its con-
tinued longevity in government by creating social alignment favour-
able to the party (Esping-Andersen, 1985). Such dominance raises doubts
about the nature of representative democracy (Pempel, 1990b: 7) and
it clearly represents systems which have a high degree of unrespon-
siveness to demands from both left and right. But differentiating be-
tween one-party-dorninant regimes and others does not allow us to contrast
the degree of responsiveness of West European states because it only
applies to two cases.
Recent observers have suggested that Kirchheimer's model of the
catch-all party has been superseded by a new form of party which is
dominant. Richard Katz and Peter Mair suggest that we are witnessing
the emergence of the 'cartel party': this party type is 'characterised by
an interpenetration of party and state, and also by a pattern of inter-
party collusion' (Katz and Mair, 1995, p. 17). This description can be
given a wider sweep. What we are here suggesting is that many West
European party systems are becoming 'cartelised'. The challenges that
the established parties have had to face from social changes that have
robbed them of the security of their electoral bases and given rise to
issue-oriented, volatile voters, has forced many major parties into the
situation where it is only through inter-party co-operation among
the established parties that they can prevail in office or in power. The
'cartelisation' of the party system can be defined as the securing of
power for a small number of parties through overt or covert co-operation
and premised upon a foreshortening of the 'policy distance' between
the affected parties.
Perhaps the best example of a 'cartelised' party system is that of
Austria. From 1949 until 1966 a Grand Coalition of the Austrian People's
Party (OVP) and the Socialist Party of Austria (SPO) held office and
the SPO has been in the cabinet continuously from 1945 until the present
except for a period when the OVP ruled alone for four years (1966-
70). Explaining the two main reasons for the importance of parties in
Austrian politics, Kurt Richard Luther writes: 'First, it is primarily the
parties who mobilise their respective subcultures and it is through party
structures that subcultural interests are aggregated and the subcultural
political elite recruited. Second, it is above all between the elite of the
political parties that the overarching accommodation occurs' (Luther,
1992, p. 46). To put it more bluntly the accommodation of elites that
is inherent in consociationalism requires established major parties to
act as a cartel.
Diverging from Katz and Mair's own suggestions of countries whose
systems are most likely to give rise to cartel parties, those countries
that are usually described as examples of consociationalism are prime
candidates for having cartelised party systems. 2 The requirements of
elite co-operation and a broad consensus about the need to maintain
the long-term stability of the political system that consociationalism
requires, will push such systems to party systems which will see
cartelisation. Thus, with Sweden and Italy, we may include Switzer-
land, the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium in our list of cartelised
party systems. But this process of increased cartelisation is not con-
fined to consociational and 'uncommon' democracies.
The situation of the Federal Republic of Germany presents us with
another potential case of cartelisation. In the postwar period we have
only seen one 'Grand Coalition' (1966-9) but we have, in recent years,
heard frequent calls for another such arrangement to deal with many
of the serious difficulties facing the newly-unified Germany. Regard-
less of this, we also have the reality of centre-left and centre-right
coalitions alternating in power at the behest of the Free Democratic
Party. This small party has had its position described as that of 'King-
maker' because of the power that its position of balance gives it (Fi-
nancial Times, June 12/13, 1993, p. 2). From the outside, especially
with new parties breaking through to the Bundestag (the Greens in
1983), it appears that three parties have dominated German govern-
ment positions and have done so with a degree of conformity on basic
policy questions. 3
The final group of countries that we can include in the list of cartelised
party systems are those famous for being 'consensual' polities - the
Nordic states. Elder et al. define consensualism as having three di-
mensions: a low level of conflict over the basic rules of the political
process; a low level of conflict over the exercise of power; and a high
degree of concertation in the creation of public policy (Elder, Thomas
and Arter, 1988, pp. 10-11). Although they do conclude that there has
been, in recent years, some decline in consensus, it is clear that, for
most of the postwar period Norway, Denmark and Sweden have been
characterised by 'the distinctively Scandinavian culture of consensus
and the structures for conciliation and arbitration which have been built
up during the twentieth century' (Elder, Thomas and Arter, 1988, p. 221).
Denmark perhaps deserves some more articulation of the argument
as to why it is cartelised. If we look at the party system of Denmark
it can be divided into two periods: before and after 1973. The 1973
Election completely changed the party system by breaking away from
the heavily cartelised hold of the five major parties over the Folketing.
However, despite the 'earth-shattering' nature of the 1973 Election,
this has not been repeated and, while there are more parties now rep-
resented at the national level, Borre points out that this has not affected
the basic stability of the bloc system (Borre, 1984, p. 361). In addi-
tion, Pedersen argues that the position of the Social Democratic Party
comes close to being one of dominance (Pedersen, 1991, p. 95). Also
we should note the emergence of New Populism in Denmark with the
Progress Party followed on from that period of strong cartelisation.
We can therefore conclude our list of cartelised systems by adding
Norway, Finland and Denmark. Figure 3.7 below tabulates the relation-
ship between cartelised party systems and New Populist mobilisation.
Figure 3.7 clearly displays a strong relationship between cartelisation
and New Populist mobilisation. The only two anomalies are the Nether-
lands and France. The French case is complicated by the shift from
the Fourth to the Fifth Republic in the 1960s. Prior to that, the domi-
nance of De Gaulle could be seen as an example of one-party dominance.
The picture is however further confused by the constitutional division
between president and prime minister and the resulting two periods of
'cohabitation' (1986-88 and 1993-1995) that have taken place under
the Fifth RepUblic. France, during the whole postwar period, cannot
be unequivocally described as either one-party dominant or as having
a cartelised party system and therefore must stand as an anomaly here.
The figure does demonstrate that, once again, the new Mediterranean
democracies are grouped together in the company of Ireland. There is
a clear relationship between party system cartelisation and New Popu-
list mobilisation. We can see something of the same relationship be-
tween cartelisation and New Politics mobilisation.
Party system cartelisation

HIGH LOW
Austria
Denmark
HIGH Norway
France
Finland
Switzerland
Levels of Germany
mobilisation Sweden
Italy
Netherlands
Luxembourg
Ireland
LOW Greece
Spain
Portugal
United Kingdom
Figure 3.7 New Populist mobilisation and party system cartelisation

Source: Table 3.2 and text.
Figure 3.8 shows that party systems that have become cartelised have
a tendency to spawn New Politics parties. Of the cartelised systems,
only the Netherlands has low levels of New Populist mobilisation. In
contrast Luxembourg and France have high and medium levels of New
Politics mobilisation but are not cartelised systems. We have addressed
the French case above. Otherwise fourteen of the seventeen cases fit
the theory.
The Dutch case does require some explanation. The New Politics in
the Netherlands has seen relatively low levels of mobilisation, if we
look at the share of the vote. The New Politics in this country seems
to have been squeezed between a small Green party and a Green List
that is made up of four established small parties and has fared better
than the Green Party (Lucardie, van der Knoop, van Schuur and Voerman,
1991). The low levels of support perhaps reflect the difficulty of promot-
ing alliances of old parties as part of any New Politics phenomenon.
Party system cartelisation
HIGH LOW
Denmark
Norway
HIGH Belgium
Switzerland
Luxembourg
Germany
Levels of France
Sweden
Italy
Netherlands
United Kingdom
Ireland
LOW Greece
Spain
Portugal
Figure 3.8 New Politics mobilisation and party system cartelisation

Source: Table 3.2 and text.
3.3.5 Structural Factors
Of the factors that will determine how much NPP mobilisation a country
will see, some only apply to the NPPs, but others will apply to any
new party. The effects of these structural factors will, in some cases,
be so stringent to render irrelevant whether a country has had other
factors that make NPP mobilisation a likelihood. These factors relate
to the general 'openness' of the political system. This factor is the
result of many interacting factors such as electoral systems, cultural
mores and party systems.
Taking a macro-level approach to testing a number of different fac-
tors that affect the emergence of new parties, Robert Harmel and John
D. Robertson conclude that the socio-cultural environment plays a key
role (Harmel and Robertson, 1985, p. 513). This has been addressed to
some extent in the preceding discussion. In addition, they found that
structural factors played only a minor role - except for the type of
electoral system, which showed a strong relationship (Harmel and
Robertson, 1985, pp. 516-17). In the context of this chapter, it is clear
that the NPPs are more likely to emerge in open political systems.
The minimal standard for this openness is the use of proportional sys-
tems of elections. By this standard, only the United Kingdom is ex-
cluded from the list of open systems. This belies the fact that there is
a substantial range in the ease or otherwise with which new parties
can gain access to the political system. Countries such as Germany
actually give state funding to parties on the basis of their vote. The
Netherlands' particular version of proportional representation means
that parties can gain representation with less that 1 per cent of the
vote while other countries have thresholds that are much higher before
parties can gain representation.
In order to measure the openness, we can assume that those coun-
tries which have consistently had a high number of parties in the legis-
lature are likely, in the future, to give access to other new parties.
Taking the postwar period as a whole we can therefore rank the differ-
ent systems with regards to their openness. Those countries that have
had recent transitions from long-term periods of authoritarian rule have
been excluded (i.e. Spain and Portugal). The reason for this is that
they are not comparable in terms of openness because this is, by defi-
nition, a long-term factor which wiIl emerge over an extended period.
Table 3.6 below illustrates the result of such a ranking.
It is clear from Table 3.6 that the measure does represent what we
would expect. A predominantly two-party system and a closed con-
sQciational system characterised by long periods of 'grand coalitions'
represent the closed end of the scale with Great Britain and Austria
respectively fitting those descriptions. In contrast, Switzerland, Italy
and the Netherlands are the most open of all of these countries. All
these open countries are characterised by electoral systems which give
relatively easy access to the legislature and by a history of shifting
coalition governments. Figure 3.9 below iIlustrates the relationship be-
tween system openness and New Populist mobilisation.
Figure 3.9 demonstrates that the openness of political systems does
not have a strong relationship to New Populist party mobilisation. The
correlation coefficient (-0.011) is at odds with those of the other fig-
ures so far presented.The relationship seems to be almost random with
a number of anomalies. In so far as the figure does illustrate any re-
lationship, this seems to be in the negative cases. Ireland, Greece, Luxem-
bourg and Great Britain all have, as the theory would predict, a relatively
closed political system and low levels of New Populist mobilisation.
Austria and Norway are characterised as closed and yet have high
levels of New Populist mobilisation. While Norway does remain anom-
alous, the case of Austria can at least be partially explained by the
Table 3.6 Average number of parties represented in the legislature per

year, 1948-1988 1
Country Number of Parties

Switzerland 10.93
Italy 10.88
Netherlands 10.13
HIGH Belgium 8.73
France 6.98
Denmark 6.83
Finland 6.80
Norway 6.10
Greece2 5.91
Ireland 5.55
Germanl 5.35
LOW Sweden 4 5.08
Luxembourg 4.70
Great BritainS 4.39
Austria 3.30
Mean 6.77
Notes:
1. Calculated by taking average number of parties in (lower house) of the
legislature for each of forty years from 1948-1988. Spain and Portugal
have been excluded because of the very short periods of non-authoritarian
rule in the period 1948-1988.
2. Excludes period 1976-1974.
3. 1949-1989.
4. In the 1964 and 1968 Elections there were two additional parties (Citi-
zens' Coalition and Middle Party), but the delegates joined already estab-
lished parties.
5. Great Britain is used here rather than the United Kingdom because of
restrictions placed on joining British parties in Northern Ireland.
Source: Compiled from Mackie and Rose (1991).
nature of the New Populist party there. The party is the Freedom Party
of Austria (FPO). This has changed from being an established centre-
right party to being a New Populist party under the leadership of Jorg
Haider. It has not been a new party but has rather become New Popu-
list in its transformation from a more traditional old style conserva-
tive party that has taken place under Haider's leadership and which
has given the old party a new lease of life as well as a new ideologi-
cal identity (Knight, 1992). This means that the FPO does not offer an
System openness
HIGH LOW
Austria
Denmark
HIGH Norway
France
Finland
Switzerland
Levels of Germany
mobilisation Sweden
Italy
Netherlands
Ireland
LOW Greece
Luxembourg
Great Britain
Correlation Coefficient = -0.011
Figure 3.9 New Populist mobilisation and system openness

example of a typical route for New Populist mobilisation but it does

illustrate a potential route by which New Populism, or indeed other
new parties, can gain entry into a closed political system. We can
infer from the facts that, had it not been for the transformation of the
FPO, Austria would not have experienced a high level of New Popu-
list mobilisation. We can also speculate that the closed nature of the
Swedish political system (as compared to the open Danish system)
perhaps accounts for the late development of a New Populist party
compared to its Danish counterpart. Before the emergence of New
Democracy in 1991, the lack of a Swedish 'anti-taxation' party was
often the subject of commentary (Peters, 1991 b, p. 179).
In general, there does not appear to be a relationship between the
general nature of the system and its openness to the mobilisation of
New Populism. Those countries which have closed political systems
will tend not to have New Populist mobilisation but that is as far as
the empirical evidence will let us go. Turning to the relationship be-
tween system openness and the New Politics parties, we find a simi-
larly weak relationship. The results are laid out below in Figure 3.10
and, although the correlation coefficient is higher in this case than
with the New Populism, its low level compared to the other variables'
System openness
HIGH lOW
Denmark
Norway
HIGH Belgium
Switzerland
Luxembourg
Germany
Levels of France
New Politics Finland
mobilisation MEDIUM Austria
Sweden
Italy
Netherlands
LOW Great Britain
Ireland
Greece
Correlation Coefficient = 0.'44
Figure 3.10 New Politics mobilisation and system openness
coefficients alerts us to a weak relationship. In addition to the exceptions

noted in the New Populist table, the New Politics adds Luxembourg.
If we illustrate the overall effects of all the five variables examined
we can shed some light on the different importance of the variables.
This is done in Table 3.7 below. It is a summary of the efficacy of the
theory so far. Just taking the conclusions that we have drawn from the
figures so far presented we can extrapolate to the assertion that socio-
economic and political factors appear to be of more importance than
structural factors. This means that it is those factors that specifically
take account of the 'New' Protest nature of these parties that give us
the best explanation of their formation. To put this another way: NPPs,
where they experience high levels of mobilisation, do not flourish simply
because it is easy for any new parties to form and develop but because
the soil in which they are planted is specifically suited to their forma-
tion and development.
Table 3.7 places all the variables we have examined together and
groups the countries in the three sets according to their levels of New
Populist mobilisation. By looking at some of the countries in turn it is
possible to demonstrate the efficacy of the theory.
The chart predicts with complete accuracy the levels of New Populist
Table 3.7 Factors influencing 'New' Protest Party mobilisation (countries clustered by New Populist mobilisation) -.I
IV
Socioeconomic Factors Political Factors Structural Factors

Welfare State Postindustrialism Economic Growth Cartelisation Openness
Country High Low High Low High Low High Low High Low
Denmark X X X X X
Finland X X X X X
Norway X X X X X
France X X X X X
Austria X X X X X
Switzerland X X X X X
Sweden X X X X X
Germany X X X X X
Belgium X X X X X
Italy X X X X X
Ireland X X X X X
Greece X X X X
Portugal X X X
Spain X X X
UK X X X X Xl
Luxembourg X X X X
Netherlands X X X X X
Note:
I. Great Britain.
mobilisation in seven countries. Denmark and Finland best fit the the-
ory for those countries with a high level of New Populist mobilisa-
tion: they have high levels of welfare state, economic strength and
postindustrialism and have a highly cartelised party system. The fact
that these factors are combined with open political systems explains
why the Progress Party in Denmark has had the longest historical record
of success of all the New Populist parties (see Andersen and Bj~rklund,
1990; Andersen, 1992). At the other end of the spectrum, Ireland fits
the theory perfectly, with low levels of postindustrialism, economic
strength, welfare state development, party system cartelisation and having
a closed political system and a low level of New Populist mobilisa-
tion. In those variables for which there is data, Greece, Portugal and
Spain also fit the theory perfectly. In the case of the United Kingdom,
the lack of New Populist mobilisation is a combination of having both
structural impediments to new party representation and not having a
relatively strong economy or developed welfare state.
Party system cartelisation appears to be a crucial factor in the case
of Italy. Italy would not have New Populist mobilisation on the basis
of only the socioeconomic factors. The fact of its high level of
cartelisation and the relative openness of its system has resulted in
medium levels of New Populist mobilisation with the Northern Leagues
(Woods, 1992; 1992b; Thompson 1993). The current dissolution of
the Italian political system into the morass of criminal and legitimacy
crises seems to lend weight to the thesis that the cartelisation has been
a crucial factor. Public dissatisfaction with the political class as a whole
seems to have been a consequence of a highly cartelised political sys-
tem and the ensuing demise of the power bases of these parties.
Table 3.8 shows us much the same results as Table 3.7. Once again,
the theory works best in explaining the cases of Denmark and Swit-
zerland, which have high levels of New Politics mobilisation. The theory
also explains the absence of significant New Politics mobilisation in
Ireland, Greece, Spain, and Portugal. At the medium level, Finland
fits the argument perfectly. It should be noted that the theory works
least effectively in cases of Luxembourg, Italy, and the Netherlands.
The Netherlands is clearly a significant anomaly in its levels of New
Politics and New PopUlist mobilisation. On the whole, the theory works
slightly better in explaiqing New Populism than in explaining the New
Politics. '
There is a high degree of congruence between mobilisation levels of
New Populism and the New Politics. Of course, this is no surprise
since they stem from the same source. If we take the high and medium
Table 3.8 Factors influencing 'New' Protest Party mobilisation (countries clustered by New Politics mobilisation) -.l
.j:>.
Socioeconomic Factors Political Factors Structural Factors
Welfare State Postindustrialism Economic Growth Cartelisation Openness
Country High Low High Low High Low High Low High Low
Denmark X X X X X
Switzerland X X X X X
Norway X X X X X
Belgium X X X X
Luxembourg X X X X
Finland X X X X X
Germany X X X X X
France X X X X X
Sweden X X X X X
Austria X X X X X
Italy X X X X X
Ireland X X X X X
Greece X X X X
Portugal X X X
Spain X X X
UK X X X X Xl
Netherlands X X X X
Note:
I. Great Britain.
Levels of New Populist mobilisation

HIGH/MEDIUM LOW
Denmark
Norway
Belgium
Switzerland
HIGH/ Austria
MEDIUM France
Levels of Finland
New Politics Italy
mobilisation Sweden
Germany
Luxembourg
Netherlands
United Kingdom
Ireland
LOW Greece
Spain
Portugal
Figure 3.11 New Politics mobilisation and New Populist mobilisation
levels of party mobilisation as being significant, it is possible to ex-

amine the coincidence of New Populist and New Politics mobilisation.
Figure 3.11 clearly demonstrates that there is an extremely high
correspondence between New Politics and New Populist mobilisation.
In other words, it seems to present a every strong prima facie case to
justify looking at the same underlying factors as determinants of NPP
mobilisation. The only exception is Luxembourg, which other observers
have excluded from their cross-national analyses, on the grounds that
its small size makes it an incomparable case (Kitschelt, 1989). The
figure also lends weight to the very comparison that underlies this
whole book: where the New Populism has a basis in society, so we
will find the New Politics and vice versa.
3.4 CONCLUSION
Charting the crisis of the postwar settlement shows how the new pro-
test movements have grown out of that context and therefore betray
the marks of their origins. By examining the theoretical bases that underlie
the New Politics and the New Populism it is clear that they derive
from the same broad sources, from the crises of the postwar settlement
that came about as a result of the economic and political crises of the
1970s. The NPPs are therefore a useful indicator of broad social and
political changes. While they seek to effect significilnt change, they
also stand as testimony to such change.
In conclusion we can stress four points in particular. The first con-
clusion that we can draw from all this is that the approach works slightly
better in predicting which countries will not have NPP mobilisation
than those that will. The new Mediterranean democracies and Ireland
seem to act as a block: the industrial, weak welfare states and periph-
eral states of Western Europe are unlikely to see high levels of NPP
mobilisation.
The second conclusion is the corollary to the first. The rise of the
NPPs is tied to long-term economic success (in the sense of a strong
economy supporting an extensive welfare state) rather than to the phenom-
enon of economic downturn. While it fits with the dominant explana-
tions of New Politics parties, this again demonstrates how the bases of
neo-fascism (often assumed to be rooted in economic depression) are
distinct from those of New Populism. New Populism, like the New
Politics, is a product of aggregate security and success rather than being
the outcome of general insecurity and deprivation.
The third conclusion that we can draw is that cartelisation of the
party system seems to have a bearing on the degree of NPP mobilisa-
tion. The rise of the NPPs as anti-system parties therefore has its roots
in a reaction to the prevailing regimes of political parties as well as in
a reaction to broader social and economic factors. The transformation
of the dominant form of representation - the political party - into an
integral component of the state is an important force in mobilising sec-
tions of the public who are opposed to such a change. The NPPs are
then a reaction to both the content and form of the postwar settlement.
The final conclusion that we can draw is that an overemphasis on
the more spectacular faces of protest can give a somewhat distorted
picture. With respect to the right-wing protest, the visibility of the
neo-fascist movements in Germany and Italy can, at times, obscure the
broader image. The New Populism represents a distinct and widespread
phenomenon of efficient, centralised parties operating within political
systems across Western Europe. The success of these sharp-suited far
rightists is not unrelated to the growth of extremist violence of the
boot boys, but we will have a clearer picture if we separate the two
phenomena. Defining New Populism is a start to such a process. With
the left-wing protest, it is clear that while the fortunes of New Politics
parties have waxed and waned, they have never fully been occluded
The Rise of the INew' Protest Parties 77
and remain as features of the political landscape of Western Europe.

The fact that the roots of the NPPs lie deeply embedded in broad so-
cial and political changes indicates that they cannot be dismissed as
'flash' parties. It is only through a truly comparative approach that
we can begin to chart the depth of these roots.
3.5 A BRIEF DIGRESSION: THE SWEDISH CASE
Although there are comparative sections, the focus of the rest of this
book is primarily on the Swedish case. We need to therefore give some
preliminary attention to the issue of how Sweden fits the theoretical
framework presented in this chapter.
The first observation is that Sweden, regardless of the abstract theor-
etical arguments, presents us with an obvious case in which to compare
New Populist and New Politics mobilisation. In terms of parliamen-
tary break-throughs, we can see the first New Politics party and New
Populists entering the Riksdag in a period of only three years with the
Green Party in 1988 and New Democracy in 1991. The symmetry is
extended by the fact that both parties fell foul of electoral favour after
their first period in parliament, and were ejected from the Riksdag in
the subsequent election. If we add to this the observation that the Swedish
polity has hardly been famed for new parties as it had no new parties
in the parliament for seventy years, then the case seems even more
attractive.
The second observation draws more explicitly on the theoretical case
made above. Looking at Sweden, it has all the theoretical attributes
that would lead us to expect NPP mobilisation except one. That ex-
ception is the fact that it has been a closed system into which it has
been very difficult to break. To put this another way: Sweden has all
the attributes that would apply to the NPPs, but does not have the
attribute which would make it easy for any new party to break through.
The difficulty for new parties in Swedish politics has not, however,
been due to merely political-structural factors. It has also been due to
the nature of the Swedish society. Since Childs' description of the
'middle way' (Childs, 1948, 1980), Sweden has been characterised by
a high degree of consensus around the social democratic model of politics
that it adopted (Scase, 1977; Elder, Thomas and Arter, 1988; Milner
1989; Esping-Andersen, 1985; Misgeld, Molin and Amark, 1992). The
stability and signs of consensus point us towards the Swedish post-
war settlement that can be traced back to the Saltsjobaden (or Basic)
Agreement of 1938 where the employers negotiated with the labour

organisation, Landsorganisationen (LO), to secure industrial peace at
the cost of a centralised bargaining system. Also vital was the govern-
mental position of the SAP that was secured through the red-green
coalition of the 1930s which was secured with the Agrarian (later Centre)
Party.
In many ways Sweden exemplified the four pillars of the post-war
settlement: it had one of the most e1ectorally successful social demo-
cratic parties in Western Europe with the SAP only being rivalled by
the Austrian SPO (see Table 3.1). The position of its peak labour or-
ganisation (LO) was almost unparalleled in consequence and gave rise
to a highly corporatist political system. This lead to one of the most
extensive welfare states. Esping-Andersen notes that, 'it is almost always
the case in comparative studies that Sweden scores highest on any
given welfare-state attribute' (Esping-Andersen, 1990, p. 114).
Keynesianism had an early hold on the country's economists starting
with Ernst Wigforss and running through the SAP's economic policies
until the difficulties of the 1980s (Amark, 1992, pp. 89-91). Sweden
is perhaps the paradigmatic case of a social democratic polity, a strong
welfare state and policies of Keynesianism carried out within a highly
corporatist context. It should be little wonder then that the crisis of
the post-war settlement should also be read as the crisis of Swedish
social democracy (Sainsbury, 1984; Pontusson, 1992; Meyerson, 1992)
and of the Scandinavian model more generally (Lane, 1993).
In contrast to the social democratic consensus of the post-war years,
recent years have been less harmonious for Sweden. The assassination
of Olof Palme, the SAP Prime Minister, in February 1986 seemed to
signal the passing of an age of consensus. Bitter disputes on the sur-
face of the political system reveal shifts in the underlying shifts in the
continental plates of the larger society. Examples of such conflictual
issues have been the disputes over the Wage-Earners Funds that took
place in the late seventies and early eighties (Gilljam, 1988, passim;
Heclo and Madsen, 1987, pp. 253-313) and the referendum on nuclear
power which took place in 1980. We trace the contours of the social
change by looking at the variables addressed above in the chapter.
The developed welfare state of Sweden has been clearly described
as 'built on the principles of universalism, egalitarianism, "de-commodi-
fication" and efficiency' (Esping-Andersen, 1992, p. 36). It has em-
phasised investment and employment rather than the safety net approach
to unemployment. It comes therefore as no surprise to find that Swe-
den ranks at the top of all the countries we examine in terms of its
welfare state de-commodification (see Table 3.3 above). This has not
been without cost. Sweden's taxpayers face a state which takes over
one krona for each two krona produced in the economy to fund the
public sector (Peters, 1991b, p. 23). By the mid-1980s; it was not only
the bourgeois parties that were questioning the scale of the public sec-
tor: the SAP and LO saw the problems that were being engendered by
an extensive welfare state (Heclo and Madsen, 1987. p. 172).
The result of this questioning of the social democratic consensus
was the 1991 Election. which ushered in a government of the right
and two new parliamentary parties of the right. Bildt, the new Prime
Minister, declared that 'the age of collectivism is over' (quoted in
Financial Times, October 5/6, 1991, p. 24). The SAP had themselves
abandoned the commitment to full employment and had cut welfare
spending before their defeat (Financial Times, October 27/28, p. 1;
October 29, p. 20) and had introduced wide-ranging taxation reform
(Lodin, 1990; Financial Times, January 4, 1991. p. 13). With the
Moderate-led government came fiscal austerity, and privatisation. These
most un-Swedish of phenomena were joined by another - rising
unemployment (Financial Times, April 15, 1992, p. 2). Corporatism
and Keynesianism seem to have had their day.
At the same time as a high level of welfare spending was causing
the social democratic regime headaches, its problems were compounded
by the shifting nature of the Swedish economy. The globalisation of
the international economy forced Sweden to look outward and it
deregulated its protected financial system in 1982 and abolished ex-
change controls in 1989. The culmination of this process was its ap-
plication for membership of the European Community in 1991, thus
abandoning its traditional neutrality and facing up to the reality that a
handful of industrial giants (e.g. Ericsson and Volvo) was not enough
to stave off the crises that accompanied the transition to a more
postindustrial context. In the domestic sphere, women's participation
in the labour force has been the highest in the world and has been
predominantly in the public sector (Wise, 1991: 1), so the process was
not only elite-induced.4 Again then, it comes as no surprise to find
Sweden second only to Switzerland in our ranking of postindustrialism
in the West European countries examined (see Table 3.4 above). This
position is repeated when we examine relative economic strength to
find Sweden immediately behind Switzerland at the top of the ranking.
The subsequent defeat of the non-socialist government and the re-
sumption of the SAP in their traditional governmental position in the
wake of the 1994 Election on face value can be taken as an indication
that things were 'back to normal' and that the hiatus of 1991 was
exactly that. On a deeper level, it is clear that the SAP co-operation
with the non-socialist government over the 1992 crisis package had
already essentially signalled the end to a simple equation of social
democratic government with the postwar settlement. The essential
consensus about both the problems and some of the solutions that pre-
vailed between the two blocks signalled that things had indeed changed.
The non-socialists and the Social Democrats both recognised the need
for domestic political reform, in the shape of less generous welfare
provision (Huber and Stephens, 1993), and were in unison in their
desire to move Sweden out of its position of isolation and towards in-
creased political and economic integration in Europe. The 1994 Elec-
tion of an SAP administration heralded change that went far deeper
than the hue of the party in government.
The variable of cartelisation does not give a ranking but we can
clearly see that the hegemony of the SAP with the support of other
small parties qualifies Sweden as a highly cartelised party system. Esping-
Andersen's thesis is that the different experiences of social democracy
in Scandinavia can be accounted for by the different success at creat-
ing supporting social coalitions (Esping-Andersen, 1985). This means
that a long period of governmental hegemony has given the Swedish
SAP an unparalleled to attempt to build up these class alliances, and,
as he notes, 'each of the SAP's vast array of reforms has been uniquely
tailored to attract broad, if not universal approval' (Esping-Andersen,
1985, p. 322). The larger picture of cartelisation is backed up by Borre's
conclusion that, if we examine the traditional Scandinavian blocs, then
dealignment had not hit too hard by 1984 (Borre, 1984, p. 361).
The cartelisation of the governmental parties was perhaps compounded
by the difficulty of new parties breaking through into the parliamen-
tary arena. Sweden saw the SAP, Moderate, Left, Centre and Liberal
parties dominating the Riksdag for most of the century. The unitary
nature of the state, the 4 per cent threshold for parliamentary represen-
tation, the pre-eminence of the labour movement outside parliament,
and the development of corporatist policy-making processes all added
up to a difficult situation for any new party to overcome. This is why
we see Sweden as one of the least open polities in Western Europe.
This conclusion fits in with Esping-Andersen's emphasis on the ef-
fects of policies and politics as of equal importance with the structural-
constitutional features of the state. Thus we have placed Sweden as
the fourth most closed political system among those we have exam-
ined in Western Europe (see Table 3.6 above).
In sum, Sweden presents us with the case par excellence in which

profound socioeconomic changes have undermined an extremely per-
vasive and potent post-war settlement. It is those changes which we
have identified as at the core of the emergence of the NPPs. It is
therefore not surprising to be presented in quick chronological order a
New Politics and a New Populist party. We can also see from their
experiences that they have both faced the same dilemmas of trying to
be unconventional parties in a convention-laden system, but that they
have corne up with very different answers to those same dilemmas.
The rest of the book is devoted to those same dilemmas and their very
different resolutions.
4 A Tendency to Differ:
New Party Elites
4.1 INTRODUCTION
One account of parties describes them as being made up of three ele-

ments: the party as an organisation; the party in the electorate and the
elected representatives of the party (Sorauf, 1984). The voters and the or-
ganisation are examined in subsequent chapters. This chapter addresses
the elites - the elected representatives of the parties. Similarities at
the level of the parties' organisation and electorate extend to the elite.
In many respects, the electoral constituency and the shape of the party
organisation depends on who people the party and how they portray
the party.
In Sweden, the emergence and success of two new parties hewn
from very different ideological material and yet bound together by their
opposition to the status quo represented, according to their own ac-
counts, not only a break with the past but also a potential portent for
the future. The elites of both New Democracy and the Green Party
attempted to demarcate themselves from politics as usual and from the
old parties by operating in ways that were sometimes irreverent, often
confrontational, and usually unconventional.
In playing out their self-prescribed roles of en/ants terribles, both
parties were beset with factional in-fighting. As New Democracy ap-
proached the end of its first period in the parliament, it has changed
leaders twice as a result of bitter conflicts and at the same time lost
the levels of support that allowed it to enter the Riksdag. This story
appears as an instant replay of the experience of the Green Party in
their three year tenure in the Riksdag. Factional in-fighting and a loss
of public support ensured that the Greens would not re-enter the par-
liament in 1991. This is no coincidence. The similarity stems from
facing the same dilemma. Both parties came to power on the basis of
their difference, but sustaining that difference throws up not only major
strategic and practical difficulties but also two different factions. One
set of activists sides with a strategy of the orthodox and the conven-
tional (,pragmatists') while the other sides with the unorthodox and
the unconventional ('fundamentalists'). Those elites that stress the
82
A Tendency to Differ: New Party Elites 83
unconventional element are invariably at odds with those who stress

the need for conformity.
An examination of the elites in both these parties is revealing. What
this chapter shows is that a feature that has been seen as an exclusively
New Politics phenomenon can be traced in much the same way in
New Populist parties of the right. As old as the idea of party politics
itself, is the conflict between those who believe that compromise ne-
gates the purity of the party's message and those who believe that
there is no point in having purity without power. With the New Poli-
tics this conflict between party pragmatism and fundamentalism has
assumed a central place in the development of the new parties. Studies
of New Politics parties have frequently pointed out that the division
between these groups is an quintessential feature of the green parties.
This distinction has been made in the green case between the 'realos'
and the 'fundis' in, most famously, the German Green Party and has
been applied to other green parties in Western Europe (Doherty, 1992b).
The argument here is that this division finds equivalency in protest
parties of the right and this is further indication that it is from the
same roots that both types of parties flourish.
The evidence for this elite differentiation is drawn from extensive
interviews conducted with national elites of the two parties. The elites
selected were those representatives of the party who had been the first
group to be elected to parliament (1988 in the case of the Greens and
1991 in the case of New Democracy). These were supplemented with
a small number of interviews with executive members of the party. 1
Interviews were semi-structured but all focused around five areas: per-
sonal political biography, party history, party ideology, party stucture
and operation and party prospects. They were conducted in the Sum-
mer of 1992 with a number of follow-up interviews in December 1994.
The nature of some of the subject matter (factional differentiation) and
the relatively small size of the pool of interviewees means that the
interviews were non-attributable. The data for this chapter derives mainly
from this source.
4.2 FUNDAMENTALISTS AND PRAGMATISTS
Factionalism is by no means confined to small protest parties. Richard

Rose (1964) articulates an important distinction between factions and
tendencies. Factions, as he defines them, are distinguished from ten-
dencies by organisation, self-consciousness and by a constant identifiable
group of individuals. In contrast a tendency is 'a stable set of atti-

tudes, rather than a stable group of politicians' (Rose, 1964, p. 37).
Dennis Beller and Frank Belloni argue that tendencies are a sub-set of
factions and have gone on to define factions as 'any relatively organ-
ised group that exists within the context of some other group and which
(as a political faction) competes with rivals for power advantages within
the larger group of which it is a part' (Beller and Belloni, 1978, p. 419).
In this definition, organisation still plays a central role and it there-
fore seems legitimate to distinguish tendencies from factions as being
unorganised and more fluid. David Hine adds to this distinction by
including groups within parties that seek to represent sectional interests
(Hine, 1982). B.D. Graham, in a similar vein, differentiates sectarian
from sectional conflicts arguing that the former refers to a group seeking
to redefine the very basis of the party while the latter refers to groups
who want to remould the party in its own image. Graham refers there-
fore to factional conflict as a separate category which describing power-
seeking strategies within parties that operate outside the normal rules
of behaviour (Graham, 1993, pp. 154-7).
What unifies much of this literature on factionalism is that it is
derived from observation of large established parties such as the Italian
Christian Democrats, the British Labour Party or the French Social-
ists. Large, well-established parties have been the lodestone for most
theories of party factions. Much of the factionalism that arises in es-
tablished parties is a reaction to an established nature. The presence of
a 'centre' or an establishment against which outsiders have to struggle
to gain power or prominence essentially conditions the nature of that
struggle. It forces factions that want to control the organisation of the
party, to be formal and organised in order to stand any chance of gaining
a position of power. New small parties reveal that some of these dif-
ferentiations are atypical of parties in general. Parties that are newly
formed are less likely to reveal clearly established lines of demarca-
tion between elites. In a small party it is almost impossible for factions
to be anything other than relatively informal, unorganised and based
on attitudinal differences. Examining new parties may reveal elements
of factionalism that become buried beneath the layers of organisation
and institutionalisation in the more established parties. Differentiating
between different types of factions on the basis of organisation is, then,
only appropriate to parties that allow the possibility of different types
of factions to flourish. Small new parties do not have the same set of
possibilities. The absence of an established centre in parties allows us to
trace the contours of ideology around the panorama of party in-fighting.
A quintessential element of the New Politics is that it attempts to

reconcile a desire for differentiation with the need to build a powerbase
founded upon pragmatism and compromise with those from whom they
seek to differentiate themselves. In the case of the German Greens, the
conflict could be seen in the split between the 'Realos', who saw the
need for possible coalitions with the SPD, and the 'Fundis', who rep-
resented radical ecology and tended to eschew any sort of co-operation
with the established parties (Frankland and Schoonmaker, 1992, p. 113;
Poguntke, 1993, pp. 102-6). The notoriety of this split has been such
that it has entered the vocabulary of the international Green movement.
Kitschelt has attempted a more rigorous differentiation. Drawing upon
his research on the Belgian and West German Green parties, he suggests
a three-way split between lobbyists, ideologues and pragmatists. The
ideologues stress the role of the party as a source of social experimen-
tation and tend to see electoral goals as secondary, emphasising the
purity of the party's ideological goals of social transformation. They
come from the radical subcultures surrounding the party. They un-
equivocally stress the party as means of securing collective goods and
see private goods for themselves as deriving from their involvemen~
and personal validation in the party as a social organisation. The prag-
matists are those drawn to the party by the hope of effecting practical
change and will not usually derive from the social movements, interest
groups or the radical subcultures surrounding the party. They stress
that larger long-term goals can be achieved as the culmination of small-
scale pragmatic policy changes. They stress that there is no trade-off
between pursuing collective and selective goods: Thus far the differen-
tiation resembles the 'Realo-Fundi' distinction, but what Kitschelt con-
tributes is the observation that a number of activists can be described
as lobbyists. This group is drawn mainly from the social movement
sector that is attached to and underlies Green parties and they tend to
stress the role of the party as providing representation to this constitu-
ency of movements. They therefore stress selective goods (Kitschelt,
1989, pp. 48-53: cf. Kitschelt and Hellemans, 1990, pp. 17-20).
New Politics parties are fundamentally different from New Populist
parties in one key respect, and this means that it is necessary to modify
Kitschelt's categories. New Politics parties emerge as social movement
organisations whereas New Populist parties tend to emerge in a top-
down manner. Although both parties, once formed, derive their elec-
toral appeal from being anti-system parties, they differ in the fact that
the New Politics party has a ready-made activist core at their disposal
from the related social movements. This social movement constituency
by no means accounts for the involvement of all the New Politics ac-
tivists. It does, to return to Kitschelt's model, account for the group of
lobbyists. A New Populist party does not have the same group of ac-
tivists from interest groups and social movements.
In order to adapt Kitschelt's model we must focus upon the two
competing groups of elites: the fundamentalists and the pragmatists. 2
We can therefore draw up a theoretical model that differentiates be-
tween fundamentalists and pragmatists and applies to both New Poli-
tics and New Populist parties. Adapting Kitschelt's model (Kitschelt,
1989, p. 54) we can specify four ways in which fundamentalists and
pragmatists will differ substantively: ideological goals; patterns of ac-
tivism; recruitment; and legislative style.
Ideological goals refers to the type of aims that are primary for the
activists. Those who favour collective goals are those who put the
emphasis on the party as an agent of larger social transformation and
are therefore fundamentalist. The alternative perspective emphasises
selective goals and which therefore sees the party primarily as a means
of effecting substantive policy change. This is the position of the prag-
matists. As Kitschelt points out, these activist groups are ideal types
(1989, p. 49), so pragmatists will also value the goal of social trans-
formation just as the fundamentalists will value policy change but we
can identify which of these goals assumes primacy for the respective
groups.
Patterns of activism involves both an element of political biography
and an element of current activity. This involves collapsing what Kitschelt
sets out as two distinct categories: political careers and patterns of
involvement (1989, p. 51). The reason for doing this is that, with New
Democracy, we are dealing with a very short-lived party and cannot
talk about the same length of career patterns as we can with the Greens.
What we are addressing here is how much the activists' perspective
extends beyond the structures of the party and the parliament. The
pragmatists are more likely to use the party as the exclusive source of
political activism whereas the fundamentalists are more likely to draw
from other sources for their attempts to effect social transformation.
Something of the same division emerges with regard to the recruit-
ment of activists to the party. Pragmatists are likely to have been selected
or endorsed by others because of their ability or skill. The criteria, to
use Kitschelt's term, is more likely to be based upon notions of pro-
fessionalism. On the other hand, the fundamentalists are more likely
to be selected on the basis of their ideological fervour. Here the differ-
entiation lies between those who have become parliamentary candi-
Table 4.1 Ideal types of New Party activists
Ideological Patterns of Recruitment Legislative

Goals Activism Style
Fundamentalist Collective goals Extra-party Commitment Conftictual and

orientation unconventional
Pragmatist Selective goals Party politics as Competence Co-operative and
paramount conventional
Source: Adapted from Kitschelt (1989, p. 54).
dates because of their 'competence' and those who are there because
of their 'commitment'.
In the legislative style we can detect perhaps the clearest differen-
tiation between the two types of activist. For the fundamentalists, be-
cause their primary goal is social transformation, their legislative style
is one that stresses the party role as a truly new kind of party and will
often favour confrontation, conflict and unconventionality. In contrast,
the pragmatists, because the legislative arena is the forum in which
they can realise their goal of effecting policy change - albeit incre-
mental change - will favour a style that is consensual, co-operative
and conventional.
Table 4.1 summarises the different factors involved in this activist
categorisation. We will now turn to how the differentiation applies to
the specific cases of New Democracy and the Greens.
In the case of our two recently-formed parties where prospects of
government seemed slim, the divisions observed through the interviews
were not necessarily highly formalised. Indeed, it is the lack of an
institutionalised differentiation that allows for the somewhat fluid
factionalism among new party elites. While there was a common group
of individuals who were usually identified with the factions, there were
also many activists who appear sometimes to move between the fac-
tions. The nature of the groupings in both cases was informal. There
were no formal structures and there was no organisational bases to
these factions. There was a propensity for the different groups to in-
teract with each and to defend the acts of those of a like-mind. How-
ever, it needs to be stressed that the groupings represent ideal types.
Few of the activists fitted perfectly into the categories but there was
enough similarity within the groups for them to be identified as such.
There were certain interviewees who did represent archetypes inas-
much as they embodied key distinct features of either pragmatists or
fundamentalists, often in extreme forms.
In both parties the dominant coalition of activists was made up of

pragmatists. The fundamentalists only constitute roughly one quarter
to one fifth of their respective parliamentary groups. This was ascer-
tained not only by direct experience of the activists in interviews but
also through the reported characteristics and behaviour of those not
being interviewed. Through cross-referencing the activists' evaluation
of other members of their parliamentary groups, it was clear that these
factions existed and, moreover, could be identified with a degree of
uniformity by most of the activists.
Divisions among both parties' elites were acknowledged by inter-
viewees. Those divisions were obviously not in terms of the pragma-
tist/fundamentalist categorisation offered here. What is interesting is
that differentiations made on other bases often conformed to the ana-
lytical categorisation. It was simplest with the Green Party. The Green
Party activists interviewed, themselves employed the 'realo-fundi' dis-
tinction in the course of the interviews. The terms were common cur-
rency in the Green discourse. It was a normal form of self-description
with one source describing herlhis position as being 'fundi' on key
issues but 'realo' in terms of party organisation questions and others
describing themselves unequivocally as 'realo'. No-one explicitly de-
scribed themselves as 'fundi' even when it was clear from their other
comments that they fitted into that category. Part of the reason was
that the fundamentalists were more inclined to reject the sort of dichot-
omous thinking that lead to the use of these categories.
In New Democracy there existed a grouping of activists at the level
of the national party that tended to view the party's aim as breaking
with the established order and of playing the role of enfant terrible.
This was in contrast to the dominant group within the party that was
more traditionally conservative and had had either a background in, or
support for, the Moderate (Conservative) Party. This differentiation often
overlapped with leadership identification with those who aligned them-
selves with the formal party leader (Wachtmeister) tending to be more
pragmatist and those who explicitly identified with the de facto second-
in-command (Karlsson) tending to be more fundamentalist. 3
The point here is not to express a voyeuristic interest in personal
conflicts, but rather to note that there is an inevitable conflict that
will arise between these different factions that themselves are a result
of the type of parties we are looking at. We have seen that prelimi-
nary identifications of the groups can be made, and that party activists
themselves pointed to such divisions. We now need to address what is
the nature and impact of these factions. The differences between the
types of activists in both parties can be systematically drawn out and

this explains both the development and some of the conflicts that have
emerged in the wake of the new parties' early years.
4.3 VISIONS AND POLICIES: IDEOLOGICAL GOALS
Fundamentalists and pragmatists stress different goals in their ideol-

ogies. The difference is between collective and selective goals. The
former refers to the desire for larger social transformation. While all
activists share this concern, to some extent at least, the fundamental-
ists see this goal as being compromised by the practice of pursuing
only smaller policy goals. By engaging in this exercise, the fundamen-
talists feel that the party loses its efficacy as a model for political
organisation. The pragmatists feel that there is a need for the party to
secure both legitimacy and specific policy goals through co-operating
with the old parties because they are focused on securing selective
goods.
The fundamentalist element of the Greens had its sights set on fun-
damental transformation. All elements of the party saw the need to
change ways of thinking. The fundamentalists were more likely to see
this as more important than specific policy changes. They also felt
that the methods that lead to policy successes necessarily undermined
and compromised the social transformation goal. By virtue of their
wider agenda, the fundamentalists regarded the party itself as a ve-
hicle for wider social change.
The pragmatists were often as rhetorically tied to the idea of radical
social transformation as were the fundamentalists. When asked if they
were a protest party, pragmatists were as likely to reply affirmatively
as were fundamentalists. It was when they translated that goal of change
into strategic terms that we can see the difference. The pragmatists
had little time for notions of ideological purity because they felt that
larger social change would be brought about by the combination and
culmination of many smaller changes.
The difference in strategy also revealed varying ideological goals.
When asked about the utility of symbolic acts of opposition, funda-
mentalists would invariably see this in terms of the need to oppose the
system. Pragmatists were less likely to see the utility of such acts but
when they did it was seen as a strategy to get 'even small things'
through the Riksdag. 4 On the other hand, the fundamentalist Greens
would recognise that there is a trade-off between piecemeal policy changes
and the general vision but would still say that the vision was the most
important element of their philosophy. In contrast the pragmatists saw
the vision element of Green philosophy as 'nebulous'. This ideologi-
cal gap manifested itself in many other ways and ran through their
different patterns of political behaviour.
Within New Democracy. the fundamentalists were in the minority.
They could be differentiated from the pragmatists. on the basis of how
they viewed the political system. Where the pragmatists were largely
supportive of the functioning of the Swedish political system. the fun-
damentalists viewed it as something more flawed. The dramatic suc-
cess of New Democracy in the polls proved to this group that 'the old
system is out'. and that. by operating as a substantively new force. the
party could change the politics of Sweden. The pragmatists within New
Democracy would explicitly deny that they were an anti-system party.
In those denials there was something more than the simple de facto
negative response: there appeared to be a rejection of the validity of
being an anti-system party. There was a distaste for the practice of
'anti-politics'. They wanted to be unusual but not uncooperative.
Fundamentalists viewed the party itself as a referent for the goals of
social transformation. The very nature of the party. and of its activist
body. was of inherent interest for the fundamentalists. unlike the prag-
matists who deemed the party as a mere vehicle for the forging of
policy change. For the fundamentalists. the idea that it was a party of
the grass-roots was essential. They saw the party as the embodiment
of something larger while the pragmatists saw the party as an end in
itself. The fundamentalists were not without policy concerns. but they
were more likely to cite more abstract issues when asked what were
the important issues for the party. and the fundamentalists were more
likely to have an extensive and very specific list. Although New Democ-
racy has been described as an anti-taxation party. this issue was rarely
cited by fundamentalists. For pragmatists. taxation was something that
was the practical embodiment of the larger critique that the party was
mounting on the Swedish welfare state model and was therefore the
most frequently mentioned issue.
Some pragmatist New Democrats did not see any conflict between
pursuing the long-term goals of societal change and pursuing piece-
meal policy change. Those that recognised the difference observed that
there was not a trade-off between the two options: pursuing policy
changes did not detract from the larger goal of changing the face of
Swedish politics. In the goals of the activists we see their true per-
spective - what they value. But more than that. we can see what they
value over what. If the choice is between being a party and being an
anti-party, we can witness the tension being resolved in different di-
rections. This difference in aspiration, value and resolution is at the
heart of the division between pragmatists and fundamentalists.
4.4 PATTERNS OF ACTIVISM
If the goals of individuals are different then it seems logical to expect

them to pursue different paths to fulfil these ends. Those activists whose
primary concerns are with policy changes - no matter how piecemeal
- are more likely to seek the arena where such changes can be effected.
Thus, pragmatists will tend to be drawn to the national legislative level.
They will seek it for its own ends of being able to pass legislation that
has national standing. On the other hand, the fundamentalists, because
they are more concerned with the larger goals of social transforma-
tion, may feel that this requires long-term changes in perspective and
that this can be achieved just as well at the local as at the national
level. If the fundamentalists reach the national level, they are more
likely than pragmatists to see this position as a way of validating their
constituency, whereas the pragmatists will be more concerned with gaining
credibility than with representing their constituency.
In the consideration of the patterns of activism we are faced with
two problems. The first is that the sample of interviewees was exclus-
ively drawn from the national level and we cannot therefore distinguish
as clearly as we would like between those activists who favour differ-
ent levels of government. The second problem is that, because New
Democracy has had such a short time-span, there is again a lack of
variance in the sample: we cannot distinguish between those who worked
their way up to the national party level through the local level and
those who naturally gravitated to the national level. This is because
there has been no opportunity for anyone to follow the former path.
However, with the sample, we can still find traces of different orientations.
Almost without exception the Green activists had had experience of
the non-national (i.e. kommun and landsting) levels of governinent.
Although they had all ended up at the national level, some did express
a preference for other levels of government and felt that local politics
more naturally fitted their personal goals and style of politics. Prag-
matists were therefore more likely to have gained the most satisfaction
at the Riksdag level because this level deals with, by their evaluation,
the most interesting questions.
Some interviewees who were otherwise clearly pragmatists did ex-

press a preference for operating at the local level. One said this was
because of frustrations in the Riksdag. Another held this position be-
cause the local level was closer to the voters while at the same time
felt that this level meant missing out on the international contacts.
Other pragmatists were less equivocal about the advantages of operat-
ing at the national level because it was more interesting and more
satisfying because the impact was longer-term and because they could
detect a real impact on society. The fundamentalists were clearly more
satisfied with local level activism. This may have been tied to their
greater propensity to view the Riksdag period as a failure. The differ-
ence here with fundamentalists who viewed the Riksdag experience
negatively was that the fundamentalists were more likely to be considering
giving up entirely on the national level. Those who were still involved
at the national level expressed the desire to extricate themselves from
this level of the Green party.
Along with their propensity to favour non-national levels of govern-
ment, fundamentalists in both parties also tended to have a perspec-
tive that was not constrained by the party. They would tend to see
themselves as having a perspective that was wider than the party and
would often have independent sources of validation for their own work.
The fundamentalist worldview was wider than the pragmatists, who
were far more likely to operate within like-minded groups of Green
parliamentarians.
We cannot compare the levels of government favoured by New
Democrat activists because of the reasons cited above. However, we
can note that the fundamentalists were more likely to share with Green
fundamentalists a propensity to look beyond the party and to see con-
stituency representation as their primary goal rather than the simple
gaining of political power. This was fundamental to the New Demo-
crat agenda because of their rhetorical and ideological commitment to
representing the 'mainstream', the 'ordinary people'. Some of the ac-
tivists took this more literally than others.
Bert Karlsson's role was often seen as being someone who was con-
nected to the people and who kept his proverbial ear to the ground.
He was described as 'the People's leader'. In this sense he represents
the fundamentalist tendency to focus on a constituency that extends
outside the parliamentary party. This fundamentalist tendency could
be seen in those activists who saw the need to keep criticising the
party and not to see the party as an end in itself. The party existed for
some activists as a way of mobilising new constituencies rather than
as a vehicle for the neoliberal philosophy that small business supported.

The pragmatists, in their turn, were more likely to see the party as an
end itself and to see their role as simply maximising the power of the
party in the Riksdag. This may be a consequence of the fact that many
non-leadership pragmatists had been recruited to the party and had not
previously seen themselves as the torch-bearers for any particular con-
stituency or ideology.
Although we cannot bring to bear as much information on New
Democracy as we can on the Green Party, it is still clear that the funda-
mentalist and pragmatist factions in both parties displayed similarities
in their patterns of activism. Pragmatists were more likely to see the
party as an end in itself and would tend towards the national level
because this was where they could fulfil their goals of policy change
most visibly and most effectively. In contrast, the fundamentalists were
more likely to see the party as an interim structure, through which
they could promote their agenda or their constituency. In the Green
case, as the fundamentalist agenda was far more ambitious than the
pragmatist, and, as a consequence, was very difficult to implement at
any level of government, they were often more comfortable at lower
levels of government, where they felt that they received more move-
ment support in concession for their lack of policy efficacy. It was
clear that the Green group in the Riksdag did not cohere as an infor-
mal group during its three-year period in office. These different pat-
terns of activism do represent the different goals of the factions and
we can detect important similarities across the parties in this area.
4.5 RECRUITMENT
Part of the difference between the pragmatists can be traced to, or

reflects, their different paths of recruitment to these new parties. Re-
cruitment can be a path of socialisation, or it can be an indicator of a
priori differences in orientation. Different ideological constituencies are
liable to throw up different types of activists. And different types of
activists are likely to be drawn to different constituencies. Examining
the different routes by which the elites were recruited as national ac-
tivists would therefore lead us to expect some differences between prag-
matists and fundamentalists.
The difference between the fundamentalist and the pragmatist re-
cruitment path in New Democracy was that the fundamentalists were
more likely, if not part of the party leadership, to have initiated contact
with the fledgling party at an early stage. Pragmatists were often re-
cruited either from other parties or from industry by the party leader-
ship. Indeed, the leadership personally recruited a large part of the
Riksdag list. 5 The discrepancy between a party of the people and one
that appeared to be a party of the person of Wachtmeister was most
strongly marked with respect to the pragmatists. The fundamentalists
seemed to have become involved with the party as a result of initiat-
ing contact with Wachtmeister. What was the common denominator
for nearly all the activists was the catalytic article by Wachtmeister
and Karlsson that appeared in a national newspaper, Dagens Nyheter,
in November 1990.
There were three paths of recruitment. The first was those who were
involved in the actual formation of the party and who came to rep-
resent the dominant coalition as the party evolved. This was a mixture
of pragmatists and fundamentalists. The second path was that followed
by those who were not always involved in the initial establishment of
the party but were invariably self-selected and had made early contact
with the new party in order to put into practice their already-formed
political aspirations. They were fundamentalists. They had often either
speculated with friends about the possibility of a new party or had
been involved in other minor parties. These two groups were also joined
by a third group. These were all pragmatists and their recruitment had
been initiated by others. The most usual path of recruitment was for
the leadership to have known of them through others or to have known
them personally, and having then recruited them to the party. The dif-
ference between the two factions hinges on whether the activists were
self-recruited on the basis of ideological fervour or whether they were
pulled into the party and recruited on the basis of their abilities and
competencies.
As is noted above, the recruitment path reflected differences in the
prior political affiliations. The fundamentalists were far more likely to
have previously identified with the Social Democrats while the prag-
matists were mostly ex-Moderate supporters. In other words, those who
had been so disillusioned with politics to cross from the left to the
right were more likely to be fundamentalist because they had already,
in their personal political paths, followed a route that transgressed the
normal functioning of politics. In contrast, those that had moved merely
slightly rightward from the Moderates were more likely to have done
so out of dissatisfaction with particular parties rather than out of a
rejection of politics as a whole.
The recruitment path for national activists in the Green Party was
relatively undifferentiated. All the interviewed parliamentary delegates

had joined the party of their own initiative. All had had some involve-
ment at the local (kommun) and/or county (landsting) levels of the
Party. In many cases they had been instrumental in establishing local
parties when they heard or read about the establishment of the Party at
a national level. Nearly all of them had been involved since the for-
mation of the Party in 1982. On the whole, there was both a high
degree of uniformity and little to distinguish fundamentalist from prag-
matist recruitment paths.
The anti-nuclear movement that resulted in and grew out of the 1980
Referendum on nuclear power was a crucial politicising event for most
of the Green activists. However, if we exclude the anti-nuclear move-
ment, there was a differentiation between the fundamentalist and prag-
matist career paths. In short, the fundamentalists were more likely
to have been involved in other social movements, not necessarily en-
vironmental movements or parties, than the pragmatists. Fundamen-
talists came with experience of the new social movement sector as a
whole, whereas pragmatists were more likely to have been primarily
environmentalists.
It should be stressed that the slight difference in recruitment paths
was exactly that - slight. The relevance lies in the fact that it points to
fundamentalists being drawn to the Green Party as a vehicle for a larger
agenda of social change, while the pragmatists were more likely to
have been drawn to the Green Party as a method of pursuing a more
specific policy goal. A typical pragmatist recruitment path was exemp-
lified in the interviewee who specified that he had not been active in
other parties, had been politicised by the nuclear issue, and had then
seen the Green Party as a way to pursue that agenda after the refer-
endum. The other social movement that pragmatists were likely to have
been involved in was, not surprisingly, the environmental movement.
The fundamentalists were likely to be already politicised and active
before the advent of the 1980 Nuclear Referendum.
There are two things to note when comparing the recruitment paths
of New Democrat and Green national activists. The first is that there
was a substantive difference in the evolution of the two parties: while
the Greens clearly developed as a social movement organisation and
grew upwards from the local level, New Democracy was largely a
top-down phenomenon. This meant that New Democracy did not have
the training or recruiting ground of a local level party organisation.
Although this may change if the party becomes more established, this
does not detract from the general point that New Democracy did not
rely upon a culture of movement activism in the same way that the
Green Party did.
Having noted the difference between the parties, and taking account
of that, we can observe a similarity between recruitment paths for fun-
damentalist and pragmatist activists in both parties. In both parties,
the fundamentalists were likely to be those who have been politicised
prior to the formation of parties. For the pragmatists in both parties,
the actual formation of the party (either the process or the event) has
been a formative and politicising experience for them. Elite recruit-
ment illustrates similarities between the experiences of the activists of
the two parties and, at the same time, shows how these similarities are
manifested in different ways in parties that seek to express their dis-
tinctiveness in opposite ways.
4.6 BLOW-TORCHING THE RIKSDAG: STYLES OF

LEGISLATIVE BEHAVIOUR
It is in their behaviour in the legislative arena that we can see just

how the ideological goals of activists are translated into action. The
Nordic parliaments have traditionally been downplayed as significant
arenas in the policy process because of the corporatist nature of poli-
tics in these countries. In addition, the short length of the legislative
process in Sweden reinforces the impression that decisions are made
in other locations. However, partly as a result of the loss of Social
Democratic hegemony and partly as a result of the attendant decline
of 'block politics' with the arrival of new players on the scene in the
shape of new parties, this picture has been revised (Sannerstedt and
Sjolin, 1992; Arter, 1984, 1990). Legislative behaviour comes there-
fore to play an important part in defining the relationship of factions
and the orientations of new party elites.
There are some important distinctions between the relative positions
of New Democracy and the Green Party. When asked how they viewed
(or indeed if they were making any overt comparisons with) the recent
experience of New Democracy, Greens seemed prepared to entertain
the possibility of comparison with a party whose policy goals were
almost wholly in contradiction to their own. One Green described New
Democracy as 'riding on the same wave that we did'. This was in
contrast to the New Democrats who were far less amenable to the
suggestion of any similarity - however tenuous it might be. There were
two points that were made generally by Green activists about New
Table 4.2 Seats won in Riksdag after 1988 and 1991 Elections
1988 1991
Social Democrats 156 138
Moderate Unity Party 66 80
Liberal Party 44 33
Centre Party 42 31
Left Party 21 16
Green Party 20 0
Christian Democrats 0 26
New Democracy 25
Total Seats 349 349
Government Total Seats 177 170
Notes:
1. Government needs 175 seats for majority.
2. Emboldened numbers signify government parties.
Democracy.6 The first was that New Democracy were being more effec-
tive at maintaining their image as a new force than the Greens had
been, and that it did appear to be mounting a challenge to the political
establishment. The second point was more sanguine: the observation
was that it was easier for New Democracy to be successful because
they held a position of balance whereas the Greens had held no such
position. One Green interviewee even expressed the frustration that,
even though the Greens had held no position of balance, the media
had portrayed them in that way.
As Table 4.2 demonstrates, the 1988-1991 session of the Riksdag
placed the governing Social Democratic-Left Party coalition with an
absolute majority and thus placed the Green Party in a position of
relative impotence. In contrast, the 1991 Election yielded a minority
government that had no overall majority.
Initial post-election suggestions in 1991, that New Democracy should
join the four-party coalition, were scotched by the vocal opposition of
the Liberal Party and particularly the party leader Bengt Westerberg.
Westerberg had refused to even sit on the same couch as Wachtmeister
in a pre-election television interview and thereby ensured that the dis-
dain that the Liberals felt for New Democracy was reciprocated. New
Democracy's leadership realised that this was a powerful media meta-
phor for the exclusion of any new party from the 'clubby' atmosphere
of the five-party Riksdag and thus played it to the full. In the event,
New Democracy was glad to not be in the cabinet and saw this as an
advantage. In the executive office of New Democracy there were two

chairs with Bildt (the conservative Prime Minister) and Westerberg's
name on them, as a symbol that, even if the powers that be shunned
the new party, New Democracy was more than prepared to sit down
and talk with them.
In 1975 a new process was introduced into parliamentary procedure,
whereby the Speaker appointed the Prime Minister and then had the
Riksdag vote on this decision, with the appointee needing less than
half of the parliament to vote against him or her to ensure the govern-
ment's survival (Sannerstedt and Sj til in , 1992, p. 105). In this vote
following the 1991 Election, New Democracy abstained. This is sig-
nificant because it demonstrates what became the hallmark of the
party's legislative position. The government needed their agreement or
their abstention to ensure a majority. If New Democracy voted against
the government it lost. New Democracy could therefore maintain their
position of appearing to be an 'anti-party' by abstaining while at the
same time ensuring the survival of the right-wing government which
they preferred, without having to be tainted by appearing to give ac-
tive support.
It is for this reason that a simple record of voting behaviour would
not serve as a particularly apposite or revealing comparison. To put it
simply: it did not matter how the Greens voted as long as the Left
Party was voting with Social Democrats because they could make no
difference. Symbolic opposition and substantive co-operation were not
options for the Greens in their voting behaviour. This means that the
attention is necessarily focused on the legislative styles of the two
parties. In other words, we are concerned to examine how they con-
ducted themselves as much as with what they did.
Once successful in gaining election to the Riksdag, New Democracy
and the Green Party both operated in ways that were often a conscious
effort to present a mannered opposition to the normal practices of party
behaviour in the legislative arena. Having campaigned on the basis of
their unconventional position they were determined in their own ways
to operate unconventionally in this most conventional of settings. This
could be seen in the attitudes of both groups of parliamentarians. One
analogy used by a Green interviewee was that they entered the Riksdag
with the intention of operating as a 'blow-torch', setting light to the tra-
ditional ways of operating. It is interesting that this analogy was also
used by a New Democrat. How far this rhetoric was translated into
action depended largely on whether the particular activists were funda-
mentalists or pragmatists, regardless of which party they belonged to.
From an examination of Green and New Democrat elites in their orien-

tation towards legislative behaviour, there was a clear differentiation
between fundamentalists and pragmatists. Pragmatists would stress the
unconventional as largely symbolic, but would place value on substan-
tially conventional strategies, while fundamentalists were prepared to
be unconventional on both symbolic and substantive levels. This dis-
tinction played out in the elites of both parties.
When the Greens entered the Riksdag after their 1988 Election vic-
tory they made great play of arriving on bicycles and of eschewing
the formality of the arena. This was to be a motif that played through-
out their tenure in the Riksdag. What was typical was the attitude that
the Greens offered a new way of working within existing frameworks:
that they 'used the machinery in a different way'. The mandate that
the Greens felt they had was to not only raise new issues, but to raise
issues in new ways. There was a part of the Green group that sought
to explicitly change the rules of the Riksdag immediately upon pass-
ing under its portals for the first time. This was not seen as a priority
by the whole group, with some even seeing it as naive. The divisions
thrown up by that issue were played out over different issues. Always
the differentiation came in how far the group should push their attempts
to be different.
Apart from attempting rule changes, another way the party sought
to make its mark was to avoid an emphasis on leadership through the
principles of collective leadership and rotation. The party adopted two
'spokespersons' (sprakroren) to speak for the party. Once the Greens
entered the Riksdag it was decided that there should be two pairs of
spokespersons; one pair representing the party in parliament, while the
other pair should represent the party as a whole. This caused some
difficulties both in presenting the image of the party to the world out-
side the Riksdag and in providing an appropriate focus for the parlia-
mentary group. These problems were compounded by the process of
rotation which meant that the pairs of spokespersons changed on a
regular basis. As well as the leadership rotation principle, there were
other restrictions placed on members of the Parliamentary group to
prevent them from aggregating too much power to themselves. There
was a nine year limit on how long an individual member could stay in
the Riksdag (Miljopartiet de Grona, 1990, p. 8). In addition, there was
an attempt to avoid single members drawing too much power into their
own hands by taking multiple positions. An example was the prohibi-
tion on being both national and local representatives for the party.
The pragmatists were far more likely to identify these issues as major
problems and to argue that the principle of avoiding an excessive emphasis

on individuals and leaders had failed. In contrast, fundamentalists were
likely to agree that there had been problems with the practice but that
these did not negate the basic principle. They took solace from the
fact that conflict had indicated that t~e party was being successful in
challenging the norms of behaviour. The pragmatists saw little solace
in this and so focused on practical problems. The pragmatists were
more likely to see the issue of new ways of working as either of minor
importance or as irrelevant. This benevolent perception on the part of
some pragmatists was balanced by other pragmatists who blamed an
excessive emphasis on trying to be new for their·parliamentary impo-
tence. The fundamentalists were likely to adopt a far more confron-
tational style and saw co-operation with any other parties as potentially
sUllying their ideological purity as an anti-party. The pragmatists were
more likely to place an emphasis upon co-operation and consensus
with the other parties.
In any working group there will be divisions and there will be per-
sonal conflicts. However, what is illustrative in the case of the Green
Parliamentary group is the fact that these divisions seemed to fall along
the ideological fault lines already articulated above between funda-
mentalists and pragmatists. Examples of these divisions were thrown
up by key events during the Greens' period in parliament.
An important and public incident was engendered by a government
crisis in February 1990. Over an issue of an economic package, the
Social Democratic Prime Minister Ingvar Caarlson announced that the
government would resign if the package was not passed by the Riksdag.
This statement was not made on the basis of any negotiations with
other parties and therefore was subject to much criticism (Sannerstedt
and SjOlin, 1992, p. 107). The relevance of this crisis was that the
Social Democrats courted the Greens as a potential coalition partner to
help them attain passage of their package through the Riksdag, rather
than their usual partner, the Left Party. We have therefore a scenario
with the Greens potentially holding the balance of power.
Negotiations were conducted with the 'leadership group' within the
Greens over one weekend. There was a clear consensus that some sort
of accommodation was desirable for the Greens because it would give
them some of the credibility that they felt they lacked. However, nego-
tiations with the government broke down when members of the Green
group not involved directly in the negotiations announced that they
would not support coalitions with the Social Democrats. One of these
declarations was made publicly. The parliamentary arithmetic required
that the Social Democrats needed the whole of the Green group to
vote with them. When they saw that they could not expect unanimity
from the Greens, the Social Democrats withdrew from negotiations and
eventually ended up resigning and then reconstituting the government
coalition with their former partners - the Left Party. The fall-out from
this incident heightened the fractiousness within the group. This inci-
dent highlights important differences of parliamentary behaviour be-
tween Green pragmatists and Green fundamentalists. The fundamentalists
were more concerned with the purity of ideological consistency than
with the bargaining position that would accompany the gaining of any
position of power. For them, the party itself represented the personal
validation that they sought. The pragmatists were concerned to gain
credibility through co-operation.
In offering divergent recollections and in describing different approaches
to the work of a parliamentarian, the Greens also marked themselves
out as belonging to the different factions. While the pragmatists favoured
an approach that was consensual and co-operative, their frustration was
largely focused on the media and on those members of the Green group
that had 'undermined' any real chance that they had had for power or
credibility. In contrast the fundamentalists were marked by a more
confrontational combative style that lead them to be frustrated with
the dominance that the pragmatists had in the group as a whole.
Although New Democracy eschewed any ideological comparison
between themselves and the Green Party, the Party leadership was clearly
aware, upon entering the Riksdag, that they were facing a similar situ-
ation. We are clearly dealing with different lengths of time in the Riksdag
when comparing the two parties. However, we are not comparing what
they did so much as comparing how they did it. At the time of the
interviews, the New Democrats had completed their first parliamen-
tary year. From this period, and from their attitudes towards it, we can
construct a model of their parliamentary styles. From this we can see
the similar demarcation between pragmatists and fundamentalists that
we saw with the Green group.
The difference between the parliamentary styles of the pragmatists
and the fundamentalists existed in New Democracy as it existed in the
Green Party - albeit in a less pronounced way. The difference between
the pragmatists and the fundamentalists lay in how willing they were
to accept the leadership of the party. The fundamentalists were more
likely to pursue their own agendas while the pragmatists accepted that
the party line should be that set by the leadership. This is partially
related to the fact that pragmatists were usually recruited by leadership
while the fundamentalists were likely to have already considered the

possibility of forming a party and took the opportunity to use the newly-
formed New Democracy as a vehicle for their agenda.
The pragmatist New Democrats were likely to act in a co-operative
manner. Although their rhetoric was still apparently anti-system, they
would, in practice, maintain very good relations with other parties.
Pragmatists were clearly at ease with co-operation with the other parties
and in some cases were explicit in asking for help in mastering the
ropes from the other parties, especially in the legislative committees.
In contrast, the fundamentalists were likely to share the rhetoric of being
anti-system but were more prepared to put that into practice in their
parliamentary styles, and often tended to exhibit attitudes and behaviour
that marked them out as either very individualistic (i.e. they did not
feel the need to co-operate with the other parties) or even as mavericks.
Through their ideological goals, patterns of activism, recruitment and
legislative styles, the elites of both parties did conform to the basic
pattern expected of a difference between fundamentalists and pragma-
tists. The two tables, 4.3 and 4.4, summarise how the same factions
were manifested differently in the two parties:
The differences between the manifestations of the factions demon-
strates that the process of party formation leaves an important impri-
matur on the subsequent context in which party activists will operate
(Panebianco, 1988). Parties that grow upwards from a social move-
ment basis will offer different conditions for activist behaviour from
parties which have been top-down creations by key leadership figures.
Despite these differences in manifestations, the same core similarities
lie across groups of activists in the two parties.
4.7 COMPARATIVE CASES
The Swedish experience of the New Politics and the New Populism is
not unique. This can be shown through comparison with other coun-
tries. There are variations in the ideologies and actions of elites in
different countries and some of these reflect different national contexts,
but the underlying similarities seem to run deeper than these differences.
Across Western Europe we can see party elites which display ideol-
ogies of New Populism and the New Politics. To a lesser extent, we
may also note that these parties display a tendency to dichotomise
around fundamentalist and pragmatist positions.
The German RepUblicans are clearly a party of the right. It is a
Table 4.3 Party activists in the Green Party

Fundamentalist • Social • Favour non- • Prior • Seeking rule

transformation national levels involvement changes in the
• Extra with wide Riksdag
parliamentary range of social • Endorsing anti-
activism movements leadership stance
Pragmatist • Policy goals .Favour • Professional • Critical of anti-

national level criteria leadership stance
• Parliamentary
party as
predominant
focus
Table 4.4 Party activists in New Democracy

Fundamentalist • Seeking • Extra-party • Self-recruited • Self-styled

political reform perspecti ve • Criteria of operating style
• Focus on wider commitment stressing
abstract issues • Prior individualism
affiliation: SAP
Pragmatist • Not an anti- • Party as • Recruited by • Co-operation

system party limit of leadership with other parties
• Issues: perspective • Criteria of
taxation. competence
immigration & • Prior affiliation:
foreign aid Moderate
clear example of a New Populist party which is overlapping with the

neo-fascist agenda. The clear hostility to immigration and the militant
nationalism marks it out as one of a number of parties to occupy the
far right position on the ideological spectrum in Germany. It is no-
table that a commitment to a neoliberal economic policy does not play
as prominent role in its agenda as in other New Populist parties. It
wants a ban on immigration with only very narrow exceptions (Veen,
Lepszy and Mnich, 1993, pp. 1&-17). It was in order to stay within
the Basic Law that the Party's programme drafted in 1990 tried hard
to portray it as not hostile to democracy. It does display anti-system
tendencies: it draws part of its appeal from fostering resentment against
establishment politicians (Veen, Lepszy and Mnich, 1993, p. 20;

Zimmermann and Saalfield, 1993, p. 55). These attacks are made from
the 'mainstream' and are therefore in the name of the 'common man'
(Veen, Lepszy and Mnich, 1993, p. 20).
The roots of the Republicans lie in factionalism: they formed as
a splinter from the Christian Social Union in 1983 (Kolinsky, 1992,
p. 61). This legacy has left its mark and it has seen very bitter internal
battles over the leadership of Schonhuber. This stemmed from 1985
when Schonhuber accused his second in command, Franz Handlos, of
leading a take-over of the party. Handlos resigned but the in-fighting
did not stop and Schonhuber even resigned in 1990 as party leader in
order to avoid being forced to resign but mustered his party to re-elect
him at the subsequent Congress (Veen, Lepszy and Mnich, 1993, pp.
23-8). It is difficult to gauge, without in-depth research to determine
whether this factionalism reflects an ideological differentiation or merely
the clashes of personalities.
In Austria it has been the personality and leadership of Jorg Haider
that has transformed the Austrian Freedom Party (FPc) into a New
Populist party by combining the far right agenda of anti-immigration
policies with the populist rhetoric that defines the party as from the
mainstream (Financial Times, November 4, 1992, p. 4). As Robert Knight
describes it, Haider plays 'two roles which are in theory contradictory
- that of the anti-establishment new broom, to sweep away corruption
and inefficiency. and that of the restorer of the safety and secure values
of "community'" (Knight, 1992, p. 296). The success of Haider has
been stymied by factional in-fighting which lead five of his party's
parliamentarians to break away and form an alternative party (European,
February 11-14, 1993, p. 13). This stemmed from his failed attempt to
get over a million signatories to a petition to reform Austria's immi-
gration laws. His weak position as a result of this and the fracturing
of support for the FPc) does not bode well for Haider, but it does
illustrate some potential problems for New Populist parties.
A New Populist party that does not share the Republican's or the
FPCh overt right-wing agenda is the Italian Lombard League. In this
case a brief examination of its ideology does reveal important right-
wing features. Although not overtly racist and although Bossi tries to
argue that 'the League does not believe in ideology as such' (Finan-
cial Times, August 2, 1993, p. 26), its 'micro-nationalist' policies and
its demonising of Southern Italians does verge on racism. Although
regional claims are at the centre of its popularity, it is a peculiar form
of regionalism which leads Ruzza and Schmidtke to comment that the
'Lega Lombarda does not show many characteristics typical of other

regional movements' (Ruzza and Schmidtke, 1993, p. 3). It has made
great play of portraying the Southerners as lazy and as living off the
wealthy North through welfare and a distended state. The party has
also moved to a position of opposing non-EC immigration (Gilbert,
1993, p. 103).
The subtle racism in the League's message is mixed with a neoliberal
support of privatisation. Bossi himself notes: 'We strongly support
privatisation. Here in the north people work hard, they produce things;
there are thousands of small and medium-sized industries. This is one
of the most advanced regions in Europe. We cannot be held back by
paying taxes to support the south' (Financial Times, August 2, 1993,
p. 26). Its economic policies included tax reform, privatisation, slash-
ing bureaucracy and freeing up the market (Gilbert, 1993, p. 101).
In the face of an imploding polity, its anti-system credentials are
clear. Woods argues that the 'rise of the regional "leagues" should be
seen as a new form in the cycle of anti-system politics' (Woods, 1992c,
p. 118). The adoption of an armed warrior as the. party logo is not
insignificant. It has also adopted the phrase that the present system
need to be 'pickaxed' (Ruzzo and Schmidtke, 1993, p. 16). This mili-
tancy of ideology has been put into practice as a confrontational and
often unconventional political style. Rather than operating within the
traditional bounds of party behaviour, the League has advocated mass
protests through tactics such as a tax strike (Financial Times, April 9,
1992, p. 2). Evidence of factional in-fighting does not present itself
with the League.
Internal conflicts have been the hallmark of many Green parties. The
fact that the distinction between 'Realos' and 'Fundis' has become an
accepted part of Green activist discourse is testimony to this. These
terms arose from the experience of the German Greens in the mid-
1980s where the Party fractured between who were not prepared to
countenance coalitions with the Social Democrats ('Fundis') and those
who were ('Realos') (Frankland and Schoonmaker, 1992, p. 113), and
has been a feature of that party's development both in the Lander and
at the national level. It has represented, for all Green parties, the split
between those who are more fundamentally tied to the idea of being
an anti-party and those who are realists about the need for co-opera-
tion in order to effect the party's goals.
Kitschelt's work, although as we have discussed above, adding the
category of 'lobbyists', points out that the differentiation between
fundamentalists and pragmatists extends from the West German Greens
to the Belgian Ecolo and Agalev parties. He further notes that the
pragmatists are the dominant group among party activists in all three
cases (Kitschelt, 1989, p. 119). Overall, he concludes that his ideal
types of party militants 'are empirically crucial types of party activists
with characteristic beliefs and orientations' (Kitschelt, 1989, p. 115)
Even Green parties whose chances of electoral representation are
minimal have manifested this trend. The British Greens have seen a
number of controversies, from the attempt by the 'Maingreen' group to
streamline the party organisation in 1986 (Kemp and Wall, 1990,
p. 29-30; McCulloch, 1992, p. 421), to the more successful 'Green
2000' ticket that forced the party into a more pragmatic direction at
the 1991 Annual Conference. Although Brian Doherty notes that the
Green 2000 initiative did not provoke the same activist vitriol as Main-
green (Doherty, 1992a, p. 294), press reports universally indicated that
from the initiation of Green 2000 in 1990 to the passing of the re-
forms, the issue illustrated a broad ideological differentiation (Finan-
cial Times, September 25, 1990, p. 4; Guardian, September 20, 1991,
p. 4; Guardian, September 23, 1991, p. 4).
The French case has seen the two major New Politics parties divid-
ing over the issue of whether to co-operate with existing parties. In
the run-up to the 1993 General Election, Michel Rocard of the Social-
ist Party suggested a 'big bang' strategy that would unite the declining
Socialist party with Green and new left movements. The Greens im-
mediately rejected this offer while Generation Ecologie invited
Rocard to join in their campaign (Financial Times, February 26, 1993,
p. 3). This seems symptomatic of an ideological split between the two
parties that corresponds to the fundamentalist-pragmatist difference.
Doherty argues that eco-socialism is particularly strong in the French
Greens and that there is a fundamentalist-pragmatist split among the
eco-socialists because this section of the party is far more likely to
seek an electoral coalition with the Socialists (Doherty, 1992b, p. 113).
Doherty argues that the realo-fundi controversy is an almost univer-
sal feature of Green parties and uses material from the German, ital-
ian, British and French Greens. He concludes that it is simply the
commitment to grass-roots democracy within Green ideology that makes
this tendency to differ apparent whereas it is largely disguised in other
parties (Doherty, 1992b, p. 115). This chapter has attempted to link
the division between fundamentalists and pragmatists to the essential
elements in the ideologies of the 'New' Protest parties, but other 'old'
parties will still manifest similar divisions. The description of New
Politics ideology as left-leaning, anti-system and inclusive is broadly
applicable to other New Politics parties.
Where the New Politics parties are Green parties (i.e. in nearly all
of the cases) the commitment to an ecological agenda is itself evi-
dence of an inclusive ideology. From the German Green's commit-
ment to ecology along with social rights, grass-roots democracy and
nonviolence (Die Grtinen, 1983, pp. 7-9: cf. Kvistad, 1987), through
the French Greens' three pillars of autonomy, solidarity and ecology
(Prendiville, 1989, p. 93) to all other green parties' commitments to
the environment, the idea of inclusiveness is encapsulated in a mess-
age that is not class-based and applies to all equally. The anti-system
stance is clear in the protest actions of many green parties and in the
frequent rejection of coalitions. Ironically, it is where coalitions have
been formed that there is evidence of the left-leaning nature of these
parties. While the Socialist Peoples Parties of Norway and Denmark
clearly display their leftward-leanings, Green parties have usually
allied with social democratic parties when coalitions have been possible.
This brief overview of some comparative cases of new party acti-
vists in other countries has made clear the case that, ideologically, the
New Populism and the New Politics are not specifically Swedish phenom-
ena. In the case of the other New Politics parties, it has also been
clear that the tendencies of pragmatists and fundamentalists (however
they might be termed in different national contexts) is a widespread
phenomenon. In the case of the tendencies in New Populist parties,
the comparative cases give us more cause for caution. Tendencies do
not seem to be so readily present in other New Populist parties, except
insofar as they revolve around leadership struggles. These types of
struggles are usually not so much ideological as personal. However, it
was only through elite interviews that the tendency to differ in New
Democracy became apparent. In the absence of comparable
studies of other New Populist parties, we can speculate that the ab-
sence of evidence is attributable to a deficit in research rather than in
the fact that the phenomenon is non-generalisable.
4.8 CONCLUSION
Looking at activists in protest parties of both left and right illustrates

that there is a similar factional differentiation based upon divergent
ideologies. There are those seeking to effect widespread change through
a radical positioning of the party as both an example and a mere vehicle
for the promotion of a social critique. While subscribing to the same
party principles, they interpret these in a way that fundamentally con-
ditions the way they think and act. This places them in conflict with
the other activists who take a far more pragmatic position and see the
party as participating in a system that, although flawed, does allow
them to pursue smaller policy-oriented goals in an attempt to build
incrementally a new agenda of politics. This difference applies as much
to populist protest parties of the right as it does to Green parties.
There is evidence that both types of parties in both theory and prac-
tice give rise to competing fundamentalist and pragmatic tendencies.
Looking at the areas of ideology, patterns of activism, recruitment paths
and legislative styles we can trace the paths of these tendencies and
can see that there are important similarities between pragmatists in
both parties and also with fundamentalists.
Clearly the importance of tendencies for a party is that the strategic
goals of a party will be determined by the tendency that is dominant
(Panebianco, 1988). In both parties, the pragmatic tendency is in the
ascendancy. This should therefore mean that the legislative styles of
both parties are predominantly co-operative and non-confrontational.
This has been the reality, but this example also highlights an important
distinction between New Politics and New Populism. New Populist
pragmatists are able to appropriate the rhetoric of the fundamentalists
in their party while at the same time being engaged in pragmatic strat-
egies: they can use fundamentalism in a pragmatic manner. This op-
tion is not open to New Politics parties in the same way. The reason
for this is organisational: the centralisation of the party and the focus
upon the leadership of the party that legitimately lies within the con-
fines of a pragmatic New Populist position and that is excluded from
all New Politics ideology means that, for the leadership to use the
rhetoric of the fundamentalists does not signify that the fundamental-
ists have become the dominant group.
The centralisation of the party and the personalisation of the New
Populist party leadership allows the leadership to have far greater con-
trol over which tendency is dominant. In the simplest terms, if the
fundamentalists have become too vocal the leadership has exercised
the option to force them out of the party. At least four parliamentari-
ans left or were forced out of the party and at least one other faced
the possibility at one stage. 7 In addition New Democracy ended up
expelling party members at the local level. Such options did not exist
for New Politics parties. The emphasis on participatory politics that is
common to both tendencies of the New Politics would mean that if a
pragmatic leadership used fundamentalist rhetoric, it would be deemed
a fundamentalist victory and would probably signify the ascendancy
of the fundamentalists. The other fact is that the system of collective
leadership that was used by the Green Party means that, even if the
leaders could resort to draconian measures against minority tendencies,
it would be difficult to know which element of the leadership would
do the deed.
The Greens were constrained in their actions by the real influence
of the fundamentalists in their party. The example of the government
crisis illustrates well how the pragmatists were prepared to co-operate
with the old parties to gain power, but, even though this was the dominant
group, they were constrained by the minority scotching the reality of
that co-operation by clearly signalling that co-operation by the Green
Riksdag group would not be unanimous. In the situation of balance,
which approximated the legislative position of New Democracy, the
Greens' division between fundamentalists and pragmatists constrained
the pragmatic leadership group and, in effect, forced the party to adopt
a fundamentalist position. A minority of fundamentalists could act as
spoilers in a way that would be unlikely in a party like New Democ-
racy where it would be (and is) the minority of fundamentalists that
face the constraint.
Both parties are similar in giving rise to factionalism. It is a similar
form of factionalism born of a common predicament: how to maintain
an image of being different while at the same time attempting to oper-
ate as a part of that structure from which the party is trying to be
different. There is a difference between the parties in the relative powers
of the different factions. The inclusive nature of the New Politics ideology
results in restricting the ability of the party to lessen the impact of
factionalism. New Populist parties, in contrast, are better able to lessen
the damage because their ideology promotes centralisation and a power-
ful leadership. Ultimately this difference may not be enough to save
New Populist parties from being essentially factionalised, as New Pol-
itics parties become, but it does make the process perhaps less visible.
Protest from the right has a potential advantage over protest from
the left. In structures that are themselves centralised, those parties that
allow centralisation and ascribe a strong role to leaders and leader-
ship, are in a stronger position than those parties that eschew leader-
ship and condone decentralisation. The more fundamentally you protest,
the less likely that you will have an effect. If you protest the nature of
the system but learn to operate within that system, you have a greater
chance of success than if you oppose the system and try and operate
in a manner that does not conform to the system. This is clearly dem-
onstrated in the experiences of New Democracy and the Green Party
in Sweden during their time in the Riksdag.
5 Organising Anti-Parties
5.1 INTRODUCTION
Understanding how a party organises itself allows us a glimpse into a

party's true nature. It permits us to look beyond the persona deliber-
ately cultivated and projected to the voters at election time. It also
enables us to look beyond the activists' exalted claims of ideological
commitment and purity to see how deep those claims run when faced
with the ideology-sullying problems of political survival. The organ-
isation of the party is where the rhetoric meets the reality. It is the
nexus between beliefs and action.
It is in order to organise that social movements or political entre-
preneurs form parties. The organisation. can serve different purposes
according to the type of party (Rochon, 1985, p. 421). The most prevalent
purpose of party organisation is to ensure electoral survival. This is
particularly the case with American parties, but extends across all par-
ties to some extent (Epstein, 1967, p. 98). It is no coincidence that
many of the major works on political parties have had the issue of
organisation at their core (Ostrogorski, 1964; Michels, 1962; Weber,
1958; Duverger, 1964; Panebianco, 1988).
In the case of small parties, the electoral survival goal may be vital
but the party also needs to hold together a group of activists. Younger
parties particularly cannot fall back on the long-term loyalties of either
voters or activists. This means that the initial process of organisational
formation is very important in ensuring survival. Panebianco has stressed
how this initial process also is important because parties carry their
genetic traces from their formation throughout their existences, even if
they are transformed into very different types of parties later. To state
that organisation is the sine qua non of party survival would be to
state a tautology: parties are, by definition, organisations.
This chapter first presents the dilemma of organising anti-parties.
The cases of the Swedish Green Party and New Democracy present
two very different resolutions of this dilemma. Both parties offered a
critique of the bureaucratisation of the state as part of their appeal,
and therefore to maintain themselves, sought paths to institutionalise
without bureaucratising themselves. Then we examine three different
approaches to explaining how anti-system parties respond to this di-
110
Organising Anti-Parties 111
lemma. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to reporting the contrasting

party organisations of the Swedish Green Party and New Democracy
and finally, after some comparative observations, the utility of the
different theoretical approaches are assessed in the light of the data
presented, drawing conclusions about the organisation of New Popu-
list and New Politics parties.
5.2 TO SYSTEM OR NOT TO SYSTEM: THE DILEMMA OF

ANTI-PARTIES
The Green Party in Sweden grew out of the referendum on nuclear

power in 1980. Its evolution into a parliamentary party took eight years
and emerged from local organising and from a pool of supporters often
already active in various social movements. New Democracy began as
the creation of two public figures in Sweden, and in seven months
had acquired the status of a parliamentary party, through the recruit-
ing of activists and the cultivating of an image of the enfant terrible.
Despite their very different origins, these two parties demonstrate
some important similarities. We have seen how, in theoretical terms,
the New Politics and the New Populism are drawn from the same broad
well-springs of social change (see Chapters 2 and 3). In more substan-
tive terms, we can also see that both parties entered the political sys-
tem in a manner that was designed to confront the existing parties.
Their styles, although different from each other, were both calculated
to emphasise their contrast to the old parties.
An important factor in shaping the institutionalisation of these par-
ties has been their ideologies, which have deliberately eschewed the
traditional organisational forms of political parties. The result of this
is that they face a particular dilemma in constructing their party or-
ganisation: how to maintain their basis as an effective 'anti-party', while
at the same time maintaining their organisational basis as a party. New
Democracy faced great upheavals with a change in leadership and a
sharpening of the factional strife that was examined in the previous
chapter. However, in its first phase of development the party had less
difficulty in maintaining its anti-system image and also in developing
a very effective mode of party organisation. The Greens in contrast
appear to have been gored on the horns of this dilemma and attribute
their failure to re-enter the Riksdag in 1991 as partly due to the diffi-
culties of being both an effective party and an effective anti-party.
It is an essential feature of all 'New' Protest parties that they have
a conflict between their basis as an anti-system party and the need to

maintain themselves institutionally as a party. The New Populists, as
we demonstrate below, resolve this dilemma by maintaining their anti-
system characteristics through elite behaviour while using an organ-
isational form that promotes their effectiveness and which is so out of
the ordinary that it further enhances the alternative image which they
seek to project. In practice the New Populists display a proclivity and
ability to operate effectively within the system. The New Politics par-
ties follow a different strategy whereby they seek to embody the anti-
party element of their ideology in the decentralised and leadership-averse
organisational structure of the party while, at the same time trying to
prove their ability to operate within the confines of what is deemed
'normal' party operation.
The dilemma is not merely a question of maintaining an 'image' of
being an anti-party while, in practice, operating in the same way as
the parties they oppose. Certainly it is important to project a persona
that will continue to attract the protest vote, but the party also needs
to maintain the internal legitimacy and solidarity of the activists. The
differentiation of fundamentalists and pragmatists outlined in the pre-
vious chapter, demonstrates that it is intrinsic to the 'New' Protest par-
ties that part of their activist base is very much committed to the status
of the party as an anti-party. In describing New Politics 'ideologues'
(here termed fundamentalists) in West Germany and Belgium's Green
parties, KitscheIt observes that 'for ideologues, party organisation is a
laboratory to explore new forms of social solidarity and decision mak-
ing' (Kitschelt, 1989, p. 50). Like Kitschelt's ideologues, the funda-
mentalists derive satisfaction and motivation from the internal life of
the party itself and are less concerned with 'effectiveness' than 'anti-
partyism'. It is because these tendencies exist in both parties and be-
cause, while not dominant, they are an intrinsic component of the parties,
that it is necessary to structure the party in such as way as to provide
incentives for activism for the fundamentalists.
The dilemma for the 'New' Protest parties is to reconcile their anti-
party character with the realities of becoming part of the party system.
This dilemma is made particularly acute when parties become parlia-
mentary parties. Furthermore, in multi-party systems where coalitions
are intrinsic to legislative and governmental functioning, it becomes
increasingly important that a party can deliver what it promises. This
requires the predictability and stability that only an institutionalised
party organisation can offer. The experience of New Democracy and
the Swedish Green Party provides us with a valuable test case to see
how the similarities between certain elements of New Populist and

New Politics ideology gives rise to the same dilemma but the ideo-
logical differences mean that the two parties respond in very different
ways. In comparing the two we can evaluate the fate of the 'New'
Protest parties in a parliamentary context.
5.3 THREE THEORIES OF ANTI-PARTY ORGANISATION
Drawing upon the literature on party organisation, there are three poss-
ible explanations of how the 'New' Protest parties resolve the dilemma
of being effective anti-system parties. The first explanation stresses
the importance of leadership and therefore views New Democracy as
an archetypal charismatic party and the Green Party as a 'leadership-
averse' party. The second explanation stresses the context of the party
system, arguing that the major parties have become cartelised and that
therefore the 'New' Protest parties face the problem of any small party
attempting to break into a cartelised system. The third explanation stresses
the ideology of the 'New' Protest parties dilemma and therefore stresses
that the New Populists will resolve the dilemma in a very different
way to the New Politics parties. This section explores these possible
explanations in turn.
Having the comparison of two cases of different 'New' Protest par-
ties provides a useful tool for identifying the important factors in de-
termining the form of party organisation. The following chapter illustrates
how there is a strong symmetry between the socioeconomic make-up
of the voters for the two parties. In this chapter, that symmetry is also
apparent: the Green Party and New Democracy have sought to resolve
the anti-party dilemma by moving in diametrically-opposed directions.
5.3.1 Leadership and Institutionalization
One of the most famous theories of party organisation must be that of

Robert Michels who argued that the 'iron law of oligarchy' meant that
even those parties premised upon the importance of democratic forms
of organisation inevitably end up with a hierarchical and oligarchic
form (Michels, 1962). Social complexity meant that any large-scale
organisation would inevitably become oligarchical: 'It is organisation
which gives birth to the dominion of the elected over the electors, of
the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators.
Who says organisation, says oligarchy' (Michels, 1962, p. 365). The
nature of Michels findings have informed, challenged and perhaps even

frustrated social scientists ever since he presented them.
Although Michels' influence is undoubted, in the 1980s Angelo
Panebianco felt able to assert that '[mlost contemporary analyses re-
sist studying parties for what they obviously are: organisations'
(Panebianco, 1988, p. 3) and set about attempting to remedy this de-
ficiency. Taking the research on political parties back to Michels (and
Duverger), Panebianco argued that parties need to be understood as
organisations which bear the traces of their geneses. Although there is
no 'iron law', he argues that we can identify tendencies that allow us
to classify different types of parties (Panebianco 1988, p. 17).
Most parties, he argued, can by typified on the basis of whether, in
the initial development of the party, the centre dominated the rest of
the party, or whether the party has emerged due to spontaneous action
across the country (Panebianco, 1988, p. 50). The former he calls 'ter-
ritorial penetration' and the latter 'territorial diffusion'. The Green Party
is clearly an example of diffusion in this sense because it grew up
from local parties and social movements, and the centre only emerged
after some time. Panebianco then adds to the mix, the degree to which
external sponsoring agents are responsible for legitimating the exist-
ence of the party, arguing that we can differentiate between parties
without an external sponsor (,internally legitimated') and parties with
a external sponsor ('externally legitimated') (Panebianco, 1988, pp. 51-
2). The Green Party origins lay in the anti-nuclear power movement
and we can therefore describe the genesis of the Green Party as being
dependent on a sponsoring institution and that therefore the party is
'externally legitimated' (Vedung, 1989, p. 139; Jamison, Eyerman and
Cramer, 1990, p. 59; Jahn, 1992b, p. 402).
Panebianco asserts that those parties that are based on charisma fall
outside of this typology and need to be treated separately (Panebianco,
1988, p. 52). Arguing against a loose usage of the term 'charisma',
Panebianco is at pains to elucidate a precise definition of charismatic
parties that differentiates them from other types of parties. He describes
a number of features that mark out charismatic parties. They are tied
together through loyalty to the leadership. They are non-bureaucratic
and highly centralised. They present themselves as anti-parties and come
to be based on a routinisation of charisma (Panebianco, 1988, pp. 145-
7). Panebianco also includes in his list the fact that charismatic parties
are often the focus for external groups but, as he notes that this is not
always the case, it is excluded from the list given here. The descrip-
tion clearly fits New Democracy. The key role ascribed to Wachtmeister
(and Karlsson to a lesser extent) shows the importance of loyalty. We

have seen, in Chapter 4, how recruitment was often tied to personal
loyalty to the party's founders.
Applying this typology Panebianco speculates that its strength lies
in explaining the nature of institutionalisation that takes place. This he
defines in terms of the degree of autonomy that the party attains from
its environment and how much it is interdependent upon other parts of
the political system (Panebianco, 1988, p. 55). Parties must institution-
alise in order to survive. He goes on to identify institutionalisation as
the key problem for charismatic parties. He postulates that there are
two unanswered questions with respect to these parties. The first is:
under what conditions can the parties institutionalise and can charisma
be objectified? By this Panebianco asks how much of a reduction in
personal power is a charismatic leader prepared to countenance in or-
der to ensure the party survives as an organisation. The second is whether
these parties, when they do institutionalise, become strong or weak
institutions, bureaucratic-professional or traditional organisations
(Panebianco, 1988, p. 161). He speculates that this dilemma can be
resolved in three ways. The most likely is that the party will fail to
institutionalise and will collapse as a result. The next most likely scenario
is that the party will form a strong institution and survive. The least
likely possibility lies in the party surviving by forming a weak institu-
tion (Panebianco, 1988, p. 162). Unfortunately he does not really offer
a way for predicting which course a charismatic party will follow.
For those parties which lack an external sponsoring agency and whicb
are the result of territorial diffusion, Panebianco sees the process of
institutionalisation as equally important. It is in this process that the
leadership plays a 'crucial role' - regardless of whether that leader-
ship is charismatic or not because 'they spell out the ideological aims
if the future party, select the organisation's social base, its 'hunting
ground', and shape the organisation on the basis of these aims and this
social base' (Panebianco, 1988, p. 53). The fate of externally-legit-
imated, territorially-diffused parties is, according to Panebianco, to be
weakly institutionalised (Panebianco, 1988, p. 63). Weak institution-
alisation means that parties have difficulty in warding off challenges
and will have difficulty in surviving. Thus, using Panebianco's scheme,
we see that there are fundamental difficulties for ensuring the lon-
gevity of the Green Party.
In the case of a charismatic party 'surviving', we are therefore of-
fered the likelihood that it will sustain itself by routinising the char-
ismatic basis of its leadership into a strong party organisation. New
Democracy faced this prospect. This means that we can apply

Panebianco's model to the party to suggest its organisational form is
what is important: it matters less what the image or ideology of the
party would seem to dictate, than what the organisational dynamics of
being a charismatic party dictate. Ideology has the 'function of ration-
ali sing and dignifying aspirations to individual success' (Panebianco,
1988, p. 25). An approach that stresses the role of leadership and in-
stitutionalisation leads to a daunting prognosis for New Democracy
and the Green Party in the long run.
Following Panebianco we can suggest that New Democracy's di-
lemma is that of any charismatic party: how to institutionalise, while
at the same time employing charismatic leadership. Robert Harmel and
Lars Svasand suggest much the same line of argument with respect to
the Danish and Norwegian Progress Parties but, given the somewhat
longer time frame with which they are dealing, they offer a theory that
incorporates a number of stages (Harmel and Svasand, 1991, p. 2).
We are unable here to add to this but we do want to note the apparent
similarity between the Progress Parties and New Democracy. Simi-
larly, using this perspective, the Green Party's dilemma is that of any
externally-legitimated, territorially-diffuse party. Rather than having the
problem of excessive centralisation and personalisation, they face the
difficulties of maintaining a diffuse and leadership-averse organisation.
5.3.2 Context, Cartels and Challengers
Duverger's contribution was to develop the classification of parties

based upon whether they were mass or cadre (Duverger, 1964, p. 63).
What Duverger was doing was to argue that there were laws - even if
not 'iron' - that applied to parties but that these laws applied in differ-
ent ways to different types of parties. Building upon Duverger's ap-
proach, many analyses of political parties have focused upon the changing
nature of the dominant parties in party systems. Otto Kirchheimer sug-
gested in the 1960s that the mass parties were being transformed into
'catch-all' parties whose primary function was to secure electoral sup-
port rather than to represent different classes or religious groups
(Kirchheimer, 1966, p. 191).
By differentiating New Politics and New Populist parties, we are
implicitly following this trend. Further, as was argued in Chapter 3,
the emergence of both these types of party is tied to changes in the
party system as a whole. Those changes were described in Chapter 3,
but we need to recount the more salient points here to evaluate the
merit of this argument in explaining the party organisation of New

Democracy and the Green Party.
Recently commentators have suggested that we are now witnessing
the emergence of a new type of party: the 'cartel' party (Katz and
Mair, 1995) and this argument here is being extended to suggest that
what is important is the 'cartelisation' of party systems whereby a small
number of major parties collude to maintain their positions of power,
in the face of threatened electoral dealignment. This collusion is rep-
resented by a small number of parties either alternating in power or
sharing power in a coalition, while at the same time minimising the
policy distance between themselves. This means that the dominant es-
tablished parties are transforming themselves into new types of parties
which have a symbiotic relationship with state structures. This thesis
extends part of the logic of Kirchheimer's argument by suggesting that
the professionalisation that he witnessed with the 'catch-all' party has
reached its denouement with the parties becoming state professionals.
Success in gaining for themselves a role in the state means that these
parties see public policy rather than electoral success as their key goal
and that this can be used as a method of reinforcing and consolidating
their privileged position (Deschouwer, 1992).
The emergence of 'cartelised' party systems is related to the increas-
ingly tenuous position of the major parties in Western Europe. The
coincidence is not incidental. As the major parties become both more
institutionally secure and less popularly supported it becomes increas-
ingly important to shore up their position of relative advantage by acting
as state agents. The beneficiaries of the cartel parties' loss of (party)
political hegemony are, on the one hand, the New Politics partitOS who
build their very appeal on challenging the role of the bureaucratic state
and its accomplices (now the cartel parties). On the other hand the
beneficiaries are also those parties on the far right that are excluded
from centre-right coalitions and which we are characterising as New
Populist. What unites New Politics and New Populist parties is the
fact that they are banished to the fringes of party politics in 'cartelised'
systems. They operate at the margins of a cartelised context.
Katz and Mair argue that 'a full catalogue of such exceptions [to
cartelisation] would simply serve to emphasise how few significant
parties are persistently excluded' (Katz and Mair, 1992, p. 21). This
seems at odds with the importance of many of the newer excluded
parties. The rise of the far right in Germany, of the Lega in Italy, of
the Front National in France and of New Democracy in Sweden has
had profound implications for the party systems in all these countries.
This can be seen in tenns of both a shifting of the terms of debate,

and, more substantively, in the holding of the balance of power in
legislati ve settings.
The logic of the approach suggests that the cartelisation of the party
systems will lead to the dilemma of 'New' Protest parties. Katz and
Mair point out that new parties that are most successful at entering the
cartel of parties are usually breakaway groups from the major parties
(Katz and Mair, 1992, p. 25). Parties that have no such connections
are not part of the established party systems and will have to build
their electoral and ideological bases by stressing their 'non-cartelisation'
but in order to remain as viable parties will have to compete in a
party system that demands, at least temporarily, cartelisation. Katz and
Mair even suggest that New Democracy represents the type of outside
party that will base their appeal on 'breaking the mould' of the cartel
parties (Katz and Mair, 1995, p. 24). If we accept the importance of
the context of the party system, and if we accept that party systems
have become cartelised, then challengers to the established parties will
have to face the dilemma of basing their appeal on being the sort of
parties that do not function well in the party system.
An approach which stresses the role of context must take into ac-
count profound changes in the party system. Taking the most import-
ant change as the emergence of a new type of party, and one that
transforms the party system into a cartel, we would expect that parties
outside of the cartel would base their appeal on that sense of exclusion.
And yet we would expect that, if the cartel is an effective one, playing
outside the rules can only be a viable strategy in the short tenn. In
order to sustain long-term organisational and electoral viability, these
outside parties would have to develop ways of working that, in prac-
tice, integrate them into the cartel.
5.3.3 Taking them at their Word: Ideology
It is an intuitive approach to categorise parties on the basis of their

ideology. Political Science has implicitly followed such intuitions in
its approach to the study of parties. There are any number of books
that deal with particular types of parties across national boundaries
standing as testimony to this (e.g. Hainsworth, 1992; Layton-Henry,
1982a; Irving, 1979; Paterson and Thomas, 1977 and 1984; Miiller-
Rommel, 1989a; Parkin, 1989; Tannahill, 1978). The approach is more
explicitly endorsed when a work attempts to categorise different par-
ties on the basis of their families spirituelles (von Beyme, 1985, pp.
3-4} or as 'party families' (Muller-Rommel and Pridham, 1991, pp.

9-1O). It is a common assumption that parties of a similar ideological
hue will face similar problems of party organisation.
While much of the original literature on the similarities between
ideologically similar parties was informed by the rise of the labour
movement and of social democracy as a whole - Duverger and Michels
being the most obvious examples - much of the recent literature has
focused on the rise of the New Politics parties and neo-fascism (Kitschelt,
1989; Dalton and Kuechler, 1990; Hainsworth, 1992; Cheles, Ferguson
and Vaughan, 1991; Merkl and Weinberg, 1993). Clearly, such an
approach is more likely to reflect a concern with the most important
new movements - in whatever period the work is being written.
Kitschelt argues that the New Politics parties reflect a different logic
from that of other parties. He argues that they are more likely to have
to follow the 'logic of constituency representation' than to follow the
'logic of electoral competition' (Kitschelt, 1989, p. 40). This is be-
cause they have to maintain the social movement basis of their party
even if it is at the cost of electoral success. Asa Lundgren applied the
notion of the Green Party as a new form of party organisation in the
Swedish context and concluded that, in terms of participatory democ-
racy and in influence over resolutions, the Greens were less oligar-
chical than other parties but were more oligarchical in the freedom
given to the Riksdag group (Lundgren, 1991, p. 74). The evidence of
organisational innovations in the Swedish Green Party presented below
shows that New Politics parties do indeed present examples of new
forms of party organisation.
As Kitschelt points out, the nature of green party organisation re-
flects the fact that their basis is as an 'anti-party' and that activists
are often against the idea of party politics itself (Kitschelt, 1989, p. 131).
Greens have the dilemma of being ideologically an anti-party while
needing to maintain themselves organisationally as a party. This di-
lemma has often been resolved in the favour of being an anti-party but
with the result that they have had a limited impact in political sys-
tems. The case has been made with respect to New Politics parties as
anti-parties, and it can be extended to New Populist parties as anti-
parties. Another variation on that anti-party theme of party organisa-
tion is offered by New Democracy. And, like the new politics parties,
New Democracy has a dilemma associated with its organisational form
that stems from its ideology.
In Chapter 2, a definition was outlined which stressed three ele-
ments of New Politics ideology (left-wing, anti-system and inclusive)
and contrasted this with the New Populist ideology (right-wing, anti-
system and exclusive). It is because both movements share the anti-
system element in their ideology that we can assume the same dilemma
applies to both types of parties. The explanation for the different way
in which they deal with the dilemma lies in the combination of the
remaining elements of the ideology. The New Populists take a right-
wing and exclusive strategy while the New Politics parties adopt a
left-leaning and inclusive strategy.
The ideological differences translate into two very distinct organis-
ational strategies. For the New Populists, we would expect a strategy
which, while maintaining its populist persona through a rhetorical com-
mitment to 'ordinary people', would stress an exclusive group of central
figures running the party. It can maintain such a form as well as sus-
taining its support because those who have identified with the party
have done so because they identify with the ideology. That ideology
does not adhere to ideas of consensus decision-making or decentralisa-
tion. The perception of the failures of the political system, which serve
as grist to the New Populist mill, tend to emphasise the failure of
political leadership in the country. This is why the 'political class' is
indicted in this perspective. With this in mind, it is hardly likely that
the supporters and the ideology would not sanction a strong party lead-
ership. There is no essential contradiction between New Populist ideol-
ogy and centralisation and strong leadership. This gives New Populist
parties the option of constructing party organisations that emphasise
efficiency and effectiveness as long as that is achieved through an 'alterna-
tive' party structure. To be 'alternative' a party merely has to reject
the mass party model - the predominant contemporary model - in any
way that it can. The alternative chosen by the New Populists is, be-
cause of their right-wing states, an alternative that looks backward to
the model of cadre parties.
The alternative model chosen by the New Politics parties is more
utopian. The commitment of New Politics ideology to an ethos of in-
clusion leads to an organisational emphasis upon decentralisation and
a de-emphasising of leadership. Efficiency and effectiveness are not
an essential part of the New Politics ideology. This means that, in
constructing a party organisation, New Politics parties will stress as-
pects of inclusion (participation and decentralisation). To remain anti-
system, they also need to be 'alternative' and, because they are left-wing,
a party organisation is constructed that is not like existing mass par-
ties and is basically unlike any other party types. They choose a more
utopian option. It is necessary for them to do this in order to maintain
the loyalty of supporters who have initially been attracted by their

alternativelleftist orientation. New Politics parties do not have the op-
tion of maintaining a merely rhetorical commitment to inclusion be-
cause inclusion is quintessential to their ideology.
An approach which stresses the ideology of a party is, in a sense,
taking the party at its word. There are two assumptions implicit in this
approach. The first is that ideology is something substantive and is
not merely an ad hoc justification of actions taken according to other
criteria (e.g. pure power-seeking or pragmatism). It has been a theme
implicit in this book that political ideas and political actions are related.
This means that an idea implemented - however imperfectly - is of
more value in research than either an idea unimplemented or an action
unthought. Ideologies are, by definition, action-oriented; a political ideol-
ogy is a collectivity of ideas and orientations with a semblance of
unity that informs political actions. Thus, it is valid to take these par-
ties at their word because we are examining their 'word' in relation to
their 'deeds'.
The second implication of an approach stressing ideology is that it
makes conclusions comparative. Categorising parties on the basis of
their ideology means, implicitly or explicitly, the creation of categor-
ies of party families. This means that if we know how New Democ-
racy as a New Populist party acts, then we can draw some conclusions
about how other New Populist parties will act. Similarly the dilemmas
faced and the strategies adopted by Swedish Greens are representative
of the dilemmas and strategies of New Politics parties in general. Clearly,
there is also the need to consider the context in which different parties
operate, but we still have the basic grounds for comparison.
The three approaches based upon leadership, context and ideology
can only be gauged in relation to the facts. The next section provides
us with an overview of the party organisation of New Democracy and
the Green Party. In both cases, the parties have recently reorganised
their political structures. However, the material presented here will first
detail the organisational structures that were in place when each party
entered the Riksdag, and will then provide a discussion of the recent
changes.
5.4 THE PARTY ORGANIZATION OF NEW DEMOCRACyl
In this section, we present an overview of the party organisation of

New Democracy based on non-attributable interviews with members
of the parliamentary party and executive members of the party as well

as other documentary and secondary sources. Through the presentation
of this material it becomes clear that the public persona of the party
was somewhat at odds with the reality of a centralised structure. Through-
out an examination of the party organisation two themes come through:
centralisation and an emphasis on personal leadership. Taking each in
turn we can show how the ideology of the party allowed them to use
this structural form and yet justify it in terms that sought to emphasise
the anti-party nature of their organisation.
Before moving on to an explication of the party organisation of New
Democracy, it should be made clear that, in the aftermath of the inter-
views, the party structure was changed (in early 1993). These changes
are taken into account from secondary sources and are dealt with be-
low. When the changes that took place are considered it becomes clear
that they reinforced the themes that were evident even before the rules
were codified in 1993, so the argument is strengthened by the changes.
New Democracy was structured in a way that emphasised both
efficiency and its desire to differentiate itself from other parties. One
of the sources said that the 'old system is out' and that it was import-
ant that the word 'new' was in the name of the party. Accordingly,
the party had been designed to be 'flat' or 'horizontal' in its organis-
ational structure, allowing direct access to the leadership from the party
at the grass-roots. There is a certain tension between the fact the New
Democrats regarded themselves as reflecting a broad base of support
and the fact that the party was very centralised and therefore did not
facilitate a high degree of internal party democracy. This was usually
explained by the fact that they wanted to foster 'direct' contact be-
tween the local sections and the national leadership.
The party's original constitution (partistadgar) was, according to
one interviewee, drawn up by one member in a period of three weeks
before being presented to the party. That member consulted with the
leadership but it is pretty clear that the process was extremely central-
ised. This centralisation of authority can be seen throughout the party
organisation, not only in the process of forming an organisation but
also in the form that the organisation eventually took.
The party at national, local and parliamentary levels was basically
run out of the same office which was the executive office of the Riksdag
group peopled by a small number of executive staff. As one executive
member of New Democracy observed, 'We run the whole party in the
whole country with ten people'. The comparison was then made that
the Liberal Party had the same number just to run their parliamentary
office. Indeed the Centre Party in the period 1985-1989 had 14 paid
staff members in its parliamentary office and 25 in its central party
office (Pierre and Widfeldt, 1992, p. 799). New Democracy had 2.5
Riksdag deputies for each parliamentary staff member. This was the
highest ratio of deputies to staff of all the parties in the Riksdag. The
administration of New Democracy was clearly centred in the hands of
a few people in one location and was at the opposite extreme from the
Green Party who had, in 1989, 1.5 deputies per staff member.
Swedish government is basically organised on three levels: the national
government, the twenty-three regional landsting governments and the
286 local kommuner governments. New Democracy was deliberately
not organised on the regional level. This means that they avoided having
an intermediate organisational level. This is a clear contrast to the other
Swedish parties which are organised around the three levels of govern-
ment. This refusal to operate at the regional level was justified in ideo-
logical, organisational and strategic terms by the party representatives
and executive members.
In organisational terms, those who drafted the party constitution and
the party leadership agreed that the party should have a 'flat organisa-
tion' and one that was centralised. This saved on waste and made the
party cheaper to run, as money was a key issue in its early stages.
There was a recognition by leading New Democrats that this did present
something of a problem as they needed the grass roots but did not
want the large administrative structure that would follow from the cul-
tivation of these roots. The same New Democrat dismissed the dilemma
with the assertion that building up an administration has nothing to do
with building up a movement. The attempt to be novel was clearly
being both made and justified.
The ideological justification of the flat organisational form was that
there would be fewer party levels and therefore shorter communica-
tion channels as well as avoiding excessive bureaucracy (something
that was a bete noire for the New Democrats). This may also be an
argument of convenience for a party that polled only 0.7 per cent of
the vote at the regional level in the 1991 election where they attained
6.7 per cent of the vote at the national level (Taggart and Widfeldt,
1993, p. 10). A recent Swedish newspaper report observes that 'Ian
Wachtmeister and Bert Karlsson were not interested in having local
representation when they were establishing the party' (Dagens Nyheter,
April 24, 1993, p. A6 [author'S translation]). Also there is the argu-
ment that, as the regional level of government is ostensibly respon-
sible for the administration of many of the social policies of the
government, they would like to eliminate this level of government. It

was clearly an interesting attempt to justify this organisation in overtly
populist terms.
The strategic justification for the flat organisation came from the
fact that on the second day after New Democracy had entered the Riksdag
one interviewee reported going to the office head (kanslichef> of the
Moderate Unity Party and asked for advice about how to operate as a
new party. The advice was to avoid having a middle level of party
organisation. Here can be seen the importance of traditional party ad-
vice being used to maintain New Democracy's position as an 'anti-
party'. Party organisation was specifically a reaction to and a result of
the prevailing model of party organisation.
The party was also organised for campaigns and elections by divid-
ing the country up into sections and having a single individual being
responsible for each section. One of those who had responsibility for a
section said: 'We were some kind of small dictators' and that they had
total control of the agenda. This reflects a propensity for focusing
power and attention on individuals, in order to construct a party that
has the ability to minimise on organisational costs. The organisation
for initial campaigning for an entirely new party is extremely import-
ant because it amounts to the launch pad for the subsequent trajectory
of the party's fortunes.
Another example of the centralisation of the party can be seen in
the importance of the party Congress. This, as the party rules stated,
was the ultimate decision-making body. It elected the national execu-
tive which ran the party in between Congresses, and which had an
inner unit, the executive committee. This latter institution had five
members in New Democracy, whereas other parties' similar institu-
tions range from 7 to 14 members (Taggart and Widfeldt, 1993, p. 11).
New Democracy represents the party with the most centralisation in
this case.
The organisational structure of New Democracy does not give a full
picture of the nature of the party. As Duverger noted, simply setting
out the institutional structure does not reveal the full scope. This is
why Duverger referred to the 'articulation' of the party, by which he
meant the way in which the different structural elements of the party
relate to each other (Duverger, 1964, p. 40). While the organisational
structure of New Democracy appeared to have a bottom-up flavour to
it (decision-making theoretically rose from the grass-roots of the party),
the reality was that the position and power of the leadership marked
the party out as a very top-down organisation. The party was not only
very centralised, but was initially almost inextricably linked to the leader-
ship of Wachtmeister.
An example of the centralisation and the dominance of the leader-
ship of the party lies in the selection procedure for parliamentary can-
didates that took place for the 1991 Election. Interviews revealed that
in most cases the nature of selection rested almost entirely in the hands
of the leadership. The frequent path for recruitment was that associ-
ates, friends, and often friends of friends, of Wachtmeister were con-
tacted by Wachtmeister and asked if they would like to be on the
election list. One member commented that when Wachtmeister called
him he thought it was joke but came to see the offer of a place on the
party list as 'like a gift from heaven'. This meant that, in many cases,
those who were recruited were those who had no prior political experi-
ence and often no thoughts of even entering politics. As Wachtmeister
wanted the party to reflect the 'realities' of working people in the
private sector, the recruitment often drew on successful business people.
It is little wonder that one New Democrat described the recruitment
procedure as picking people off the street who were expounding the
party programme.
There were other paths of recruitment, but these tended still to centre
around the leadership. The alternative path seemed to be those who
read about the party - most often in the 'Debatt' article in Dagens
Nyheter written by Wachtmeister and Karlsson in 1990 - or who had
heard about the party, and who subsequently contacted the leadership
to express their interest in being a part of the party. One female mem-
ber of the Riksdag group recalled that she was asked to be on the list
because Wachtmeister wanted a woman on the list. 2 Another member
stressed that the recruitment procedure in the 1991 Election was ex-
ceptional and that by 1994 the local kommuner would be in control.
The changes discussed below contradict this observation and point to
the role of a very personalised leadership role for Wachtmeister in the
initial stages of party formation.
One of the unavoidable aspects of New Democracy and its success
clearly lay with its leadership. While Wachtmeister was originally the
official Party leader (he was elected by the 1992 Congress as such),
he was frequently portrayed by the press and the party as being part
of a dual leadership team with Karlsson. As media figures, the sharp-
suited Wachtmeister and the sweatered 'man of the people' Karlsson
provide something of an incongruous couple. Much of their appeal lay
in the unlikely nature of an alliance between the urbane, suave aristo-
crat and the ruffled and ready fun-fair owner. During the campaign
they both consistently campaigned together (going on specially char-

tered trains or boats) and made great play of the difference between
them; But the reality of power within the party appears to be some-
what different. The idea of dual leadership may be more for public
consumption than as a genuine organising principle of the party. It is
indicative that Wachtmeister wrote the party manifesto. Wachtmeister
was in control.
This imbalance of power had important implications because
Wachtmeister's philosophy differed from Karlsson. Being a business-
man and tied to the private sector, Wachtmeister's philosophy was
neoliberal with a concern for privatisation, deregulation and individ-
ual freedom. Karlsson, in contrast, an avowedly ex-member of the Social
Democratic Party, had an ideology that emphasised his popUlism and
concern for the 'ordinary working man' rather than on the workings
of the market. One study by a Swedish neoliberal journal concluded
that Wachtmeister had elements of neoliberalism in his ideology while
Karlsson was simply confused (Gergils and Varveus, 1990, p. 21).
The power imbalance in Wachtmeister's favour could therefore be seen
to enhance the strength of the neoliberal elements of their approach.
Some of the New Democrats saw the power of Wachtmeister in
negative terms, describing him as 'dictatorial'. Others clearly endorsed
his centralisation of power and saw him as a strong leader without
being dictatorial. What was clear was that a significant number of the
interviewees recognised that Wachtmeister was the dominant element
and did not see Karlsson's role as being on a par with his. This could
be viewed as negative or as a necessary attribute for the party. Still
another group saw the dual leadership as a reality. This group fre-
quently displayed the sentiment that the whole initial success of New
Democracy was due to both leaders. Typical comments were that 'We
came into the Riksdag because of Ian [Wachtmeister] and Bert [Karlsson),
and that the 'party would be nothing without Ian and Bert'. Others
framed the importance of Karlsson in explicitly electoral terms, ob-
serving that two-thirds of the party vote was because of him. One
observer noted that the difference was between Wachtmeister being
closer to the party programme and Karlsson being closer to the common
people, and implied that Karlsson's electoral constituency was based
on his personal rather than ideological appeal. Such comments could
have been motivated by honesty but also could have been motivated
by a sense that it was necessary to sustain the public image that may
not always accurately represent the reality. Subsequent electoral re-
search proved that Karlsson was a major electoral liability (Gilljam
and Holmberg, 1993). Whatever the case, we can see a high degree of
personal identification with the leadership. Loyalty seems to be based
more on personal fidelity than on ideological identification.
The way in which the leadership was viewed was uniformly defer-
ential and frequently singled out the two leaders as being important
for their exceptional nature rather than for their representativeness. There
was a high degree of uniformity to the description of Wachtmeister.
Many cited admiration with Wachtmeister as one of the initial motivations
for their joining New Democracy. Some cited Karlsson in much the
same way. More than one New Democrat described Wachtmeister as
'super-intelligent'. One of the New Democrats, who was more attracted
to Karlsson, described him as 'a special man'. In a study of party
leaders, Peter Esaiasson demonstrates that Wachtmeister's appeal to
voters was distinctly different from other party leaders, as he was at-
tributed with the qualities of inspiration and strong leadership, but not
reliability or honesty, and thus fits the model of a charismatic leader
among voters (Esaiasson, 1993, p. 13). For both elites and for voters,
the leadership's strength lies in being formidable and charismatic.
Clearly the personal appeal of the two leaders played a great role in
mobilising and sustaining the party as it formed. In the event, Karlsson's
appeal to the electorate was well below his support among the elites.
According to one recent study, Karlsson had the lowest support level
of any party leader ever recorded (Gilljam and Holmberg, 1993).
In early 1993 certain reforms (examined below) were adopted that
further exacerbated the tendency to centralise power. The party al-
ways had difficulty with local party associations (those at the kommun
level). This is a problem which is by no means confined to New Democ-
racy, but they have had difficulties that stem from the sui generis nature
of the party. A party which is particularly reliant upon charismatic
leadership and yet has had to mobilise within a space of only seven
months between formation and the first election will have a conflict
between needing to build up a large local base in order to be per-
ceived as a truly national party and needing leadership. One local New
Democracy party politician, Kiirstin Nilsson Bjork, noted that the party
became a Riksdag party before it ever became a national party (quoted
in Dagens Nyheter, April 24, 1993, p. A6).
One interviewee did note that the major weakness in New Democ-
racy lay in its local organisations where anyone could put themselves
up as a candidate for the party. There was a clear sense among many
New Democrats that many un savoury characters had used New Democ-
racy at the local level in the 1991 Election as a way of gaining attention.
The result of this, as noted by another of the New Democrats in the

national office, was that there was much in-fighting amongst the local
parties which was a particular nuisance for the national party leadership.
In practical terms, New Democracy threw many local figures out of
the party. One interviewee, when asked how he reconciled New Democ-
racy's professed concern with the 'little man' with the structure of the
party replied: 'We love the little man but we don't love the crazies'.
It was to meet these problems that the subsequent reforms central-
ised power in the leadership, and gave Wachtmeister an even tighter
rein over his party. The proposals were put forward at an extra party
Congress in February 1993 at Stenungsund (Svenska Dagbladet, April
25, 1993). What these reforms initiated was a system whereby the
local parties were set loose from the national party. They were al-
lowed to affiliate (and therefore use the party logo) by way of an
annual co-operation agreement. This meant that if the central leader-
ship was unhappy about the behaviour of local parties, it could effec-
tively cut them off at this stage. One journalist described the new structure
as like that of a chain store franchising local outlets (Dagens Nyheter,
April 24, 1993). The reforms were clearly designed to allow Wachtmeister
to control the local parties which had been giving difficulty, and thus
increased the centralisation around a centralised leadership. In the process
a unique party organisation in Sweden was created (Svenska Dagbladet,
April 24, 1993, p. 15). It meant that the central leadership had control
of who was on the national list for elections to the Riksdag. This can
be seen as merely institutionalising what was already, de facto, the
case with elite recruitment. In essence, the party become an isolated
parliamentary party.
The reasoning behind the changes, according to the leadership, was
to make the party more flexible and effective (Svenska Dagbladet,
April 24, 1993, p. 15). Such explanations did not convince members
of some local parties who saw it as a power-grab by Wachtmeister.
One critic from within the party, Jonas Lind, writing in a prominent
Swedish daily paper, specifically noted that, by concentrating power,
the reforms contradicted the ethos of the party which had emphasised
'direct member-democracy' (direkt medlemsdemokrati), and thus meant
that the party was vulnerable to take-overs from outside groups (Dagens
Nyheter, April 24, 1993, p. A4). During the process of introducing the
reforms, such criticisms found resonance throughout the party and, sig-
nificantly, one report noted how Wachtmeister was having to rely on
his loyal party members and his Riksdag group to support his position
which had been effectively implemented (Dagens Nyheter, April 25,
1993, p. 13). This issue was to become a vital spark in exacerbating

the factional conflict within the party that subsequently lead to
Wachtmeister resigning as leader of the party in February 1994.
Three months later in July, dissent still was being articulated by
local parties. In response to the claims that the extra Congress which
passed the rule changes was unconstitutional because such constitutional
changes could only be passed by a normal meeting of the party Con-
gress, the leadership responded to defend the reforms. Bert Karlsson
was quoted as saying' 'We cannot have people in the Riksdag who
jeopardise our survival as a party. We do not want to get into the
same trouble as the Greens. They disappeared simply because they
could not rely on their representatives in the Riksdag' (Expressen, July
24, 1993, p. 10). It is instructive that Karlsson should have used the
comparison of the Greens' experience and that his defence of the reforms
highlights the need for control rather than for representativeness.
The reforms of 1993 in New Democracy further enhanced the tend-
ency towards centralisation and an emphasis on leadership. In some
ways they are the codification of what was already, de facto, the case.
Giving the leadership a strong control over candidate selection reflected
what had occurred in the 1991 Election where Wachtmeister had es-
sentially constructed the list of candidates for the national elections.
Loosing the local parties further highlights the tendency towards hav-
ing a national party that is both insulated from and yet in control of
errant local parties.
In summary we can see that the organisation structure of New Democ-
racy tends towards two clear themes. The focus is on a centralised
political structure with a strong emphasis upon a personalised leader-
ship. Though not without opposition, recent party organisation changes
have further compounded these tendencies towards centralisation and
leadership. They not only created a party structure that met the needs
of elites, fitted with the ideology of the party generally, but also im-
portantly, marked out New Democracy as a substantively different type
of party from the established Swedish parties.
5.5 GREEN PARTY ORGANISATION
In contrast to New Democracy, the Green Party was structured to

emphasise decentralisation and to de-emphasise leadership. Also there
was a strong tendency to encourage participation. As the Swedish Greens
themselves put it: 'The way the Green Party is organised reflects a
wish to avoid a traditional party build-up with hierarchical structure,

centralised power, male dominance and focus on the leader' (Miljopartiet
de Grona, 1990, p. 8). Running deeply through the beliefs of Green
Party elites and through the structures was a deep aversion to notions
of leadership. This is by no means, a feature confined to Swedish
Greens, as it can be seen in nearly all Green parties in Western Eu-
rope. It was to avoid an emphasis on leadership and personalities that
the party was constructed without a single leader. Instead two 'spokes-
persons' (sprakroren) were charged with representing the party. One
was always a woman, and the intention was to avoid any focusing on
personalities at the expense of the larger party.
Once the Greens entered the Riksdag it was decided that there should
be two pairs of spokespersons. One pair represented the party in par-
liament while the other pair represented the party as a whole. This
meant that the Greens were celebrating a division that other parties
have often had great difficulty in reconciling. In practice this gave
rise to difficulties as the non-parliamentary pair were occluded by the
media's focus on the parliamentary spokespersons. Many interviewees
expressed frustration with this experience. One commented that it was
a battle just trying to get information out from the Riksdag group. The
problem was often that the spokespersons in the party were sometimes
not fully appraised of all that had been happening. The media also
came in for much criticism from interviewees who felt that they were
unable to accommodate the simple idea of spokespersons and still clam-
oured from an identifiable leader.
For the Greens the figure of Per Gahrton was sometimes almost
perceived as a leader. He had been instrumental in gaining in the in-
itial momentum for starting the party in 1980 and had gained national
prominence as a Riksdag member for the Liberal Party. He eventually
resigned from that party and published an academic critique of the
operations of the Riksdag from an insider's perspective. He is, inter-
nationally, the most notable Swedish Green, but has not exploited that
position to become a single leader of the party. Other figures, not
surprisingly the spokespersons, were also highly visible, but never be-
came the sole public face of the party.
Part of the reason that no single figureneader came to be identified
with the party was due to the policy of leadership rotation. This meant
that the pairs of spokespersons changed on a regular basis. This was
identified as a problem by interviewees. One noted the party had three
sets of spokespersons from 1988-1991. There was one set before the
1988 election, another set during the period in the Riksdag and then a
final pair before the 1991 election. It is notable that, of the Green
interviewees, three had been spokespersons at some time, but that they
were as critical of the system as were those who had never been in
these positions.
One pragmatist dismissed the difference between the Green Party's
spokespersons and other parties' leaders by noting that there is usually
a distinction between party leader and parliamentary group leader. This
interviewee then argued that having two sets of leaders (party and
parliamentary) was not a real problem but was rather only rendered
difficult due to the expectations, especially in the media. He argued
that they dealt with different issues and therefore it was a reasonably
functional differentiation. Others argued that the system of having two
sets of two spokespersons was a problem.
In some cases the impression was clearly given that rotation was
now a dead issue with one noting, 'We try to stay as long as poss-
ible'. This may be due to the fact that the Greens' failure to be re-
elected made the issue moot for the moment, but it may also respect a
re-thinking of the policy in light of the Green's parliamentary experi-
ence. In the event rotation was abandoned when the Greens re-entered
the Riksdag in 1994.
In addition to the leadership rotation principle, there were other re-
strictions placed on members of the Riksdag group to prevent them
from aggregating too much power to themselves. There was a nine-
year limit on how long an individual member could stay in the Riksdag
(Miljopartiet de Grona, 1990, p. 8). In addition, there was an attempt
to avoid single members drawing too much power into their own hands
by taking multiple positions. An example was the prohibition on being
both national and local representatives for the party.
The attitude towards leadership was often very revealing. Not un-
common was the argument, explicit or implicit, that everyone knew
that centralising power would be a more effective strategy even before
taking up the position in the Riksdag, but the ideological commitment
to a non-personalised leadership-averse structure meant that effectiveness
was not seen as the primary goal. This led one Green to note that it
was hardly a surprise, and therefore hardly a reason to reform the party,
that the Riksdag experience pointed up the problems of being leadership-
averse. Others noted that the three-year period was a good trial run
and that they had played their role of being innovators within the system.
The party organisation reflected a distaste for leadership. There are
two basic sources of this leadership-aversion. The first source is the
inclusiveness of the ideology and the emphasis upon grass-roots
participation and internal democracy. This resulted in the party dislik-

ing the idea that the party should be controlled or represented by a
single figure. The second source of the distaste for leadership stemmed
from the desire to emphasise how the Green Party was unlike existing
parties. As existing parties were organised hierarchically and were of-
ten identified with the personalities of their leaders, the Greens sought
to distance themselves from this by not having a leader in the tra-
ditional sense.
The most basic unit of the party was the party Congress. As partici-
pation and decentralisation were so important, it was the party in its
most inclusive incarnation which provided the most legitimate locus
for decisions. Whereas legitimacy in the New Democracy largely de-
rived from proximity to the leadership, legitimacy in the Greens de-
rived from proximity to the mass membership of the party. The Congress
therefore elected the spokespersons. The Congress met every year which
is more frequent than most other Swedish parties (Vedung, 1989, p. 145),
and, pointedly, it was more frequent than New Democracy.3 The Con-
gress has one representative from each regional party. Those regions
with particularly high levels of party membership are entitled to more
additional representation. Between Congresses, responsibility was in
the hands of the Council of Representatives which met three or four
times per year and also had one representative elected by each regional
party (Miljopartiet de Grona, 1990, p. 9). In addition, the Congress
elected four steering committees to run the party.
The adoption of four steering committees was a self-conscious at-
tempt to avoid using the traditional hierarchical structure in which power
tends to reside in a central committee. These committees were: the
Political Committee (Politiska Utskottet), which oversaw the party pro-
gramme, media relations, political education of party officials; the Ad-
ministrative Committee (Farvaltningsutskottet), which ran the party's
finances, offices, personnel and administration; the Publications Com-
mittee (Tidningsutskottet), which ran the party's weekly paper Alternativet;
and the Organisation Committee (Organisationsutskottet), which oversaw
the operations of the national party, was charged with defining the
responsibilities of the other committees and was the body which suggested
organisational changes (Miljopartiet de Grona, 1990, pp. 8-9).
In addition to the four steering committees was the youth branch of
the party Green Youth (Gran Ungdom). Green Youth, particularly the
Stockholm branch, has been more consistently fundamentalist in its
orientation than the party at large. Unlike the Stockholm location of
New Democracy, the Green Party has spread out its administrative
offices in two locations in the South (Lund), West coast (Goteborg) as

well as in the capital, in an attempt to decentralise itself. The party
was supposed to have organisations in each kommun, but Pierre and
Widfeldt estimate that, in 1989, there were approximately 200 such
organisations (Pierre and Widfeldt, 1992, p. 795). The hope was clearly
to have a broad-based decentralised party.
In addition to the decentralisation of the structures the party also
institutionalised an ethos of participatory democracy. The clearest ex-
ample of this lay in the provision for female participation and rep-
resentation. The absence of a single leader meant that two spokespersons
were elected to represent the party, one of which was always a woman.
In addition, on the national party list, which was used to elect Riksdag
members, men and women alternate thus ensuring a maximisation of
female representation (Miljopartiet, 1990, p. 8). This was seen as par-
ticularly important because 60 per cent of Green Party members were
women. It may have also had some impact on the fact that, as the next
chapter demonstrates, the Green vote draws disproportionately from
women in the electorate.
The inclusiveness of the party also indicated its propensity for par-
ticipatory democracy. To join, anyone who agreed with the party pro-
gramme was eligible, and this frequently means, according to one Green,
only agreeing with the introductory section in the party programme.
Although a ban on joining other parties was introduced in 1986, it was
removed in 1987 to allow membership of small local environmentally-
oriented parties (Pierre and Widfeldt, 1992, p. 798). Despite this open
policy the Green Party's membership has not matched the level of
membership of other smaller Swedish parties. Table 5.1 illustrates the
comparable figures for the 1981-1989 period. While the Green Party
has, with its inclusive ideology, not yet matched the membership of
the other smaller Swedish parties, it is instructive to note that while
the Liberal, Centre and Left parties have seen declining memberships
since 1981, the Green Party has been growing.
The difficulties for the party engendered by its party organisation,
meant that, after the Riksdag experience, there were increasing calls
among sections of the party for structural reform. These calls were
heeded at the party Congress in May of 1992, where the reform pro-
posal was passed by an 83 per cent vote. The most basic change in the
Green Party's organisation was to dispense with the four steering com-
mittees in favour of a twenty-five strong party board which itself divides
into a number of committees (Finance, Administration, Executive, In-
ternational, Environmental, SociallEconomic and Strategic). The board
Table 5.1 Direct membership of Swedish smaller parties, 1981-8
Green Liberal Centre Left

Year Party Party Party Party
1981 1 979 47 556 133 082 17793

1982 5 800 46 891 130638 17 320
1983 2500 43 665 130 218 16 761
1984 3 000 42446 129 081 15 976
1985 4000 45 225 125 318 15 696
1986 5 000 44 613 120 211 14379
1987 6000 45776 119 125 13 699
1988 8 857 46490 115 998 13 517
1989 7000 43061 112848 12935
Source: Pierre and Widfeldt (1992, pp. 792-6).
meets, as a whole, at least eight times a year. In addition there was an

Advisory Committee which draws its membership from regional parties
but which has no decision-making power. Following the debate over
the issue of having two sets of spokespersons, the party's reforms also
included the idea that the parliamentary spokespersons could be the
same as the party spokespersons, thus breaking the clear delineation.
As with New Democracy's organisational changes, this has not been
effected without opposition. Even interviewees who were clearly prag-
matists were dubious about the merits of the reforms, one noting that
with the old structure there was the advantage that the enemy were
never quite sure who was up to what. More than one interviewee noted
that there was some irony in the fact that, although the new structures
were mandated by the Congress, those who now peopled the new party
board were predominantly in favour of the old structures. Fundamen-
talists were particularly prone to oppose the recent changes, although
there was often a sense of resignation about the reforms; 'We have to
try'. One fundamentalist noted, not without satisfaction, that nothing
had really changed because it was the same group of people running
the party. Other fundamentalists did express the opinion that the party
'must have a clear centre of responsibility' and so the changes were
good. Pragmatists expressed satisfaction that the structure was now
more simple and had been 'normalised'.
The issue of party structure was for some a very important issue.
Usually the pragmatists saw it as a non-issue, while the fundamental-
ists were more concerned about it. One pragmatist observed that she
was initially put off involvement in the party because of its organis-
ational structure. Others argued, in an open letter, that the party organ-
Organising Anti-Parties l35
isation had contributed to the election result of 1991 (Pohanka, Franzen

and Nilsson, 1992).
It is clear that the Green Party's organisation displayed a clear tend-
ency toward decentralisation and away from leadership. This presents
the party with something of a problem because it limited the effective-
ness of the party in the Riksdag and in the country generally. As a
result, recent changes have pushed the Green Party towards a more
centralised party structure which more closely resembled the form adopted
by traditional political parties. This did not necessarily solve the es-
sential dilemma: it merely chose to resolve the problem of party or-
ganisation in favour of efficiency but at the expense of its anti-party
image.
Some of those interviewed were reconsidering their support for the
party in the light of the Riksdag experience and of the organisational
reform. All were clearly evaluating the effectiveness and the legitimacy
of the reforms. The reforms clearly indicated a victory for the pragma-
tist tendency in the party. Describing the tone of the Congress, one
fundamentalist complained that it had been an event that had been
'manipulated' and was a definite case of 'us' versus 'them'. In con-
trast one pragmatist described the reforms as a big step forward, and
portrayed the victory as due to a campaign by 'many of us' since
before the 1991 Election.
The acrimonious nature of the fall-out over the 1992 reforms illus-
trate the difficulties that are peculiar to New Politics parties in trying
to reconcile their anti-party image with the exacting demands of being
an effective parliamentary party. While New Democracy's conflict over
the reforms raged between the local parties and the national party, the
conflict within the Green Party was clearly within the national party.
It reflects a conflict between the demands of different parts of the
ideology. The anti-system element, and the inclusiveness of New Poli-
tics ideology, demands a party organisation which seems ill-fitted to
the demands placed on it by the political process. The need for both
legitimacy and institutional survival push the party away from a de-
centralised, leadership-averse organisation. The danger is that, in cen-
tralising its organisation, the party ensures its institutional survival but
also ensures the demise of its anti-system status.
5.5.1 Leadership and Party Success
The explanation of the parties' organisation based on leadership and

institutionalisation provides us with an useful model for explaining the
genesis of the party but is more limited in describing the subsequent

development of the parties. It is clear that New Democracy fits the
model of a charismatic party, but it is less clear where this leads us.
The same was broadly true of the Green Party.
New Democracy meets the criteria for Panebianco's charismatic parties.
Those criteria focused on: (1) loyalty to the leadership; (2) non-
bureaucratic organisation; (3) highly centralised authority; (4) image
as an anti-party; and (5) as based on a routinisation of charisma
(Panebianco, 1988, pp. 145-7). The party was clearly initially tied together
through loyalty to the leadership. This was either in the form of loyal-
ty to the dual leadership of 'Ian and Bert', or it was through loyalty to
Wachtmeister which did not extend to Karlsson. Either way the im-
portance of the leadership was indisputable. The leadership was clearly
perceived in highly personal terms with Wachtmeister frequently portrayed
as being exceptional in terms of intelligence and leadership abilities.
The difficulties encountered by the party in maintaining its popularity
after the departure of Wachtmeister are testimony to the importance of
personalised leadership.
New Democracy was also non-bureaucratic and centralised. It relied
upon a small team centred around the leadership to run the party rather
than relying on formalised rules. This was evident in the way the party
was organised throughout the country with a lack of a regional level
and with the centralised authority and the small central office. The
recent reform process, in restricting the importance of local parties,
further compounded this tendency towards centralisation. The comparisons
with other Swedish parties are instructive in this regard. It seems to
have been a conscious organisational procedure to make New Democ-
racy as non-bureaucratic as possible. This decision reflected the aims
of the leadership. Time and again we see the pre-eminent role of
Wachtmeister was shaping and running the party organisation.
A major component of New Democracy's success appears to have
laid in its image as an anti-party. Being outside the system seems to
have been a major asset in electoral terms. The ridicule heaped on the
other parties and the other party leaders paid off for them. Their ab-
sence from the government coalition indicates what a premium they
place on being perceived as outsiders. In their first year as parliamen-
tary party New Democracy were, in practice, largely supportive of the
conservative-led government. This was despite the fact that the distri-
bution of seats after the 1991 Election gave the Party a pivotal posi-
tion. In 1993, however, the Party started to make use of this blackmail
potential which indicated a desire to maintain the outsider image.
The refonns introduced in 1993 had the effect of further enhancing

the distance between New Democracy and other parties. In effect, the
Party met Duverger's description of a cadre party as 'the grouping of
notabilities for the preparation of elections, conducting campaigns and
maintaining contact with the candidates' (Duverger, 1964, p. 64). In
rejecting the pre-eminent model of party organization - the mass party
- New Democracy established itself as a unique party organisation
whose emphasis was upon centralisation and leadership.
The personality and the aims of the leadership of New Democracy
played a central part in the formation of New Democracy. It was
Wachtmeister and Karlsson who met at Arlanda Airport in order to
see if there was indeed common ground between their separate public
statements about the need for change in Swedish politics. It was the
same two who wrote the catalytic newspaper article (Dagens Nyheter,
November 25, 1990). Much of the 1991 campaign was both orches-
trated by and centred around these two figures. It was the voices of
these two that appeared on the Party's campaign record. The nature of
the party's fonnation was to playa crucial role in shaping its sub-
sequent development, and both Wachtmeister and Karlsson were essen-
tial ingredients in that genesis. Panebianco's emphasis upon the genetic
roots of the party seems borne out by the experience of New Democ-
racy. It has yet to be seen whether the personal loyalty to the leader-
ship can be converted into party loyalty.
What is more interesting is the doubt our findings cast on the
foundation of the Party based on the public image of the dual leader-
ship of Wachtmeister and Karlsson. The reality seemed to be that
Wachtmeister was far more dominant and that his strain on the neoliberal
ideology of New Democracy was reflected in the 'dominant coalition'
of the party. While it marketed itself as a party that welded together
neoliberalism with a sort of disillusioned social democracy, the party
was, in organisational tenns, dominated by the neoliberal element. The
interviews indicate that the parliamentary party was dominated by neo-
liberals.
It is clear that the charismatic party model is derived from those
parties centred around individual leaders. It is not incidental that New
Democracy met that definition in an idiosyncratic manner. The fact
that it had a dual leadership image was indicative of the need to draw
support from a distinct social basis. This precludes the possibility of
the party presenting itself as exclusively a neoliberal party. The dual
leadership phenomenon is also a perfect exemplar of the dilemma that
faced the party organisation at all levels: how to differentiate itself
from other parties while at the same time emulating them enough to
ensure organisational-electoral survival. Panebianco's model does il-
lustrate the problems of reconciling institutionalisation and charisma.
What it does not allow us to do is to see the leadership itself as em-
bodying that dilemma.
The fact that the dual leadership model, in organisational terms, did
not seem to fit reality does not mean that this dual leadership was not
an integral part of the appeal of New Democracy. To put it simply:
the image of two leaders, drawing from different social and ideologi-
cal bases, was not an irrelevance. 4 The leadership embodies the dilemma
of New Democracy and points us at the solution. The party stressed
its appearance as an anti-system party (in these terms, it marked itself
out as different by having a dual leadership image) but in reality the
power distribution was far more like a traditional party (with one leader
representing supreme power). By explaining the party organisation through
its leadership, Panebianco's model misses the fact that the leadership
itself can be a reflection of the deeper nature of the party.
In the case of the Green Party, Panebianco's model of weak institution-
alisation does mean that he predicts a high degree of factionalism.
This, as the prior chapter testifies, is borne out in the fundamentalist-
pragmatist distinction. The question then becomes whether these tend-
encies in the Green Party are a function of the process of weak
institutionalisation, or whether the weak institutionalisation is a func-
tion of the different tendencies. To put the tendencies into the 'anti-
system' dilemma presented at the outset of this chapter, we can note
that the fundamentalists favour organisational representativeness (i.e.
being an anti-system party) whereas the pragmatists stress organisational
effectiveness (i.e. being a 'rationalised' party). That the tendencies fall
along these lines, and that this conflict prevented an earlier 'rational-
isation' of the party is surely not coincidental. An approach that stresses
institutionalisation necessarily plays down those factors that mark the
Green Party out as distinctive, and this is an essential component of
the party's ideology.
The Green Party's development was much less related to factors of
leadership than New Democracy. This is no surprise when we see how
leadership-averse the whole party has been. There was clearly an im-
portant group who originally pushed for the formation of a party, but
their success was premised upon an already mobilised anti-nuclear
movement. The nature of the leadership group has not been as signifi-
cant as other factors. Looking further abroad we can note the import-
ance of anti-nuclear movements in Green party formation in many
different settings (Jahn, 1992b; Kitschelt, 1986; Rtidig, 1990a).

An analysis which stresses the role of leadership is more likely to
have explanatory power for parties that have become well established.
When dealing with new protest parties that are in their initial stages of
formation and which have deliberately tried to construct themselves in
a manner that does not emulate that of established parties, such an
approach is weaker.
5.5.2 Context: New Political Parties
The strength of the contextual argument is that it provides an explana-

tion that links the nature of the party system to the new parties that
emerge within it. With the traditional dominance of the Social Demo-
crats in Sweden and with the bloc nature of the Swedish party system,
it seems to be a reasonably accurate picture of the situation. A weak-
ness of this approach is that it does not offer us a way in which to
differentiate between the different types of parties that are excluded
from the cartel. While cartelisation is a factor in the emergence/forma-
tion of both New Politics and New Populist parties, it does not offer
us an account that can differentiate between varying subsequent paths
of development of these types of party.
The idea of a cartel of parties seems to be an accurate description
of the Swedish party system that has been dominated by five major
parties for decades (Borre, 1984). The dominance of the Social Democrats
and the stability of the five party system lead to the description of
Sweden as an 'uncommon democracy' in which the dominant elites
had constructed for themselves seemingly insurmountable social and
political power bases (Pempel, 1990; Esping-Andersen, 1985). More
recently observers had suggested that the 1970s marked the decline of
the dominant parties in parliamentary terms (Krauss and Pierre, 1990).
With the emergence of three new parties into the Riksdag since 1988,
there appears to be a loud knocking noise on the doors of the cartel
parties.
It is the disparity of the three new parties that limits the utility of
this particular contextual approach to explaining the organisational di-
lemma of the 'New' Protest parties. Since the late 1980s, three new
parties have at some time challenged the traditional Swedish party system.
The Christian Democrats are easily the most orthodox of these new
parties. Since changing their stance from a confessional Christian party
to a more 'catch-all' approach they have managed to gain entry to the
Riksdag. Once there, it has been easy to categorise them as part of the
bourgeois bloc. Immediately after their electoral breakthrough, the Chris-

tian Democrats became a part of the current government coalition to-
gether with the Moderate, Centre and Liberal parties. The ease and
eagerness with which they have entered into the political establish-
ment demonstrates how they illustrate the penetration of an orthodox
party into the cartel of established parties.
In contrast to the Christian Democrats, the Green Party and New
Democracy represent the experience of anti-system parties in a cartelised
party system. Both had to face the dilemma of maintaining their sup-
port on the basis of being anti-system parties while, at the same time,
securing a foothold in that system. The difference is that the Greens,
after their entry into the Riksdag, resolved the dilemma in a way which,
with the benefit of hindsight, may have marred their status as an anti-
system party. While maintaining the anti-system traits of the national
party organisation, they attempted to conform with traditional life in-
side the Riksdag. The desire to be perceived as a legitimate party lead
the Riksdag members to work very hard on the legislative committees.
New Democracy learned from the experience of the Green Party
and constructed a party organisation that contrasted with the Greens.
There was a conscious effort to project themselves as a party outside
of 'politics as usual' but still as effective within the system. This did
not permanently eliminate the dilemma for the party. It did, however,
mean that internal difficulties in their period in the parliament were
manifested as leadership crises while the Greens were more transparently
having to face factional conflict. What this means is that New Democ-
racy's problems have been explosive rather than attritional. The issue
of leadership succession caused great difficulties, and did to some ex-
tent, reflect factional conflict but it appeared as a sudden crisis which
can probably be weathered. The experience of the Progress Parties in
Denmark and in Norway points to the fact that parties based upon
similar anti-system sentiments and having a basis in charismatic lead-
ers can institutionalise and constitute themselves as something more
than flash parties (Harmel and Svasland, 1991; Andersen and Bjorklund
1990).
The weakness of an approach which stresses context is that it does
not offer grounds to explain the very different organisational paths taken
by different types of anti-system parties. This is not to say that an
understanding of the context of the party system is not relevant to
explaining the organisational dilemmas of the 'New' Protest parties.
Certainly it provides an invaluable first step to explaining the strength
of anti-system parties in contemporary West European politics. But it
is only with an understanding of the nature of the ideologies of these

new parties that we can fully explain and map their future trajectories.
5.5.3 Ideology: The New Protest
The argument that we can understand the organisational forms and

development of the 'New' Protest parties in terms of their ideology is
the strongest explanation of the three offered. It cannot, however, be
seen in isolation from the other explanations. The nature of the leader-
ship clearly has had some impact on the development of the parties,
especially New Democracy. Both parties do seem to have emerged as
a result of a particularly cartelised party system. It is only when we
examine the ideologies of the parties that we can explain the organis-
ational development of the parties, subsequent to the initial formation.
We can see that the ideology of New Democracy itself endorses the
essential organisational dilemma of the party. By claiming to be opposed
to politicians as a class and to the process of the professionalisation,
New Democracy exclude themselves from the class into which they
seek entry. By arguing that people should vote for them because they
are new and not part of the system, New Democracy's own message
set up for them the long-term dilemma of how to continue to argue
against the political system while themselves being a part of it.
By identifying the ideology of New Democracy, we can not only
see the dilemma but also gain insights into how this dilemma is dealt
with. A party that emphasises its populist base but which is antagon-
istic to established party forms has a raison d'etre for a very central-
ised party structure. It can also be maintained while at the same projecting
the party as being 'of the people'. The party structure is justified on
the grounds that it is different from the structures of other parties.
This difference is what makes it new. To put it in extreme terms, the
implication of the argument is that it does not matter how the party is
different - it only matters that it is different.
The exclusionary element of the New Populist ideology is particu-
larly apparent in the severe limits placed upon local party organisations
by the 1993 set of reforms. The opposition that arose to these reforms
came from the local party members - in effect the excluded. In the
wider perspective, the reforms did not significantly alter the persona
of the party. It can hardly have come as a surprise to supporters that
New Democracy, of all Swedish parties, would adopt an organisational
form that stressed both centralisation and leadership. The previous chapter
noted how elite behaviour emphasised an anti-system image. The
longevity of the party is dependent on organisational survival. Once a

party is assured of an organisational existence, it can concentrate on
promoting its anti-system image. The emphasis on centralisation and
leadership in the organisation combined with an anti-system orienta-
tion among elites makes it easier for the party to sustain itself as an
anti-party and, at the same time, as a party within the system.
In contrast to New Democracy, the Green Party did not have the
option of an anti-system orientation and centralised organisation. In
order to maintain its identity and the support of its activists, it was
forced to implement an organisational structure which shied away from
leaders and which stressed decentralisation as a way of setting up an
inclusive party. This was to prove a problematic structure for the party.
They faced the dilemma, when in the Riksdag, of living up to the
promise of being a truly new party and being virtually excluded from
the process. Unlike New Democracy, the elite behaviour described in
the previous Chapter points to a 'pro-system' orientation. Symbolic
acts of defiance were not the most important element of their behav-
iour. What comes across is that they worked exceptionally hard in
order to stress their professionalism, and thus to gain legitimacy. It
was in the maintenance of their organisational structure that they set
the store of keeping their anti-system orientation.
The recent reforms of the Green Party moved the party to being a
more centralised party and moved to try and solve the problems raised
by the spokesperson system. It is not coincidental that the recent re-
forms of both parties were in the direction of centralisation, albeit from
very different starting points. Demands of operating effectively within
the political system pushed both parties towards a style of party or-
ganisation that was easily assimilated into New Populist ideology but
did not fit well with New Politics ideology.
To say that the ideology of 'New' Protest parties are the essential
explanation of their organisational dilemmas might simply be to move
the explanation back one step. It can then be asked what has caused
the ideologies to be as they are. This is why we argue that the ideo-
logical explanation needs to be considered in the light of the contextual
explanation: the nature of the ideology is partially a response to wider
social and political changes that have given rise to dissatisfaction with,
disaffection from and distancing of mass publics from West European
party systems. This may be due, we can speculate, to the increasing
cartelisation of party systems.
Examining other New Populist and New Politics parties shows that
there are broad similarities across national contexts among these two
different party types. It is also important to retain a sense of context.
New Populism in one country will differ from New Populism in another,
just as New Politics parties will differ from each other as they face
different electoral, cultural and political systems. Bearing in mind that
contextual factors playa role we can draw out some broad similarities
in different New Populist, and then New Politics parties.
The most obvious example of a New Populist party based on charis-
matic leadership has to be that of Mogens Glistrup's Progress Party in
Denmark (Harmel and Svasand, 1991), but we can also see the same
thing if look further abroad outside the Nordic context. The Lombard
League in Italy shares both New Democracy's organisational central-
isation and its emphasis on leadership. Umberto Bossi has become in-
extricably linked with the Lombard League. Like other New Populist
leaders, he is both charismatic and ready to exploit that fact. This is a
potential weakness for the party as its success has been dependent on
the character of Bossi. Mark Gilbert describes Bossi as running 'a tight
ship, controlling the League's activities in minute detail and ensuring
that his is the principal voice in policy making' (Gilbert, 1993, p. 100).
Gilbert goes on to point out that the party is run by a hard-core of
loyal Bossi supporters (Gilbert, 1993, p. 100).
When asked for what his own position in the League was, Bossi
responded 'The founder, the worker, the one who made it grow. I think
I am even more important because I can be the democratising force in the
situation and train successors' (Interview in The Guardian, May 29,
1992, p. 13). He has not tolerated those in competition with him, as
was seen in his expulsion of his second in command, Franco Castellazzi,
who was more conciliatory towards the Christian Democrats than Bossi
would have liked (Woods, 1992b, p. 125). Bossi, like the leadership
of New Democracy, combines a strategic ability with some rough edges
that seem to add credence to his populist persona. He shares with
Wachtmeister a business background and a propensity to use crude
language in political speeches, and with Karlsson an image of being
unkempt and informal (Financial Times, December 19/20, 1992, p. 12).
Dwayne Woods notes that the League remained unstructured until
after the 1991 election. Prior to that it had remained a loose league of
affiliated associations but with the election result there was a growth
in membership and the League became transformed from being 'nothing
more than a leader, a newspaper, and a small group of supporters'

(Woods, 1992b, p. 124) to an fully-fledged organisation. Although Bossi
established local committees, he has used the regional executive to
keep a firm grip on them (Woods, 1992b, p. 125). It has become a
centralised organisation with power accruing to Bossi.
The German Republicans have likewise been identified with the strong
leadership of Franz Schtinhuber, an unapologetic ex-SS soldier who has
used his experience as a talk-show host to place himself as the symbol
of the party. They have been subject to bitter factional in-fighting that
has centred around Schtinhuber's position at the centre of the party
and the authoritarian way in which he has run the party (Veen, Lepszy
and Mnich, 1993, pp. 23-38; Westle and Niedermayer, 1992, p. 89).
Veen et al. argue that it is the organisational structure of the Re-
publicans which differentiates them from other parties and which gives
them the greatest chance of prominence (Veen, Lepszy and Mnich,
1993, p. 2). They also question whether their internal structure actually
meets the criteria of the German Basic Law which stipulates that par-
ties must be organised democratically (Veen, Lepszy and Mnich, 1993,
p. 23). As a party, they have developed unevenly, often lacking local
organisations in some parts of Germany while being particularly well
organised in others such as Bavaria where the party was founded.
Zimmermann and Saalfield go even further and argue that the 'lack of
a thorough organisation, the limited opportunities for participation, and
the lack of intraparty democracy additionally contribute to the impres-
sion of a populist protest movement rather than a political party'
(Zimmermann and Saalfield, 1993, p. 55). Clearly in the emphasis on
leadership, the lack of emphasis on local organising and the central-
ised structure, the German Republicans resemble New Democracy.
The most prominent West European far right leader has to be Jean-
Marie Le Pen. His name is synonymous with the French National Front,
his role indisputable. Some observers have gone so far as to describe
the philosophy as 'Lepenisme' (Vaughan, 1991). He is the centrepiece
of the party and becomes a symbol at party rallies (Independent on
Sunday, March 14, 1993, p. 16). Fysh and Wolfreys suggest that the
'leadership principle is the key to the organisation's structure' with all
parts of the party deferring to Le Pen (Fysh and Wolfreys, 1992, p. 321).
The National Front is not organised at the local level with the ex-
ception of a few large cities (Ignazi and Ysmal, 1992, p. 102). Noting
the tendency for far right factional in-fighting, Fysh and Wolfreys argue
that Le Pen has avoided this with his party by keeping up a 'frontist'
strategy under which different tendencies align under a single line, decided
Constituencies of Protest 145
upon by Le Pen (Fysh and Wolfreys, 1992, p. 319). Of the four New
Populist parties in this chapter, the French National Front is the least
centralised but it cannot be called decentralised and it does share with
the others a strong emphasis on personalised leadership. This is in
contrast to the decentralised and leadership-averse structures that we
can see across West European New Politics parties.
The most famous Green party, the German Green Party, has endured
major splits over the issue of party structure. These have continued
throughout its existence and lead one recent observer to note that the
'desire of the Greens to be an "anti-party" continued to obstruct the
creation of an effective party organisation' (Roberts, 1992a: pp. 128-9).
The most concrete example of the Greens' organisational structure limiting
themselves was in the 1991 All-German Elections when they main-
tained the east and west divisions in the party. This resulted in the
west German Greens loosing their seats in the Bundestag while the
eastern Greens won entry.
The German Greens' organisation structure has emphasised both
centralisation and collective leadership (Muller-Rommel, 1989b, p. 115).
Leadership is shared between three speakers, a limited time period is
allowed for any individual to serve on the national executive, and simul-
taneous holding of different party posts is prohibited (Muller-Rommel,
1989b, p. 116; Poguntke, 1992b, p. 241; Frankland and Schoonmaker,
1992, p. 108). The speakers for the party are not given a leadership
role within the party. This pattern was replicated with the Bundestag
organisation of the party (Poguntke, 1992b, p. 242). All the structures
of the Green party represent a commitment to the idea of Basisdemokratie,
which means that decisions should always be made at the lowest pos-
sible levels (Poguntke, 1992b, p. 241).
Thomas Poguntke argues that the fit between the agenda of the Green
Party and their mode of organisation places them on the horns of a
dilemma, since the party attracts those activists who are affiliated with
the issues of the party but who are naturally not party supporters as
they prefer unconventional political participation (Poguntke, 1992b).
Here we can see how one New Politics party has not, over an extended
period, managed to avoid the dilemma of maintaining itself as an anti-
party. It has adopted an organisational form that is designed to maxi-
mise its appeal as an anti-party, but in so doing has limited its
effectiveness as a party in the system. Summing up the party in the
1980s, Frankland and Schoonmaker conclude that the Greens 'reflexively
accorded democracy a higher procedural priority than efficiency'
(Frankland and Schoonmaker, 1992, p. 108).
Kitschelt, in comparing the Belgian Ecolo and Agalev to the Ger-

man Greens, notes how all these Green parties have limited the role of
party officials. He argues that this aversion to leadership and to cen-
tralisation lead to the unintended consequence of the party organisa-
tion being inefficient and lacking legitimacy in the eyes of party activists
thus promoting the power of informal leaders and individual parlia-
mentarians (Kitschelt, 1989, pp. 181-4). Agalev invests decision-making
power in the local groups and has no formal leader, and the same is
true of Ecolo which also has no rigid executive structure (Deschouwer,
1989, p. 45).
An aversion to leadership and centralisation is found among nearly
all West European Green parties in one guise or another. Brendan
Prendiville writes that 'the French Greens have a party that prides it-
self on its decentralise, regionalist political practices and to achieve
this within a country as centralised as France is no mean feat' (Prendiville,
1992, p. 283). In the case of the Swiss Greens, the party is organised
on a cantonal basis and, although the party does have a president, that
office is formally separate from the post of party spokesperson and is
subject to rotation (Church, 1992, pp. 260-2). Even the less successful
British Greens have grown up with a variegated number of organis-
ational forms at branch level and with a collective leadership principle
(McCulloch, 1992, 1993; Rildig and Lowe, 1986). Clearly, although
some of the organisational facets of individual countries may reflect
national factors, it is evident that decentralisation and leadership aver-
sion are a constant across New Politics parties cross-nationally.
Both the New Populist parties and the New Politics parties display
similarities in their organisational forms. New Populist parties are cen-
tralised parties with a strong leadership. This may also apply to neo-
fascist parties, but, in the New Populist case, the reason for this structure
lies embedded in its ideology which self-consciously aims to structure
itself as an alternative to dominant party forms. The New Politics parties
share this commitment to presenting themselves as alternative parties
and therefore stress leadership-aversion and decentralisation.
5.7 CONCLUSION
Philip Converse and George Depeux define flash parties as those which
'represent spasms of political excitement in unusually hard times'
(Converse and Depeux, 1962, p. 2). This certainly describes both the
nature of Swedish politics and the initial rise of both the Green Party
and New Democracy. The question that faces potential anti-system 'flash'
parties is how to maintain the momentum that they gain at the outset
without undermining the basis of their very existence by becoming
part of the systems which they emerged to oppose. In the case of our
two parties, they have shown two very different paths to institutional-
isation while at the same time avoiding bureaucratisation.
New Democracy attempted to ensure its survival by stressing lead-
ership and centralisation while at the same time having its elites pur-
sue an anti-system orientation in public. This did not entirely resolve
the dilemma of anti-parties but it did help to occlude it. The fact that
New Democracy claimed to be a party of the people and yet made
'the people' marginal to the party itself was a reflection of an ideol-
ogy that stresses the importance of the people but only sees that im-
portance being realised through personalised and centralised leadership.
This situation is not confined to New Democracy in Sweden, and we
have seen how elements of the New Populist ideology translate them-
selves into similar organisational forms in the Italian Lombard League,
the German Republicans and the French National Front.
For the Green Party, the situation is somewhat different. Simply put,
their ideology placed them at more of an organisational disadvantage
because it compelled them to adopt an organisational form that limited
their effectiveness. It was to stress their difference that they adopted a
leadership-averse structures and it was because they were left-leaning
that they adopted a decentralised structure. To fail to have done this
would have been to lose their internal legitimacy. To do so was to
limit their effectiveness. The reform process pushed them towards ef-
fectiveness but it was really a compromise that did not fully abandon
their leadership aversion or their propensity for decentralisation. Once
again, this story is not confined to the Swedish Green Party, as we
can see the same thing with the other West European Green parties.
The cases of New Democracy and the Swedish Green Party's organisa-
tions highlights a theme that runs through other parts of this work.
This is the symmetry between the two apparently different parties. Where
the New Populists focus on centralisation, the New Politics parties stress
decentralisation. Where the New Politics parties display a strong dis-
taste for leadership, the New Populists show a similarly strong dispo-
sition in the other direction for charismatic and personalised leadership
figures. This symmetry indicates that both types of party are reacting
to the same basic factors. Like pressurised streams of water emerging
from the same fissure in the rock, the two streams have the same
strength, source and shape, but they go in very different directions.
6 Constituencies of Protest
6.1 INTRODUCTION
For any party to develop or even just survive it must have both an
institutional form, and activists who will bear the brunt of the hard
work of politics. That the Green Party and New Democracy had these
has been shown in prior chapters. However, having activists and insti-
tutions is not enough. A party must also have a constituency. Without
support from the voters, a party will have the greatest difficulty in
sustaining itself. With an identifiable group of voters, a party has the
raw materials from which it might try, as these parties attempted, to
fashion a fundamental transformation in the party system. This chapter
examines whether the two parties have identifiable constituencies in
the electorate, and goes on to describe the nature of the constituencies
of protest.
This chapter is an attempt to argue two points. Firstly, both parties
draw from electoral constituencies that have identifiable characteris-
tics. There are clear patterns to their support with some consistent fea-
tures to the electorates of both types of parties. Secondly, there is a
similarity between the characteristics of both types of parties' elector-
ates. Their voters are indicative of a new type of voter who is young,
volatile and not committed to traditional notions of party politics. Where
there is not a similarity between the two constituencies, there is a sym-
metry. Where one type of party draws particularly on one section of
the electorate, the other type of party, almost invariably, rallies the
opposite group. This suggests that the relationship between the two
types of parties is not random, but rather that they are two sides of the
same coin. This can be linked conceptually to their status as contem-
porary protest parties. Mapping the outlines of Green and new popu-
list parties allows us to divine the contours of protest in modern West
European polities.
6.2 CLEAVAGES AND SWEDISH ELECTIONS
In West European electorates, as in other liberal democracies, there

has been a shift away from major parties as the exclusive foci of party
148
systems (Dalton et at., 1984; Franklin et at., 1992). What this seems
to indicate is that growing sections of electorates are beginning to find
electoral refuge in smaller parties which stand little hope of gaining
control of governments. Fewer people seem to be voting. Fewer people
are identifying exclusively with major parties, and more people are
prepared to consider more radical options (both on the left and on the
right). Voting studies in Western Europe have often therefore focused
around notions of dealignment (Sarlvik and Crewe, 1983; Dalton, 1988;
Dalton et at., 1984). This phenomenon, at its root, points to the weak-
ened affiliations between publics and existing political parties. Specifically
there has been much attention on the phenomenon of partisan dealignment.
There is however, often more consensus around the fact that some-
thing has changed than what has changed.
Dealignment can be seen in three different ways. First, we can ob-
serve the declining percentages of the vote taken by the major parties.
A second factor is the rise of a whole slew of new parties that partly
owe their very existence to the failure of existing parties to maintain
their traditional voting bases. The final factor can be seen in the na-
ture of the voter: there appears to be an increasing tendency for voters
to be volatile in their support. These voters have been described as
'apartisans' (Dalton, 1984; Dalton, 1988, p. 192). Sweden has recently
offered evidence of all three factors.
Sweden, as that most stable of multi-party systems, appeared im-
mune to the contortions that afflicted the party systems of Western
Europe and its Scandinavian allies for most of past few decades (Sarlvik,
1977). Mikael Gilljam and Soren Holmberg argue that recent evidence
points to the rise of issue voting and the decline of class voting in
Sweden (Holmberg and Gilljam, 1987, pp. 317-21), although they ar-
gue that these tendencies are not as great in Sweden as they are in
other West European countries (Gilljam and Holmberg, 1990). What
is notable however is the increasing convergence between Swedish
political trends and the broader trends observable in Western Europe
(Bergstrom, 1991, p. 29; Oskarson, 1992).
The thesis of partisan dealignment is particularly pertinent to the
recent Swedish psephological history. Given the enduring stability of
the party system with five parties remaining dominant and with the
governmental hegemony of the Social Democrats, Sweden seemed, until
recently, to be a particularly good case for testing the dealignment
thesis. The stability of the system is both reflected in and reinforced
by the Social Democratic Party (SAP). Its support has been both strong
and consistent. The SAP voters are the least volatile of the electorate
Table 6.1 Percentage of national vote for five major parties in Sweden,
1964-1994\
Year Five Party

Vote (%)
1964 96.4
1968 96.0
1970 97.7
1973 92.4
1976 98.3
1979 97.8
1982 96.2
1985 98.0
1988 91.2
1991 81.6
1994 88.7
Note:
1. Vote for Social Democratic Workers Party, Moderate Unity Party, Liberal
Party, Centre Party and Left Party.
Sources: Mackie and Rose (1991), Worlund (1991) and Electoral Studies
Vol. 14, No.1, 1995.
and consist of the most loyal voters (see below). The difficulty arises
in the changing nature of Swedish society which sees a decline in the
level of the traditional working class and therefore an undermining of
the long-term base of the SAP (Sainsbury, 1991, p. 52).
Looking at the history of dealignment in Scandinavia (1950-1979),
Ole Borre concludes that there is not a great dropping of support if we
look at the fate of the socialist and non-socialist blocs (Borre, 1984,
p. 361). Dealignment tends to be restricted to conflict within each bloc
for Borre. There are two ways of testing this in the case of Sweden.
First, we can look at the share of the vote for the 5 major parties and
second, we can look at the share of the vote for blocs identified by
Borre.
Looking at the share of the vote taken by the five major parties we
can see that there has been an important shift since 1985. The rise of
new parties has led to defections from the major parties with the share
of the vote of the five major parties falling from an almost consistent
rate in the high 90s to a low of 81.6 per cent of the vote in 1991,
followed by a slight recovery to 88.7 per cent in 1994. The most dra-
matic shift was been between the 1988 and 1991 elections when the
percentage of the electorate defected from the five major parties to
Table 6.2 Support for partisan blocs in Sweden at parliamentary

elections, 1948-1994
Election Socialist Non-Socialist

Year Bloc l Bloc 2 Other
1948 52.4 47.4 0.1
1952 50.3 49.5 0.1
1956 49.6 50.4 0.1
1958 49.6 50.4 0.0
1960 52.3 47.7 0.1
1964 52.5 43.9 3.6
1968 53.1 42.9 4.1
1970 50.1 44.6 2.3
1973 48.9 48.8 2.3
1976 47.5 50.8 1.8
1979 48.8 49.0 2.2
1982 51.2 45.0 3.9
1985 50.1 45.6 4.3
1988 49.0 42.2 9.1
1991 42.1 39.5 18.4
1994 51.4 37.3 11.3
Notes:
I. Socialist Bloc includes the Social Democratic Party and the Left (Com-
munist) Party.
2. Non-Socialist Bloc includes the Moderate Unity Party, the Liberal (People's)
Party and the Centre Party. In 1985 the Christian Democratic Party had
an electoral pact with the Centre Party, but they are here counted in the
'other' section in order to maintain consistency.
Sources: Borre (1984); Mackie and Rose (1991); Holmberg and Gilljam (1987);
Worlund (1992); Electoral Studies Vol. 14, No. I, 1995.
other parties more than doubled. There can be little doubt that on the
basis of percentage of the vote taken by the major parties, Sweden
seemed to be witnessing dealignment.
The second criteria that we can use to determine dealignment is the
inter-bloc distribution of the vote. Swedish party politics has often been
seen in terms of bloc politics both at the electoral (Borre, 1984; Vedung,
1988) and the legislative levels (Sannerstedt and Sjolin, 1992). Borre
(1984) argues that, it is through an examination of the major blocs in
Sweden that we can detect the real consistency of voting in Sweden in
the major part of the post-war era. Certainly a comparison of the sup-
port for the socialist and non-socialist blocs shows that there is neither
a constant decline or rise in support for either bloc. What it does show
is that the major parties are competing for a declining share of the
vote while there is consistent growth of parties outside the blocs.
Table 6.2 shows that the stability of the support levels for the blocs
has only ever been relative and that the bloc system is a now a less
apposite description of Swedish party politics. In the 1991 figures there
are two notable trends. The first is that both blocs attain their lowest
levels of the vote, and the second fact is that the 'other' category
doubles in size thus emphasising the continuous trend in its growth
since 1976. The 1994 Election saw the resurgence of the Socialist bloc
and the curbing of the upward trend of voting for 'other' parties. This
simply reinforces the exceptional nature of the 1991 Election while
not negating the longer-term broad trends of the declining importance
of the blocs to increasing sections of the electorate, and the rise of
alternative groups combined with an apparently increasing degree of
electoral volatility.
Since 1988 three new parties entered the parliamentary arena with
the Green Party arriving in 1988, followed by New Democracy and
the Christian Democratic Social Party (KDS) in the 1991 election. Other
commentators, taking a comparative perspective, have specifically linked
the rise of the Green Party to this phenomenon of dealignment (Jahn,
1992a). This argument can be extended to suggest that those parties
that are best situated ideologically to take advantage of a dealigned
electorate and a party system in flux will benefit from this time of
change and transformation. There is a consistency in the left and right
new protest parties in terms of their ideology and their activist behav-
iour. There is a potential consistency in the support for New Democ-
racy on. the right and for the Greens on the left. This means that they
both have a constituency and are not merely random 'flash' protest
parties, but rather are the new protest parties indicative of the larger
transformation of the party system and of society in general.
6.3 THE 1991 SWEDISH ELECTION
The 1991 Elections in Sweden not only ushered in an apparently vol-

atile electorate choosing new parties and switching allegiances, but
also ushered the long-dominant Social Democrats out of office to be
replaced by a four-party coalition of non-socialist parties. In the run
up to the election the Social Democrats had to preside over a declin-
ing economic record and, by applying for membership of the Euro-
pean Community, had lost much that marked them out as distinct from
the non-socialist parties. Their defeat was not inevitable but the non-
socialist's slogan of 'A New Start for Sweden' was heeded by the
electorate. Only one established party, the Moderate (Conservative) Party,
increased its share of the vote and an unprecedented 18.4 per cent of
the vote went to parties other than the five major parties. The 1991
Elections therefore provide a seismic event in Swedish political ge-
ology and also an example of a phenomenon that has been widespread
across Western Europe with the relative decline of established parties
and the rise of new parties.
The 1991 Swedish Election serves as a useful test case for the argu-
ments made in this chapter. There are three reasons why the election
is used here. The first reason is that it was one in which both a New
Politics and a New Populist party competed. If the argument about
there being a common theoretical basis to the parties which appeals in
different ways to different social groups is to be tested, then there must
be a chance for both these distinct constituencies to mobilise around
these alternatives in order for us to have a chance to evaluate the ar-
gument. In 1988 there was only the Green Party without a New Popu-
list alternative. The second reason is an extension of the first: the
1991 Election, although not allowing the Green Party to reach the 4
per cent threshold, did see the Greens holding on to the social groups
that we would expect a Green party to hold on to. It therefore gives us
a clearer idea of the 'core constituency' of the Green Party. We can
compare this constituency with that of other New Politics parties in
Western Europe.
The final reason why 1991 is a good election to study is that it
represented a potential 'critical' election marking the apparent end of
the Social Democratic hegemony in an unequivocal fashion (Widfeldt,
1992). In this context there is likely to be a stronger tendency for any
potential supporters of new political parties to be mobilised. One com-
mentator has termed it as a 'protest election' and goes on to describe
it as a 'genuine debacle' (Worlund, 1992, p. 142). The election indeed
raised many questions about the nature of realignment (Sainsbury, 1992,
p. 165). The turning out of the Social Democrats from office and the
entry of three new parties into the Riksdag apparently amounted to a
significant degree of dealignment. While the 1994 Election saw the
Social Democrats returning to power, it also saw the Greens regaining
their representation and to an extent established that the five-party
model was no longer the norm and that Swedish party politics would
seem to have incorporated an element of protest be it on the right with
New Democracy or on the left with the Greens. This chapter is an
Table 6.3 Elections to the Swedish Riksdag, 1988-1994
1988 1991 1994

% % %
Vote Seats Vote Seats Vote Seats
Social Democrats (SAP) 43.2 156 37.6 138 45.2 161
Left Party (V) 5.8 21 4.5 16 6.2 22
Green Party (Mp) 5.5 20 3.4 5.0 18
Centre Party (C) 11.3 42 8.5 31 7.7 27
Liberal Party (FP) 12.2 44 9.1 33 7.2 26
Moderate Unity Party (M) 18.3 66 21.9 80 22.4 80
Christian Democrats (KDS) 2.9 0 7.1 26 4.1 15
New Democracy (ND) 6.7 25 1.2 0
Others 0.7 0 1.2 1.0 0
Turnout 86.0 86.7 86.8
Source: Sainsbury (1992, p. 161); Electoral Studies Vol. 14, No. 1, 1995.
attempt to make some sense out of one aspect of the 1991 Election
and to point to some clear trends within one part of the electorate,
albeit a minority.
In an attempt to draw out the characteristics of those choosing to
vote for parties choosing to portray themselves as protest parties, the
material used for data here reflects primarily the demographic charac-
teristics of Swedish voters. With uncomplicated criteria we can see
some basic patterns. The data are taken from the 1991 General Election
Survey carried out by the Swedish Election Studies Program under the
direction of Soren Holmberg and Mikael Gilljam at the University of
Goteborg. 1
We have an extremely clear idea of the nature of support for the
Green Party in the 1988 election due to Martin Bennulf and Soren
Holmberg's work on this subject (see Bennulf, 1990; Bennulf and
Holmberg, 1990). The socioeconomic characteristics of Green Party
voters are detailed there. They conclude that the 1988 Election did not
signify a green cleavage but· they did illustrate the youthful, public-
sector, female profile of the voters for the Green Party. This confirms
that the Green electorate in Sweden is typical of other Green elector-
ates across Western Europe (d. Riidig and Franklin, 1992; Miiller-
Rommel, 1985, 1989b; Kitschelt, 1989; Diani and Lodi, 1988) In an
attempt to replicate this picture for 1991 and to supplement it with
results about New Democracy, this chapter follows a similar method
of presentation to that of Bennulf and Holmberg. The presentation of
the results is intended to illustrate that there are similar and symmetri-
cal features to the support of the two parties. Where one party par-
ticularly appeals to one social group, it is frequently the case that the
other party appeals to the other social group. In some cases informa-
tion is presented about the other parties but in the interest of parsi-
mony, the focus is mostly upon New Democracy and the Green Party
support.
6.3.1 Voter Profile
What emerges from a comparison of the Greens and New Democracy

is that they tend to represent mirror images of each other in terms of
the support from the electorate with respect to certain key demographic
characteristics. In one characteristic they display a clear similarity. They
are both young parties.
One of the characteristics of new parties we would expect to see is
that they would be disproportionately supported by the younger sec-
tion of the electorate. It follows that continued voting for a party will
lead to a stronger attachment to that party, and this will be built up
over the course of the individual's life. This means that younger voters,
having had less time to build up affiliations with the existing old par-
ties, will be more predisposed to vote for newer parties regardless of
ideology. Franklin et al. (1992) go as far as to suggest that the youngest
parts of the electorate are driven by ideological considerations to a
greater degree than has previously existed.
We can see from Table 6.4 that this expected youth is borne out by
the evidence of New Democracy and the Greens in Sweden. The patterns
of support are remarkable similar: both parties have a bias towards the
younger part of the electorate. In total 57 per cent of the Green vote
was drawn from the section of the electorate that was below 41 years
of age. Similarly 55 per cent of the total vote for New Democracy was
drawn from that same section of the electorate.
As we shall continue to use this table format throughout the article,
we need to clarify what the different columns represent. Column 1
represents the percentage of the popUlation in these particular groups
who voted for the Green Party. Column 2 represents the distribution
of those that voted for the Green Party among the social groups. Col-
umns 3 and 4 represent the same figures for New Democracy. Column
5 gives us the distribution of the entire electorate into these different
social groups. Columns 6 and 7 show us the discrepancy between the
overall distribution of the electorate and the two parties' distribution.
Table 6.4 Age characteristics of Swedish voters for the Green Party (Mp)
and New Democracy (ND). 1991
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Age %Mp Mp %ND ND All Mp ND N
Votes Dist. Votes Dist. Dist. DifJ. DifJ.
18-21* 7 10 13 10 5 +5 +5 127
21-30 5 29 9 25 19 +10 +6 460
31-40 4 18 8 20 17 +1 +3 404
41-50 3 17 7 20 21 -4 -1 497
51-60 3 10 5 10 15 -5 -5 347
61-70 4 14 6 11 13 +1 -2 316
71-80 0 1 4 5 9 -8 -4 220
Notes:
* The category 18-21 represents first-time voters.
Column (1) = Percentage of the vote for Mp.
Column (2) = Percentage distribution of the vote for Mp.
Column (3) = Percentage of the vote for ND.
Column (4) = Percentage distribution of the vote for ND.
Column (5) = The distribution of the total vote as a percentage.
Column (6) = The difference between the distribution of the vote for Mp
and the total distribution of the vote (column 2 - column 5).
Column (7) = The difference between the distribution of the vote for ND
Column (8) = The total number of respondents in the sample.
Thus when there is a positive number in column 6 or 7 this means that

the party was drawing disproportionately from that social group whereas
a negative figure represents that fact that they were drawing less from
that social group. Column 8 represents the number in the sample. The
point of the table is that if the parties mirrored the social base of
society exactly they would have zeros in columns 6 and 7.
In comparison with the overall distribution of the electorate there
was a clear tendency for the support for the two parties to be drawn
disproportionately from the younger part of the electorate. As the age
of electors is increased so there was a decrease of the level of support
for the parties. Between them. the Green Party and New Democracy
took 20 per cent of all first-time voters.
For the Greens the largest single group that supported them was
found among those aged between 22 and 30 years old. with 29 per
cent of their support coming from there. The case was the same for
New Democracy with 25 per cent of their support drawn from that
section of the population. In contrast the older (71-80 years) section
Table 6.5 Male and female voting for the Greens (Mp) and New
Democracy (ND), 1991
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Gender %Mp Mp %ND ND All Mp ND N
Votes Dist. Votes Dist. Dist. Diff. Diff.
Men 2 31 9 62 51 -20 + 11 1212
Women 5 69 6 38 49 +20 -11 1159
Notes:
Column (I) = Percentage of the vote for Mp.
Column (2) =
Percentage distribution of the vote for Mp.
Column (3) =
Percentage of the vote for ND.
Column (4) =
Percentage distribution of the vote for ND.
Column (5) =
The distribution of the total vote as a percentage.
Column (6) =
The difference between the distribution of the vote for Mp
Column (8) = The total number of respondents in the sample
of the sample represented only 1 per cent of the Greens' total support
and 5 per cent of New Democracy's support. 2 In terms of first-time
voters, both parties gained 5 percentage points more than the propor-
tion of such voters to the overall electorate.
In a general sense both New Democracy and the Green Party stood
in contrast to the older parties in that they were the most over-represented
in the younger part of the population. The two parties stand out as
bucking the general trend and were in stark opposition to the major
old parties such as the Centre Party, the Left Party and the Social
Democratic Party.
The fact that the same trends can easily be discerned in the age
distribution of New Democracy and the Greens is indicative of a simi-
larity in one part of the parties' demographic bases. In other parts
there was also a marked symmetry. This is the case with the differing
support levels between women and men. While New Democracy tended
to be a disproportionately male party, the Greens were disproportion-
ately female in their support.
Both parties displayed an important gender gap in their support. This
phenomenon was more marked for the Greens who displayed 20 per-
centage point difference from the overall distribution of the electorate.
This is because 69 per cent of their support was drawn from women.
In contrast, New Democracy drew the bulk of its support (62 per cent)
Table 6.6 Percentage of the party vote taken by New Democracy and the
Green Party by age groups and gender
New Democracy Greens Difference

Men Women Men Women Men Women
Youngest l3 7 3 8 10 -1
(18-30)
Middle 8 5 2 5 6 0
(31-60)
Oldest 4 5 3 3 2
(61-80)
from men. Once again, this is at odds with the overall population dis-
tribution. This discrepancy did not appear in the 1988 Election for the
Greens because they then had a 50 per cent support from both men
and women which reflected the gender distribution in the electorate as
a whole (Bennulf and Holmberg, 1990, p. 170).
In addition it should be noted that the Greens and New Democracy
were the most extremely divided of all the parties in the Swedish sys-
tem in terms of gender. The next biggest gender difference from the
population distribution lay at 6 percentage points for the women sup-
porters of the Christian Democrats and 6 percentage points greater sup-
port by men for the Moderates.
New Democracy liked to claim that the party was strong with men
under 24 and women over 80. Certainly the tendency to appeal to younger
men and older women seems strong among the supporters of New
Democracy. If we tabulate the support for New Democracy by both
age and gender, then we can see that there were certain stronger groups.
Age is here divided three ways. By doing this we can see that while
New Democracy draws on the youngest group of men, taking 13 per
cent of all young men, the Green Party draws on the youngest group
of women, taking 8 per cent of this group.
Considering that overall New Democracy attained 7 per cent of the
vote we can see that the appeal to young men was clearly an indica-
tion of a particular strength for that party. Again, the support by young
women for the Green Party (8 per cent) exceeded the 3 per cent of the
total vote that they attained. Green support does drop off with age (as
we saw in Table 6.3), but we can see from Table 6.5 that this drop off
is more marked for men than for women, with the Green Party only
Table 6.7 Education and voting for the Greens (Mp) and New Democracy
(NO), 1991
Education (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

%Mp Mp %ND ND All Mp ND N
Votes Dist. Votes Dist. Dist. DijJ. DijJ.
Low 2 19 7 37 40 -21 -3 923
Middle 3 19 10 35 24 -5 + 11 552
High 7 63 6 28 36 +27 -8 812
Notes:
'Low' means 6 to 9 years of schooling and various forms of vocational training
and apprentice schooling received in publicly organized schools.
'Medium' means 9 to 11 years of schooling.
'High' means 12 years schooling and above.
Column (3) = Percentage of the vote for NO.
Column (4) = Percentage distribution of the vote for NO.
Column (7) = The difference between the distribution of the vote for NO
gaining 1 per cent of the oldest male group of the sample.

With respect to the Swedish parties as a whole, the Greens came out
as the most fractionalised according to education. This is illustrated in
Table 6.7. They have the highest proportion of their support drawn
from the highest educated strata of the electorate with 63 per cent of
their support coming from a section of the population that only makes
up 36 per cent of the population. This 27 percentage point disparity is
the highest disparity of all the parties from any of the sections of the
electorate in terms of educational distribution. This is a notable in-
crease on the 1988 figure of a 19 percentage point discrepancy in the
highest educated band of the electorate (Bennulf and Holmberg, 1990,
p. 171). In other words the same trend is visible but exaggerated in
1991. It reinforces the impression that the 1991 Election saw Green
Party support at its core level.
New Democracy, in contrast, drew most heavily from that section of
the electorate in the middle of the educational spectrum. This is not
exactly unexpected. Commentators on the extreme right have often pointed
out the fact that the support for these parties seems to be related to
Table 6.8 Family class of voters for the Greens (Mp) and New
Class of (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Family %Mp Mp %ND ND All Mp ND N
Votes Dist. Votes Dist. Dist. DijJ. DijJ.
Working class 3 35 7 53 50 -15 +3 1118

Salaried
employee 5 32 6 23 27 +5 -4 596
Well-off salaried!
academic 10 26 5 7 10 +16 -3 211
Farming 5 6 6 4 5 +1 -1 109
Business I 1 12 14 7 -6 +7 171
Notes:
lower socioeconomic variables in some way (Hainsworth, 1992; Falter

and Schumann, 1988). The support for such parties does not come
from the lowest strata of society (the 'have-nots') but more from those
who are just above that level (the 'have-a-littles' ?).
What is interesting here IS that all the other parties in Sweden are
within three percentage points of the general distribution of the elec-
torate. Therefore even the five percentage point discrepancy of the
Green Party is breaking with the general trend, while New Democracy's
eleven percentage point disparity is even more remarkable. At the lowest
educational level it is the Social Democrats who rely most heavily on
this section with 56 per cent of their support coming from there.
When asked what class their families belonged to the Green sup-
porters and the New Democracy supporters displayed opposite tenden-
cies. This is illustrated in Table 6.8. In every category where one party
was disproportionately supported by a class so the other party was, to
some degree, less supported by that class. The Greens did not draw
their share of the working-class vote. Instead their most successful
class for drawing the vote was those who described themselves as from
Table 6.9 Percentage of the party vote taken by New Democracy and the
Green Party by class groups and gender
New Democracy Greens Difference

Men Women Men Women Men Women
Working Class 13 3 1 2 12 1
Other Classes 8 6 3 6 5 o
well-off salaried or academic families. New Democracy, in contrast,

were most over-represented among business families and working-class
families. This fits in with the agenda of New Democracy which portrays
itself as a party for 'ordinary people' but with a special interest in
small businesses.
In order to determine the true nature of working-class support for
the new populists, we divided the electorate into working class and
non-working class and have tabulated that by gender in Table 6.9 be-
low. This shows that there was a significant support for New Democ-
racy among working-class men. We can see that the fact that they
took 13 per cent of that sector of the electorate does not translate
across the gender gap where there was a significantly lower figure of
3 per cent. The Green Party's figures do not display as much variation
but do clearly indicate that their strongest group came in the shape of
non-working-class women where they attained 6 per cent of the vote.
What we can see once again is a certain symmetry. Although the per-
centages are not exactly equal, we can assert that New Democracy
tended to attract the exact opposite groups than the Green Party.
In 1988 the Green Party gained 54 per cent of its support from
those in cities or larger built-up areas and from the three largest urban
areas of Stockholm, Goteborg and Malmo. This distribution changed
in the 1991 Election with these areas providing 39 per cent of their
vote. In terms of the difference from the overall distribution of the
electorate, the Green Party in 1988 drew disproportionately from those
living in the countryside. This was still true in 1991 but the figures
had dropped. This might partly be explained by the rise of New Democ-
racy, which took an even more disproportionate share of the rural vote.
Table 6.10 shows that the core of the Green Party constituency came
to resemble the population distribution as a whole concerning place of
residence. It also shows that New Democracy usurped the Green Party's
role of drawing heavily on the rural vote, while the Greens still seemed
stronger in urban settings. However it should be noted that both parties
Table 6.10 Residency of voters for the Greens (Mp) and New Democracy
(ND), 1991
Place of (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Residence %Mp Mp %ND ND All Mp ND N
Countryside 4 18 12 28 17 +1 +11 385
Smaller built-up
area 3 44 7 44 47 -3 -3 1084
Cityllarger built
area 5 14 4 6 11 +3 -5 243
Stockholm/
Goteborg/Malmo 4 25 6 23 25 0 -2 580
Notes:
Column (1) Percentage of the vote for Mp.
Column (2) Percentage distribution of the vote for Mp.
Column (3) Percentage of the vote for ND.
drew the vast proportion of their votes from urban areas. Both are
primarily urban parties but New Democracy had the added support
from the countryside.
An examination of the occupational bases of these two parties seems
to reveal that there is some symmetry there also, as shown in Table
6.11. The Green support is most clearly out of alignment with the
electorate in the case of the manufacturing sector and students. As we
would expect, the Greens were at a disadvantage with voters employed
in the manufacturing sector with only 5 per cent of their voters com-
ing from there which did not reflect that 14 per cent of the sample
was employed in that sector. In contrast, the Green support was heavily
biased towards students with 16 per cent of their support coming from
there and this is 10 per cent more than the sample as a whole.
New Democracy also displayed its second most marked discrepancy
with respect to the manufacturing sector where they drew 6 percent-
age points more than the population distribution would lead us to ex-
pect. Where the Greens are disadvantaged, so New Democracy is at an
advantage. New Democracy's disadvantage lay in the middle white-
Table 6.11 Occupation of voters for the Greens (Mp) and New
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Occupation %Mp Mp %ND ND All Mp ND N
Manufacturing 1 5 10 20 14 -9 +6 330
Service Sector 4 21 6 20 22 -I -2 513
Lower white
collar 3 7 7 10 10 -3 0 219
Middle white
collar 5 30 5 16 24 +6 -8 553
Professionals!
Managers 4 16 8 16 14 +2 +2 321
Small
Entrepreneurs 1 1 12 11 6 -5 +5 147
Farmers 4 3 5 2 3 0 1 73
Students 11 16 6 5 6 +10 -1 132
Notes:
and the total distribution of the vote (column 4 - column
5).
collar sector of the electorate where they drew 8 percentage points

less of the electorate. The Greens picked up 6 percentage points here.
The rhetoric of New Democracy stressed the importance of small busi-
nesses and their most concrete policy success in the first parliamen-
tary session was the establishment of an investment bank in order to
support small businesses. It is therefore little surprise to find that they
received strong support from small entrepreneurs with 5 percentage
points more than their share of the electorate.
If we examine the type of work undertaken by New Democracy and
Green Party supporters, it is clear that there are important contrasts
between the sector of employment and the type of work. This is illus-
trated below in Table 6.12. The most obvious fact from the table is
Table 6.12 Sector and type of work of voters for the Greens (Mp) and
New Democracy (ND), 1991
Sector & (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
Type of %Mp Mp %ND ND All Mp ND N
Work Votes Dist. Votes Dist. Dist. Diff. Diff.
Public 5 59 6 31 40 +19 -9 888

Private 2 41 8 69 60 -19 +9 1323
FarrninglFishing/
Forestry 5 7 7 5 5 +2 0 122
Manufacturing 2 15 9 35 28 -13 +7 643
Trade, Transport 2 16 7 27 27 -]] 0 620
Health Care/
Education 6 34 6 18 20 +14 +2 452
Public/Private
Admin. 3 12 5 10 14 -2 +4 319
Students 11 16 6 5 6 +10 -1 132
Notes:
Column Percentage of the vote for Mp.
(1) =
Column (2)Percentage distribution of the vote for Mp.
=
Column (3)Percentage of the vote for ND.
=
Column (4)Percentage distribution of the vote for ND.
=
Column (5)The distribution of the total vote as a percentage.
=
Column (6)The difference between the distribution of the vote for Mp
=
how much the Green Party support drew on the public sector. Although
it only took 5 per cent of the vote of those working in the public
sector, this group played a disproportionate role in the composition of
the support of the Green Party representing 59 per cent of their total
sample. By contrast, New Democracy drew far more heavily from the
private sector than from the public sector. The strength of New Democ-
racy in the private sector is more marked than the strength of the Green
Party in the public sector but they are both deviations from the norm.
Only the Moderate Party provides a greater discrepancy with respect
to the private/public sector division drawing 71 per cent of their sup-
port from the private sector.
The Green Party support drew most heavily from those involved in
health care and education and from students. This bias towards health
care and education can be seen as a restatement of the public-sector
support for the party. New Democracy's support did not mirror these
trends very much. In fact New Democracy drew one more percentage
point from the health care and education sector than we would expect
from the general population distribution. The reason for the lack of
difference concerning students may lie in the disproportionately young
nature of both parties' support. The one clear symmetry lies in the
area of manufacturing where the Green Party took only 2 per cent of
the vote to New Democracy's 9 per cent. This 9 per cent support for
New Democracy represents a full third of its overall support.
6.3.2 Voter Volatility
The appeal of New Politics parties has partly be explained by the de-
cline in salience of the traditional voting cues. As class and party al-
legiance decline, so support for new alternatives that appear to transcend
the previous limits of class behaviour and of traditional party politics
will tend to increase. Sweden is no exception to the trend of a declin-
ing party allegiance and a decline in class voting (Gilljam and Holmberg,
1990). Support for new parties will therefore not only reflect the novelty
of the parties but, in the case of New Politics parties, will also tend to
be more volatile than support for other parties.
In the case of the Green Party, this can be seen in their opposition
to the dominance of the old parties. It was a conscious effort, once in
the parliament, to maintain themselves as an independent force and
not exclusively linked with either the socialist or the non-socialist blocs.
In a similar fashion, New Democracy maintained the impression of
independence from the non-socialist bloc by remaining outside the
governmental coalition while at the same time voting with the govern-
ment on the vast majority of issues. We can see from the behaviour of
both parties that they tried to remain distinct from the 'old parties'.
This reflects an important component of both parties' ideologies and,
at the same time, means that we would expect their support to be more
volatile in their affiliation. The people who would be most attracted to
parties that critique the party system are those that would most likely
be disaffected with both the party system, and consequently with pol-
itical parties in general.
A measure of this aspect of the parties' support would be 'ticket-
splitting'. In Sweden the national election is held at the same time as
the election of the local (kommuner) governments. This means that we
can calculate the tendency of a particular parties' supporters to vote
for different parties at different levels. Table 6.13 demonstrates the
Table 6.13 National level party vote as percentage of local level party
vote, 1991
\Na v s C Fp M Kds Mp ND Oth Total

Lo\ %(N)
V 64 22 4 0 0 5 4 0 100
(96)
S 2 93 2 0 0 101
(795)
C 12 61 3 8 8 6 101
(263)
Fp 0 7 3 70 II 4 2 3 0 100
(29)
M 022 4 78 4 0 10 0 100
(499)
Kds 6 4 6 76 5 0 100
(140)
Mp 2 17 5 2 4 2 59 7 99
(92)
ND 0 6 0 2 19 3 0 70 0 100
(63)
Oth 4 25 4 4 18 0 0 21 25 101
(28)
Note: V= Left Party; S = Social Democratic Workers Party; C = Centre

Party; Fp = Liberal Party; M = Moderate Unity Party; Kds = Christian
Democratic Society Party; Mp = Green Party; ND = New Democracy; Oth
= Other parties.
percentage of voters at the local level who voted for the range of par-
ties at the national level. It is necessary to demonstrate the facts from
the perspective of the local level because not all parties (especially the
smaller parties and hence the parties we are interested in) stood in all
the local races.
As we can clearly see from the emboldened figures, the Green Party
demonstrated the highest degree of ticket-splitting of all the parties
with 41 per cent of their voters at the regional level voting for other
parties (primarily the Social Democrats) at the national level. New
Democracy supporters do display a marginally higher propensity to
ticket-split than the average of all eight of the major parties (the aver-
age percentage voting the same way at both levels for eight major
parties is 71 per cent) with 30 per cent of them voting with other
parties. 3 The fact, however, seems to be that New Democracy did not
display a tendency to higher volatility than the 'old' parties, although
the Green Party clearly did.
With regard to the average volatility of New Democracy supporters,

we should, however, take note of two factors. The first factor is that
the ticket-splitters divided their allegiance between the Moderates (19
per cent) and the Social Democrats (6 per cent). With the shared em-
phasis on the free market and privatisation, we would expect there to
be an overlap between New Democracy and Moderate support. The
fact that the next largest support was for the Social Democrats from
New Democracy ticket-splitters does lend some credence to the party's
own claim to be transcending the left-right divide. It also lends weight
to the contention that New Democratic supporters cannot unequivocally
be classified with supporters for neo-fascist parties in other countries.
As a comparison we can take the Social Democrats and the Moder-
ates as exemplars of the 'old' politics differentiation between left and
right. It is therefore notable that 93 per cent of Social Democrat voters
at the local level voted the same way at the national level, making it
the party with the strongest translation of local support into national
support. The next strongest party in that regard was then the Moder-
ates with a figure of 78 per cent. The old parties do represent the
converse of the new politics tendency away from party affiliation. Those
people that voted for the 'old' parties were the most likely to manifest
the highest degree of party loyalty.
The second factor we should note is that, if there is a tendency to vola-
tility, this might well become more enhanced over an extended period.
Given the enthusiasm of voting for a novel party in an election there
might be more of a tendency to vote the same way at different levels as
this is itself indicative of dissatisfaction with party politics. At a second
election, if this dissatisfaction generally with party politics continues,
then it would be likely that such a voter would have a greater tendency
to ticket-split. In another election it may well be that such a tendency (if
it indeed does exist for New Democracy) would become more enhanced.
Only a third (36 per cent) of those who voted for the Green Party in
1988 repeated that action in 1991. Table 6.14 illustrates the differences
in the vote in 1991 as a percentage of the 1988 party vote. It clearly
demonstrates that the Green Party had the lowest record of party loyalty.
Once again the contrast lies with the archetypes of 'old' parties - the
Social Democrats and the Moderates - who had, respectively 80 per
cent and 78 per cent of their 1988 supporters in 1991. We can also see
the volatility of the Green voters in that their 1991 support that did
not go to the Green Party went to the Christian Democrats (15 per
cent) but also to the Liberal Party (10 per cent), the Centre Party (10
per cent) and New Democracy (10 per cent).
Table 6.14 Party vote in 1991 as percentage of party vote in 1988
\1991 Total
1988\ V S C Fp M Kds Mp ND Oth % (N)
V 48 33 3 2 2 8 2 100
(102)
S 3 80 3 6 2 4 101
(901)
CO 363 311 II 44 100
(235)
Fp 0 4 4 49 25 12 5 0 100
(243)
M 0 2 4 78 5 9 101
(361)
Kds 0 0 2 2 4 85 0 7 0 100
(55)
Mp 10 9 10 8 15 36 10 100
(100)
Oth 17 0 0 17 0 0 0 50 17 101
(6)
Note: V = Left Party; S = Social Democratic Workers Party; C = Centre

Party; Fp = Liberal Party; M = Moderate Unity Party; Kds = Christian
Democratic Society Party; Mp = Green Party; ND = New Democracy;
Oth = Other parties.
Percentages do not always add up to 100 because of rounding.
Table 6.15 Prior voting record (1988) of New Democracy and Green
Voters in 1991 including non-voters
Socialist Bourgeois Mp Other Non- Voters Total

(%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
ND 28 41 7 2 22 100
(40) (59) (10) (3) (31) (144)
Mp 29 18 47 o 6 100
(22) (14) (36) (0) (5) (77)
Note: N in brackets.
Socialist = Left Party and Social Democratic Workers Party; Bourgeois =
Centre Party, Liberal Party, Moderate Unity Party and the Christian Democratic
Society Party; Mp = Green Party.
Simply focusing on those who voted in the 1988 Election excludes

the non-voters (who New Democracy activists claim as a very import-
ant component of their support) and also does not allow us to compare
New Democracy with the Green Party because New Democracy did
not exist until 1991. If we break down the former voting records of
these parties on the basis of the party vote and the non-voters (of
1988) then we can see where the support for New Democracy came
from.
Table 6.15 clearly shows that both the Green Party and New Democ-
racy drew significant parts of their support from the socialist bloc.
The bulk of New Democracy's support, however, came from the non-
socialist bloc, with 41 per cent of their vote in 1991 having voted for
one of the four non-socialist parties in the 1988 election. New Democ-
racy were also effective at mobilising those who had not voted before
with 22 per cent of their support coming from that section of the 1988
electorate. Given the antipathy between the two parties that exists at
the elite level, it also interesting to note that 7 per cent of New Democ-
racy's supporters voted for the Green Party in the previous election.
Although this by no means conclusively proves that there is a strong
similarity between the bases of the parties, it can be used as an illus-
tration of that point. Where New Democracy's voters were drawn from
the non-socialist bloc, the socialist bloc and non-voters, the Green Party
seems to have drawn its support from previous Green Party voters,
(unsurprisingly) the socialist bloc and even a significant proportion
from the non-socialist bloc.
The newest party can claim to have mobilised almost a quarter of
those who did not vote in the prior election although this group only
made up 16 per cent of the party's overall support. This compares
with a figure of 5 per cent of those who did not vote in 1988 who
supported the Green Party in 1991. Clearly then New Democracy was
very effective at mobilising previously non-active voters.
In terms of their volatility, New Democracy supporters did not dis-
play the same tendency to ticket-split as do Green Party supporters.
What we do see in common is that both parties drew from a broad
range of support. While the Green supporter was perhaps more likely
to vote for a different party at the different level or at successive elec-
tions, New Democracy supporters tended to have already voted for
very different parties at the previous election. The dismal electoral record
of the party in the 1994 Election is more evidence of the volatility of
its support base.
Summarising the data, we can therefore note that Green voters were
similar to voters for New Democracy in that they tended to be younger,
volatile and disparate in origins. The two parties' electorates were sym-
metrical in that the Green voters were disproportionately drawn from
highly educated women from non-working-class families, who were
employed in the public sector in white-collar work, whereas voters for

New Democracy were disproportionately less well-educated men from
working-class families, and who were working in blue-collar occupa-
tions in the private sector.
To place the Swedish phenomenon in comparative perspective brings

us face to face with many of the particular problems associated with
cross-national analysis. While strict comparative data is not always
available, this section is premised on the belief that only by under-
standing West European politics can we fully understand the politics
of any West European nation. This section is designed to place the
Swedish facts in perspective and to offer a context, and is therefore
illustrative rather than definitive. It offers the opportunity to see how
far the New Populists always draw from a young, male private sector
constituency, and how far the New Politics constituency is drawn from
the well-educated, public sector, young and female electors in con-
texts outside that of Sweden.
Among German Republican voters, there is something of the vola-
tility that we saw with New Democracy. In their study of the Repub-
licans, Veen, Lepszy and Mnich conclude that their support was 'largely
a politically "homeless" pool of voters that switched back and forth
between parties, as well as a potential reserve of past nonvoters' (Veen,
Lepszy and Mnich, 1993, p. 31). They show that potential Republican
voters in the 1987 elections were 22 per cent nonvoters (Veen, Lepszy
and Mnich, 1993, p. 32). The similarities with New Democracy ex-
tend into their social demographic attributes. In addition to sharing
the volatility, Veen et al. show that the voters were disproportionately
young, predominantly male, having a low level of education and being
mainly blue-collar workers (Veen, Lepszy and Mnich, 1993, pp. 32-8).
This conclusion is endorsed by Eva Kolinsky, who argues that the
Republican constituency 'rests on a sense of disappointment with es-
tablished parties, the focus on national and especially xenophobic is-
sues and the fear of modernisation among the bottom third in Germany's
affluent and educated society' (Kolinsky, 1992, pp. 70-1).
The more pertinent comparison between Italy and Sweden comes in
the shape of the Lombard League and the other Northern Leagues.
Writing of the transitions in the Italian extreme right, Francesco Sidoti
notes that much of the tenacity of a fascist-oriented far right in Italy
was tied to the persistence of social groups such as artisans, farmers,

small town residents and small business people but that, with their
decline, came the emergence of a new far right (Sidoti, 1992, p. 168).
The new basis of protest gelling around the leagues, Sidoti describes
as an 'agglomeration formed by voters deriving from different politi-
cal experiences' (Sidoti, 1992, p. 170). He goes on to describe the
social basis of the League as drawing not from the margins, but from
the middle classes and those sectors associated with small industrial
firms. Also, in contrast to New Democracy, he argues that they are
loyal voters that stay with the league from election to election. De-
scribing the typical League voter in 1989, Dwayne Woods draws the
picture of 'a middle-aged Italian male with at least a higher education'
but he goes on to note how the League's support base has widened
recently (Woods, 1992a, p. 71).
In a comparison of the Italian Movemento Sociale Italiano (MSI)
and the French Front National (FN), Ignazi and Ysmal, in a test of
alienation of the members of these two parties from the other parties
in their political systems, show that the highest level of sympathy for
both these parties is for the respective Green parties (Verdi and Les
Verts) (lgnazi and Ysmal, 1992, p. 106). They explain this in terms of
the fact that the MSI and FN members 'share a certain sympathy with
the newest and less established party' (Ignazi and Y smal, 1992,
p. 107). This may only be part of the story. Although it can only be
speculative, we may suggest that this sympathy might correspond to
an implicit recognition that the Greens share part of their perspective.
The French National Front certainly fits with the profile of the New
Populist voter we have described. Commenting on the 1988 election
in the Dreux region, Brechon and Mitra note that 'the electorate of the
National Front is more likely to be male rather than female and draws
support from all age groups, but disproportionately from young people'
(Brechon and Mitral, 1992, p. 75). In addition to this similarity to
New Democracy voters, Mayer and Perrineau comment that the National
Front voter is far more likely to cross the left-right divide than any
other party's electorate (Mayer and Perrineau, 1992, p. 128). They concur
with Brechon and Mitra that the typical National Front voter is not
from the poorest, most disadvantaged strata of society but is more likely
to be male, urban, younger and working class than anything else (Mayer
and Perrineau, 1992, p. 130).
The Danish comparison with New Democracy is perhaps the most
obvious. Mogens Glistrup's Progress Party burst onto the scene in 1973,
taking 16 per cent of the vote after he had admitted paying no tax and
Table 6.16 Support for the Danish Progress Party by education compared
with New Democracy (in brackets) (%)
Education 1973 1977 1979 1988 (1991 ND)
Low 16 16 13 11 (7)
Medium 16 14 9 9 (10)
High 16 11 3 3 (6)
(N) 2172 2524 1023 1279 (2287)
Source (Progress Party Figures): Andersen (1992, p. 201).
forming a party around his populist agenda. Its initial stage as an anti-
taxation party eventually gave way to its establishment as a party with
a broadly right-wing New Populist agenda. With this change came
something of a change in its social base. As Andersen demonstrates,
the earliest phase of the party sees it drawing the same level of sup-
port from different educational levels of the population, but as the party
developed it has tended to draw far more strongly from the lowest
educated strata of Danish society and, Andersen argues, as the Progress
Party assumed an anti-immigrant stance, it lost the highly educated
strata who have never returned to the party. This can be seen in
Table 6.16.
Unfortunately the figures do not allow us to make exact compari-
sons with the Swedish data presented above because Andersen does
not provide us with the relative strength of these different social strata
vis-a-vis Danish society as a whole. However, it is notable that both
parties seem to have the weakest level of support from the highly edu-
cated sector. This has been consistently true of the Progress Party and
has become a trend that has been more marked as time goes on. Progress
Party has gone from taking 16 per cent of the highest educated class
in 1973 to taking only 3 per cent in 1988, while support in the medium
and low levels have declined at roughly equal rates, although support
at the lowest educational level dropped slightly less (we must remem-
ber that by 1988 the Progress Party was taking 9 per cent of the vote
and had reached its lowest point in 1984 with only 4 per cent).
Andersen also offers us a breakdown of how Progress Party support
was distributed between social groups. He records that in the 1988
Election 50 per cent of the Party's support came from manual workers
with non-manual wage earners accounting for 27 per cent and the self-
employed 23 per cent (Andersen, 1992, p. 202). But he is at pains to
point out that 'to describe the Progress Party simply as a party of the
"lower classes", let alone "marginalised groups'" would be wrong

(Andersen, 1992, p. 203). It is however clear that the Danish Progress
Party draws from a disproportionately male constituency. He records
how in 1987 and 1988, 60 per cent of Progress voters were male,
while their vote was over 70 per cent male in 1981 and 1984. We can
see perhaps, in the Progress Party, a possible path of constituency for
New Democracy, as there is already a strong similarity between the
constituencies of the two parties.
In their examination of the prospects of the Green parties in Ger-
many, the United Kingdom and France, Wolfgang Riidig and Mark
Franklin conclude that their potential constituencies mean that they
are not merely 'flash' parties (Rudig and Franklin, 1992, p. 56). They
point out that in all three countries the Green vote draws on those
who have previously abstained. 4 They also stress the youthful nature
of the Green vote. This is in line with much evidence from many national
studies of the Green vote.
Ferdinand Muller-Rommel noted how the 1982 Green vote in West
Germany was dominated by the young: 58.1 per cent of Green voters
were in the 18-29 age group. Although they have grown older with
time, the Green voters are still recognisably young (Muller-Rommel,
1989b, pp. 116-17; Poguntke, 1990b, p. 15). This age cohort has re-
mained loyal to the Green Party (Frankland and Schoonmaker, 1992,
p. 87). They are more highly edueated than the population at large and
have an over-representation of white-collar workers, and women are
similarly over-represented among the younger age groups (Frankland
and Schoonmaker, 1992, p. 87). This pattern is to be seen across many
other Green parties.
The Belgian Green parties fit this pattern. Kitschelt reports how they
receive the support of the new 'educational class' and young well-
educated voters and how women support Agalev and Ecolo the same
amount or more than men (Kitschelt, 1989, p. 87). 71.9 per cent of
Ecolo and Agalev voters are under 35 years of age and 51.8 per cent
have a high level of education (Kitschelt, 1989, p. 88). The Italian
Greens have not received the electoral success of the German and the
Belgian Green parties, but still display the same sort of social profile
of their voters. In a study of the Milan Ecology movement, Mario
Diani and Giovanni Lodi provide us with data on the nature of eco-
logical activists that is comparable to the Swedish data presented above.
This gives us a clear picture of ecological activists in Milan. Clearly,
they are drawn disproportionately from the youngest section of society
with 58 per cent of their support coming from the under-36 age group,
Table 6.17 Social basis of Ecology activists in Milan compared with the
general population in Milan
Characteristic Ecology Milan Difference

Activists (%) Population (%)
Gender:
Men 73 48 +25
Women 27 52 -25
Age:
Under 36 58 40 +18
Over 36 42 60 -18
Education:
Compulsory 16 82 -66
High School 48 14 +34
Graduate 36 4 +32
Occupation:
Nonemployed 8 36 -28
Students 18 9 +9
Blue-Collar 11 25 -14
Shopkeepers 6 7 -1
White-Collar 27 18 +9
Teachers 10 3 +7
Professionals 20 2 +18
Total (%) 100 100
N 204 2,976,000
Source: Adapted from Diani and Lodi (1988, p. 108).
who themselves only make up 40 per cent of the total population of

the city. Ecological activists draw disproportionately from the higher
educated sector of society and are massively under-represented among
the lowest educational strata where their support is 66 percentage points
below the general population in Milan. In terms of occupation, the
Ecologists draw most disproportionately from the professionals with
20 per cent of their support coming from that sector which only makes
up 2 per cent of the overall popUlation. The next most over-represented
sectors are the students and the white-collar occupations. In c0!1trast
the group that is most under-represented among Ecologists is clearly
the unemployed. Next most under-represented is the blue-collar sectors.
Milan Ecologists appear to be young employed white-collar or professionals
who are well educated and predominantly male. It is interesting that in
the Italian case, men predominate. This perhaps reinforces the import-
ance of being sensitive to variations in different national contexts.
The comparison of social support for New Populist and New Poli-
tics parties across Western Europe allows us to draw some cautious
conclusions. Taking a broad sweep we can paint some similarities across
these two constituencies in different countries. We can, with confi-
dence, conclude that there is a social constituency that appears to at-
tracted to both the New Populists and the New Politics parties regardless
of national variations. The young, male and private sector employed
are drawn rightwards to the New Populists while the young female
public-sector employees are drawn across the other side of the spec-
trum to the New Politics. However, it is necessary to be sensitive to
some pertinent national variations. Despite these, it is clear that both
types of parties do have a semblance of stability and predictability in
those that support them. This is important because it means that they
both have the opportunity to be more~than 'flash' protest parties.
6.5 CONCLUSION
Looking at the electoral data from Sweden, shows that there is a pat-
tern to the support for New Politics and New Populist parties. Despite
occupying opposite ends of the political spectrum, a party of the new
left and a party of the populist right derive their electoral support from
constituencies that are, in some ways, similar and in others symmetri-
cal. Just examining basic social characteristics of the supporters dem-
onstrates this. The data presented in this chapter allows us to draw
two specific conclusions. The first is that the Green Party and New
Democracy have clearly identifiable constituencies. Simply taking the
minimal criteria that if the electorate of a party clearly draws from
particular social groups, we can see that both parties have distinct
constituencies with identifiable demographic features. This allows us
to conclude that the parties are not 'flash' parties expressing only tem-
porary dissatisfaction. The second conclusion that we can draw from
the data is that there is a symmetry between New Politics and New
Populist support in Sweden. When the Greens draw disproportionately
from the well-educated, public sector women in the electorate, New
Democracy pulls in the less well-educated, private sector men. In short,
there is a complementary relationship between the two constituencies.
Throwing the net a little wider, the example of the Swedish elector-
ate lets us capture a broader picture. Sweden offers an example of
much that is typical of West European electorates, as can be seen from
the comparative cases. The major established parties are losing ground
to small, but not insignificant new parties which have come up, cap-
tured constituencies, and catapulted themselves into what were pre-
viously 'frozen' party systems. These parties appear both on the left
and the right of the political spectrum but are united by their status as
contemporary protest parties. Although their constituencies are small,
their significance lies in the fact that they are indicators of a large
scale shift in Western Europe with dealigning disgruntled electorates.
Tracing the contours of support for New Politics and New Populist
parties allows us to map the wider constituencies of protest in West-
ern Europe.
7 Tracing the Contours and
Mapping the Future
Tracing the lines of parliamentary protest in the contemporary Swed-
ish party system reveals a strong symmetry. New Democracy and the
Green Party show themselves to be mirror images of each other in
terms of elite beliefs and actions, party organisation and electoral base.
The symmetry extends beyond the Swedish case, because the New
Populism and the New Politics are manifesting themselves as parties
in many other West European polities. The patterning of protest par-
ties is a reflection of common roots. The New Politics and the New
Populism are telling indicators of the decline of the postwar settle-
ment. They stand as testimony to a profound shift in the tectonic plates
of West European politics. This is why the symmetry is the rationale
for the comparison being made throughout this book.
After presenting a review of the main findings and themes of this
book, this concluding chapter presents a discussion of the skewed sym-
metry between the New Politics and the New Populism. Studying two
small parties in Sweden is not merely a matter of idiosyncratic interest.
From the research cases presented, applications can be made to the
wider Swedish party system, and beyond this to a cross-national con-
text.
The present is rooted in the past. Those factors presenting them-
selves as novel are rarely without deeper historical roots, and frequently
are not without precedent - albeit in slightly different forms. This book,
in using the word 'New', is subject to the criticism that what is pre-
sented as 'New' is neither entirely without precedent nor can it exist
in its present form long enough without, by definition, becoming 'Old'.
The terminology is here used in a very specific sense.
Taking the terms used by Political Science to describe and encapsu-
late the scope and sources of the wave of Green and alternative left-
leaning parties, the same prefix has been applied to the current wave
of right-wing populist protest, in order to stress the similarities with
the New Politics. Those similarities extend· across two related dimen-
sions. The first is a shared basis in the social, economic and political
changes in Western Europe that have taken place in the past two dec-
ades. The second element derives from their common basis. In defining
177
themselves in opposition to the same circumstances, both ideologies

overlap in their critiques of contemporary political systems. Both fo-
cus on the extension of the state and the resultant bureaucratisation of
life as major problems. Although for different reasons, both critiques
contain within them the idea of the corruption of society and of a
moral decline. The New Politics sees the over-riding goals of con-
sumerism as having occluded the natural relationship of individuals
with each other and with the natural environment. The New Populists
see the growing dependence of individuals on the state as leading to a
reduction of a sense of individual capacity and duty.
The past which roots the 'New' Protest parties is the postwar settle-
ment. The consensus of the postwar years has been rooted in social
democracy, corporatist political structures, Keynesian tenets of econ-
omic demand management and a developed welfare state as a middle
way between capitalism and communism. With growing economic
impotence, escalating fiscal crises, new class constellations and dom-
estic electoral dissent, the settlement has begun to come apart in the
past two decades. The sources of these changes can be traced to the
economic crises of the mid-1970s. As the consensus of the settlement
has come apart, the 'New' Protest parties have come together.
The element of protest is unmistakable in the ideologies and actions
of the 'New' Protest parties. They have defined themselves in opposi-
tion to the ancien regime. They have constructed ideologies counterposing
themselves to the functioning of the polities in which they find them-
selves. They have structured their organisations and operations in con-
trast to the existing political parties. The rejection of class-based politics
has lead the New Politics parties to embrace a holistic, inclusive ideol-
ogy and the New Populists to trace the lines around the beneficiaries
of old politics and to say that they represent those not represented -
the ordinary, the mainstream. Although they attach very different mean-
ings, both ideologies, in rejecting class-based politics, aim to represent
'the people'. The New Politics offers an inclusive definition of 'the
people' while the New Populism frames its definition in exclusionary
terms. The rejection of the bureaucratic model of party organisation
has led the New Politics to a party form that is decentralised and
leadership-averse, while the New Populists have developed a leadership-
dependent, centralised party structure.
Despite their own inclinations and assertions, both types of parties
have failed to ideologically transcend the left-right divide. The New
Politics is clearly left-leaning while the New Populism favours the right.
The New Populism is recognisably neo-liberal in economic terms, favour-
Tracing the Contours and Mapping the Future 179
ing the market and stressing liberty. In contrast, the New Politics favours
the state over the market and places an emphasis upon equality. There
is an embedded belief in the market and the state as, respectively, the
appropriate sites of conflict resolution for New Populism and the New
Politics. Such lines of demarcation have more tenacity than they would
have us believe. To say that there is some ambiguity in the leftism of
the New Politics and the rightism of the New Populists would be to
ignore the intrinsic approximation that occurs in any use of the terms
left and right. The ideological cleavages of industrial society have not
yet been dispatched to irrelevance. Indeed, it is the very applicability
of the labels of left and right that allows us to make some important
comparisons, contrasts and conclusions about these two types of 'New'
Protest party.
An examination of the transformation that has taken place in Western

Europe in the past two decades makes it clear that the 'New' Protest
parties emerge out of these changes. The development of comprehen-
sive welfare states embedded in the social and political structures of
the countries has changed the nature of politics and serves as catalyst
for the 'New' Protestors. The antipathy of both the 'New' Protest par-
ties to bureaucracy derives from the perceived distended nature of the
current welfare state.
The 'New' Protest parties are not directly the function of economic
or social deprivation. These parties are strongest in countries which
have managed to successfully transmute the postwar political settle-
ment into stable and secure economic performance. Within these countries,
the constituencies of neither type of party constitute the 'underclass'
or the economically aggrieved. While the New Politics draws on the
direct beneficiaries of the postwar settlement - the well-educated, the
public sector employee - the New Populism draws on the benefici-
aries of the economic stability and growth, as it appeals to, the young
private-sector workers.
While the oil shocks of the 1970s were the dramatic cause of econ-
omic change, the gradual transformation of industrial economies to
postindustrial economies was their sleeping partner. The effects of
postindustrialism have been no less dramatic and no less profound.
Technological innovation restructured not only the mechanics of West
European economies, but also changed the lives of those who manned
the machinery. It has undermined existing class alliances, created new
classes, and forced the public to conceive of class in new ways. Although
the supporters of both the New Politics and New Populist parties have
clearly identifiable demographic characteristics this is in spite of, rather
than because of, the message of the parties. Both parties have made
great play of drawing across the social and political spectrum. This
may have an element of electoral opportunism, but it has its roots in
recognising that the stable parties of the future will be those that define
themselves in terms other than those of class.
On the back of the postwar settlement came the political consensus
that was etched into many party systems. The stability and predict-
ability of voting behaviour and of elite behaviour meant, in practice,
that a small number of established parties had a monopoly of control
over governments, policies and political agendas. It is against this that
the 'New' Protest parties are reacting. They are protesting the 'cartel-
isation' of party systems. Through their beliefs and through their ac-
tions they seek to challenge what they perceive as a cosy consensus
that has failed to meet the needs of a Western Europe in transition.
The tension lies between the perceived 'closing down' of normal poli-
tics at the same time as major social, political and economic crises
place increased demands on these systems.
When we examined the structural constraints on the mobilisation of
the 'New' Protest parties we found that, at an aggregate level, the
ability to predict levels of mobilisation was far stronger with the other
socioeconomic and political factors than with the openness of political
systems variable. To put this another way: the type of party matters.
The success of the New Politics and the New Populism is not simply
in those countries where the political structures make it easier for any
new party to mobilise. It is an important condition, but only in en-
abling the forces that are caused by other factors.
The entry of the 'New' Protest parties into West European party
systems therefore indicates not only a transformation of party systems
with the addition of new parties. Their presence is also an indicator
of, and a reaction to, the transformation of the dominant models of
parties in the systems. The 'New' Protest parties are indicators of the
decline in the mass party model and arise as a protest against a poten-
tial new constellation of 'cartelised' parties.
The comparative analysis carried out in the early part of this book
indicates that Sweden serves as an excellent test case for examining
the New Populism and the New Politics. The arrival of the Green Party
and New Democracy in the Riksdag in a period of three years, at the
same time as the country seems to experiencing important political,
economic and social transformations, allows us to compare the differ-

ent paths followed by the two parties. The fact that Sweden has been
seen by many observers as representing the postwar settlement par
excellence, is further justification of using it as a case. If the 'New'
Protest parties are a function of the fate of the postwar settlement and
its demise, then we can expect to find the strongest cases in the country
with one of the most enduring social and political settlements.
Throughout the description of the 'New' Protest parties and the Swedish
Green Party and New Democracy, there has been an attempt to present
a certain conceptual balance. This reflects the argument that there is
not a random relationship between them: because they draw from the
same sources, there exist important similarities. It is those lines of
correspondence that initially alert us to the utility of a comparison
between the two parties.
The similarities lie in how the two parties have self-consciously adopted
an ideology, organisational form and elite style that is designed to set
them apart from the established parties and from the party system in
general. They have both drawn disproportionately from a young dealigned
electoral base. In many cases they critique the same features: exces-
sive bureaucracy, an over-developed state and a falling back on old
lines of thinking when new thoughts are needed. Their elites tend to
be differentiated in much the same way from each other - the pragma-
tists and the fundamentalists - despite very different programmatic
orientations.
Despite these core similarities, we have seen how the New Politics
is distinctively left-leaning while the New Populism is right-wing. This
illustrates that they provide very different solutions to the same prob-
lems that they perceive. They provide different answers to the same
questions. Where they do diverge they usually do so along symmetri-
cal lines. What is remarkable is how symmetrical they appear to be
along the lines we have analysed. New Democracy represent a right-
wing, exclusive version of anti-system politics, while the New Politics
presents a left-wing inclusive version. Where the Green Party adopts a
leadership-averse, decentralised party organisation, New Democracy form
one that celebrates leadership and is strongly centralised. Where New
Democracy has been formed as the result of top-down actions of pol-
itical entrepreneurs, the Green Party has built itself up from the social
movement sector. Where the Green voters are disproportionately pub-
lic-sector employed, female and well-educated, New Democracy voters
are disproportionately private-sector employed, male and draw from a
less well educated strata.
If the two newest Swedish parties were unrelated phenomena, we

could reasonably expect to find a randomness in any comparison we
choose to make. That we find a systematic relationship in such com-
parisons indicates that New Democracy and the Green Party have the
roots in the same sources. They are both protest parties that emerge as
a result of broad social, economic and political changes. Hence they
are here termed the 'New' Protest parties. They are not simply short-
lived protest parties used randomly by discontented voters to pass on
a message of political chagrin to major parties. They are rather mani-
festations of deep-seated structural dislocation that has occurred in West-
ern Europe with the decline of the postwar settlement.
One clear conclusion that can be drawn from this book is that ideol-
ogy matters. We have consistently seen that the parties' ideologies are
responses to the conditions in which they find themselves. Consequently
their ideological basis is not merely a tool with which elites justify
their actions. With the construction of party organisation, both parties
have attempted to embed their ideologies in an institutional form. The
reason why the Green Party chose a decentralised leadership-averse
form despite the problems thus engendered, is because it exemplifies
the very reason for the party's existence: to challenge the hegemony
of the existing forms of party organisation. New Democracy was not
disadvantaged by its organisation, but it was still self-consciously con-
structed to reflect their ideology and to reject politics as usual.
The same is broadly true of the actions of the elites. Both parties
had fundamentalist tendencies which stressed the need for ideological
purity and which emphasised this over the effectiveness of the party.
The split between the pragmatists and the fundamentalists is an illus-
tration of the necessary tension in the 'New' Protest parties between
those who stress the anti-system element of being an anti-system party
and those who stress the party element. The Green Party has had to
defer to the fundamentalist tendency to a greater degree than has New
Democracy. To suppress the aims of the fundamentalist tendency would
have been to subvert the purpose of the party: it would have been a
rejection of the inclusiveness of the New Politics ideology. This placed
it at a disadvantage compared to New Democracy. However the
difficulties of leadership succession in New Democracy have shown
that such advantages are not enough to counteract the essential tension
within the party. The fact that both parties have been pushed in the
same direction - towards leadership and centralisation - in recent party

reorganisations illustrates that the Green Party has been pushed away
from its basis and New Democracy has been pushed towards it by
systemic pressures.
The reason that ideology matters is because it affects other factors
that matter. To survive a party needs activists, a constituency and an
organisation. Both parties have been shown to have a core constitu-
ency. Both parties have a group of activists symmetrically divided be-
tween fundamentalists and pragmatists. The organisation of the parties
does diverge in important ways. While parties need to form and sur-
vive in the short term, for longevity a party needs to institutionalise.
For the institutionalisation to be effective, it needs to reflect the de-
mands of the context in which it is designed to operate. Thus parties
that are protest parties are at an inherent disadvantage because their
basis is in challenging the context. What this book reveals is that this
is potentially more disadvantageous for protest parties of the left than
for those of the right.
Both New Democracy and the Green Party have identifiable con-
stituencies. While neither has a particularly wide base of support, both
have the support of distinct minorities. It is in the nature of the elite
belief and actions and the organisational forms adopted by the parties,
that we can see the constraints in action. The experiences of the Swedish
Greens shows that even though the dominant coalition within the party
was pragmatist, in order to maintain their status as an anti-system party
and to secure the loyalty of the elites an organisational form and style
of operation was adopted that minimised their effectiveness within the
party system. Initially, New Democracy maintained its status as an out-
sider and yet maximised its effectiveness. Being a party that was hyper-
centralised and leadership-dependent both looked alternative and enhanced
effectiveness within the system. The experience of the Green Party
demonstrates the structural constraints that exist for the New Politics,
while the circumstances of New Democracy illustrates the comparative
advantage of the New Populism in the initial stages of party formation.
There are implications that can be drawn from this conclusion, one
normative and one speculative. The first is premised on representation
as the essence of liberal democracy. That representation has to have
an equal opportunity to be manifested, if such systems are to be truly
democratic. If left protest is disadvantaged compared to right protest,
then this casts a shadow over the normative justifications of liberal
democracy. It means quite simply that all things being equal, some
ideologies are more equal than others.
That liberal democracy structurally disadvantages certain groups or

ideas is hardly a novel notion in political theory. Of the major schools
of contemporary political thought, pluralism almost alone maintains
the neutrality of the structures of liberal democracy. Elitists have ar-
gued that, at worst, a power elite dominates modern society, and, at
best, the elite is broadly representative but has a distinctively upper-
class accent (Mills, 1956; Schattschneider, 1975). The Marxists and
neo-Marxists have argued that either elites self-consciously follow the
wishes of the class from which they are drawn (Miliband, 1969) or
that the structures of capitalist society compel whoever governs to do
so in the name of the capitalists (Poulantzas, 1973). In the face of
this, even pluralists have revised their analysis of liberal democracy to
argue that, although the polity is essentially pluralist, business is as-
sured that its aims will not be fundamentally challenged (Lindblom,
1977). The question that this book raises is whether the disadvantages
of the left version of the 'New' Protest parties is part of a larger struc-
tural disadvantage.
The wave of New Politics parties that has swept across Western
Europe in the past two decades has reached its ·zenith. The nature of
the New Politics ideology and the organisational forms and elite be-
haviour that it gives rise to have limited the effectiveness of these new
parties. The west German Greens failed to retain their parliamentary
status in the 1990 Election. The French Green parties did not benefit
as much as was hoped from the dissatisfaction expressed against the
ruling Socialist Party in the 1993 elections. The British Greens failed
to live up to the promise of their 15 per cent share of the vote in the
1989 European Elections in the 1992 General Election. In the face of
this, the Swedish Greens' failure to maintain their position in the Riksdag
appears to reflect the implications of the structural problems that this
book highlights for all New Politics parties.
In addition to the 'withering' of the Green wave, there appears to
have been a decline in the fortunes of the left in general. The major
social democratic and labour parties of Western Europe have been elec-
torallosers in the past decade in Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy,
Norway, the Netherlands and, of course, Sweden. In Spain and France,
attempts by Socialist parties in government to adhere too closely to
left-wing programmes have been constrained by electoral and economic
circumstances. The fate of social democratic governments in recent
years has led some commentators to question the health of social democ-
racy in the present political and economic context (Piven, 1992). Those
commentators who suggest a programmatic renaissance for the left clearly
identify the concerns of the New Politics as the pole around which
such changes should revolve (Paterson, 1993).
With the electoral success of the New Populist parties described here
in Chapter 2, the fate of the right seems far more sanguine. With the
rise of the Leagues in Italy, the Republicans in Germany, the Norwe-
gian and Danish Progress Parties and the Belgian Flemish Bloc, the
initial success of New Democracy seems less surprising. At the same
time as these parties of the far right are entering the parliamentary
fray, the more established parties in many West European countries
seem to have settled themselves in for extended periods of govern-
ment. This is particularly true of the German Christian Democrats and
the British Conservative Party. Questions need to be asked about the
effects of the New Populism in these two countries. The German case
throws up the answer of the rising strength of the Republicans. The
British case is somewhat different.
In the United Kingdom, the situation for political parties is substan-
tively different from the Swedish case and from other West European
cases because of the predominance' Of a two-party system. The major
parties remain largely hegemonic in the parliamentary arena and, with
the failure of the Social Democratic Party challenge in the 1980s, the
category of 'other' parties remains the category of political irrelevance.
The Conservative Party, on the other hand, has successfully secured
its position as the dominant party in the last four general elections.
Here the New Populism has perhaps found its articulation not through
a new party but through recreating an old party.
The link has been made between the ideology of Thatcherism and
popUlism by many observers. O'Shea describes the novelty of Thatcherism
as being in its populist element (O'Shea, 1984, pp. 22-3). Jessop et
ai. refine the meaning of Thatcherite populism to take note of the fact
that it amounted to a counter-strategy rather than a method of political
mobilisation. In other words, Thatcherism invoked the popular basis
of its ideological appeal as a method of outflanking and debunking
opposition from within the Conservative Party and from without. They
conclude that 'Thatcherite populism is indeed predominantly plebiscitary
and ventriloquist in character: Thatcher speaks in the name of the peo-
ple against all sectional interests including those in her own party'
(Jessop et ai., 1988, p. 83). This critique amalgamates into the notion
popular among some British commentators that Thatcherism amounted
to a form of 'authoritarian populism' (Hall and Jacques, 1983; Jessop
et ai., 1988; Hall, 1988; Gamble, 1988). It is not only those on the left
that have noted the popUlist nature of Thatcherism. Thatcher's most
important Chancellor has described her ideology as containing 'a dash

of populism' (Lawson, 1992, p. 64).1
In Italy, the implosion of the political system in the 1990s presented
a unique opportunity for New Populist forces to come to power. The
combination of the more established Northern League and Silvio
Berlusconi's Forza Italia proved a potent one. It meant that a govern-
ment with clear New Populist credentials came to power. While much
attention was focused on the participation of the neo-fascist National
Alliance (formerly the MSI), this book shows that the real novelty of
the government lay in its New PopUlism. Here lay the real electoral
roots of the party - rather than a revived form of fascism. The for-
tunes of the Italian government were atypical of the New populism in
general because, in most other cases, it is mobilised at the peripheries
of the party system. The Italian case presents an extreme example of
how far New Populist forces can use their anti-system credentials to
become, ultimately, part of government.
In most other cases, the picture resembles that of Sweden. The de-
velopment of New Democracy and the Green Party represent an im-
portant step in the transformation of the old model of a stable Social
Democratic-dominated five-party system. The Swedish Election of 1991
and the victory of the right reflects critical changes in the social and
political fabric of that country. The 'New' Protest parties are a part
and a reflection of those transmutations. While Sweden may have veered
back towards the left in the 1994 Election, the protest parties retain
their position within the party system. The part that they will play in
the future of the party system is determined by the way in which they
develop as new parties.
The apparent 'great moving right show' of party politics in Western
Europe in the past two decades does not in itself indicate anything
about structural biases within liberal democracies. What it does signify
is that for a revival of both left and right to take place, the protesta-
tions of the New Politics adherents and of the New Populists will have
to be included in the process. The structural problems of incorporating
New Politics ideology either in a new party or in a reconstituted old
party mean that re-orientation is easier for the right than for the left.
Appendix: List of
interviewees
Miljopartiet de Grona (Green Party)
Dahlstrom, Kjell (Riksdag Deputy) 12 June 1992, Stockholm
Franzen, Elisabet (Riksdag Deputy) 30 June 1992, Goteborg
Frick, Carl (Riksdag Deputy) 12 June 1992, Stockholm
Goes, Eva (Riksdag Deputy) 15 July 1992, Stockholm
Horn af Rantzien, Anna (Riksdag Deputy) 11 June 1992, Stockholm
Nilsson, Kaj (Riksdag Deputy) 23 July 1992, Angelholm
Ottosson, Roy (Riksdag Deputy) 28 July 1992, Sundsvall
Roxbergh, Claes (Riksdag Deputy) 23 June 1992, GOteborg
Samuelsson, Marianne (Riksdag Deputy) 15 July 1992, Stockholm and 15
December 1994 Stockholm
SkAnberg, Krister (Riksdag Deputy) 5 June 1992, Stockholm
Vall, Fifin (Executive Member of Green Youth) 23 June 1992, Goteborg
Ny Demokrati (New Democracy)
Bergdahl, Leif (Riksdag Deputy) 3 June 1992, Telephone Interview
Bouvin, John (Riksdag Deputy) 30 July 1992, Kungsbacka
Colli ander, Harriet (Riksdag Deputy) 22 July 1992, Stockholm
Franzen, Vivienne (Riksdag Deputy) 15 December 1994, Stockholm
Holck-Bergman, John (Executive Member) 4 June 1992, Stockholm
Jenevall, Bo (Riksdag Deputy) 12 June 1992, Stockholm
Karlsson, Bert (Riksdag Deputy) 30 July 1992, Kungsbacka
Kihlberg, Stefan (Riksdag Deputy) 11 June 1992, Stockholm and 13 Decem-
ber 1994, Goteborg
Kling, Peter (Riksdag Deputy) 30 July 1992, Kungsbacka
Moquist, Lars (Riksdag Deputy) 3 June 1992, Stockholm
Rhenman, Gustav (Executive Member) 4 June 1992, Stockholm
SOderberg, Sten (Riksdag Deputy) 11 July 1992, Stockholm
Sorensen, Anne (Riksdag Deputy) 5 June 1992, Stockholm
Strid-Jansson, Arne (Riksdag Deputy) 28 July 1992, Hudiksvall
Strid-Jansson, Laila (Riksdag Deputy) 28 July 1992, Hudiksvall
Voors, Peter (Executive Member) 4 June 1992, Stockholm
Wachtmeister, Ian (Riksdag Deputy) 4 June 1992, Stockholm
Zaar, Claus (Riksdag Deputy) 3 June 1992, Stockholm
187
Notes and References
1 Introduction
1. For the best overviews of Swedish politics in English, apart from those
works mentioned above, see Milner (1989), Elder, Thomas and Arter (1988)
and Esping-Andersen (1985) for Swedish politics within the wider
Scandinavian context.
2. In this work the party is referred to as the Green Party because this is the
translation that the party itself uses in its own materials.
3. The Christian Democrats are not a new party because they were formed
in 1964. They did have one Riksdag member in the 1985 Election as the
result of an alliance with the Centre Party.
1. For a good critique of the new social movement approach, see Riidig (1990a).
2. These justifications do not however relate to the self-placement on left-
right scales in surveys by Green activists. Left and right, like all political
concepts, must have some core that marks them as concepts rather than as
mere labels. Claiming to be left-wing but favouring right-wing policies
does not make the respondent left-wing. We need to examine substantive
policy positions derived from fundamental beliefs and to then place those
beliefs on the left or right.
3. There is an important differentiation in Green political thought between
the more radical versions which stress bio-centrism, thus seeing humans
as having no greater rights than any other life forms (Devall and Ses-
sions, 1985), and those versions that still maintain the centrality of hu-
man life (Bookchin, 1990).
4. For other studies of Green activists, see Lucardie, van der Knoop, van
Schuur and Voerman (1991) for the Dutch case; Prendiville and Chafer
(1990) on the French Greens; Kitschelt (1989) on the German and Bel-
gian Green parties; Kitschelt and Hellemans (1990) on the Belgian Green
parties.
5. With this tide of political activity has also come a wave of academic
studies. Much of the academic coverage has been of an explicitly com-
parative nature. There have been a number of special issues of prominent
journals devoted solely to this issue. In West European Politics, Vol. 11,
No.2, 1988 an issue was devoted to right-wing extremism. More recently
the European Journal of Political Studies, Vol. 22, No.1, 1992 and Par-
liamentary Affairs, Vol. 45, No.3, 1992 have followed suit. For compara-
tive books, consult Merkl and Weinberg (1993), Hainsworth (1992a), Cheles,
Ferguson and Vaughan (1991) and Ford (1992).
6. See Ford (1992) for an overview of the growth of racism and xenophobia
in its extra-parliamentary and extra-legal forms.
188
Notes and References 189
7. The author is grateful to B.D. Graham for this point.

8. Their greatest successes have so far been in Baden-Wiirttemberg where
the Republicans took 11 per cent of the vote and 15 seats and the DVU
took 6 per cent of the vote and 5 seats in Schleswig-Holstein in 1992
(Financial Times, April 6, 1992, p. 1; Financial Times, April 7, 1992, p. I).
In a state election in Bremen, the DVU gained 15 per cent of the vote
and six seats in the parliament in 1991 (Financial Times, October I, 1991,
p. 22).
9. For a recent overview, both theoretical and empirical, of racist violence
in Europe, see Tore Bjorgo and Rob Witte (1993).
3 The Decline of the Postwar Settlement and the Rise of the 'New'
Protest Parties
1. Esping-Andersen deals with nations outside the purview of this book and
does not include all the countries with which we are dealing.
2. Katz and Mair suggest that the countries most likely to see cartel parties
are Austria, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Norway and Sweden (Katz and
Mair, 1995, p. 17).
3. The most obvious example recently would be the SPD's co-operation in
amending the Basic Law to change the rules regarding immigration (Fi-
nancial Times, May 27, 1993, p. 1).
4. Pontusson ties social democracy to 'fordism' and therefore sees transi-
tions in the latter explaining problems for the former in Sweden (Pontusson,
1991).
4 A Tendency to DitTer: New Party Elites
1. A full list of interviewees is included in the Appendix.

2. The term 'fundamentalist' is employed here rather than Kitschelt's own
term ('ideologues') because the former is less value-laden than the latter
and can therefore more easily be applied to very different types of party
but retain the same conceptual meaning.
3. At the time of the interviews Wachtmeister was still the leader of the Party
although he stepped down from this position in February 1994. The im-
portance of both Karlsson and Wachtmeister in the formation of the Party
meant that Karlsson was an extremely visible member of the party and by
virtue of his prominence occupied a de facto position of leadership.
4. All unattributed quotations are taken from the interviews with activists.
5. In Sweden, parties put forward a numbered list of candidates at the national
level for elections and candidates are then elected proportionally from
that list.
6. It should be borne in mind that the Greens were evaluating New Democ-
racy after one year in the Riksdag (1991-1992).
7. Two of the ex-New Democrats joined a very small party (Liberalapartiet)
while one other joined the Moderates.
190 Notes and References
5 Organising Anti-Parties
1. Some of the data presented in the section below has previously been pre-
sented in a co-authored paper with Anders Widfeldt at the University of
Goteborg (Taggart and Widfeldt, 1993). The author wishes to thank his
co-author for help with this and for making an invaluable contribution to
the thinking represented in this chapter.
2. In the end there were three women elected out of the group of twenty-
five. This was the lowest percentage of female parliamentary representa-
tion in any party in Sweden for twenty years (see Sainsbury, 1993, p. 275).
3. The Social Democrat Congress meets every four years while the Left Party,
Liberal Party, and Moderate Party Congresses meet every two years. Only
the Center Party Congress meets with the same regularity as the Green
Party (Pierre and Widfeldt, 1992, pp. 814-17).
4. A comparison may be drawn with the 'Alliance' of the Social Democratic
Party and the Liberal Party in the United Kingdom which contested the
1987 election with two leaders, David Owen and David Steel (Rasmussen,
1985).
6 Constituencies of Protest
I. The author is grateful to Soren Holmberg and Mikael Gilljam for allow-
ing use of the data from this study for this chapter.
2. Those over the age of 80 were excluded from the voter survey and are
therefore not represented in these figures.
3. The 'Other' category is excluded from the average because the number of
very small parties included means that we cannot assume that the same
parties are being voted for even when the voter votes for 'Other' in both
local and national elections.
4. For Germany 11.8 per cent of those intending to vote Green had abstained
at the previous national election, while the figures for France and Great
Britain were 26.5 and 32.5 per cent respectively (Riidig and Franklin,
1992, p. 47).
7 Tracing the Contours and Mapping the Future
I. In addition to this link between populism and Thatcherism, Philip Norton

has identified a group of Conservative MPs as 'Populists' (Norton, 1990a,
1990b, 1993). Norton describes the category as referring to those who
represent the true ideological nature of the British electorate with a right-
wing orientation on law and order issues while retained a left-wing de-
fence of social policies.
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Index
Alber, Jens, 22 Finland, Rural Party, 37, 41, 42
Austria France
Austrian Freedom Party (FPG) , Greens, 106-7, 146, 173, 184
37, 42, 69-70, 104 Generation Ecologie, 106
Austrian People's Party (GVP), National Front, 36, 37, 38, 42,
63-4 117, 144-5, 171
Greens, 28, 30 Socialist Party, 106
party system and cartelisation, party system, 65
63-4
Socialist Party of Austria (SPG), Gahrton, Per, 4, 130
13, 63-4, 78 Germany (Federal Republic)
Christian Democratic Party
Belgium (CDU), 185
Agalev/Ecol0, 28, 30, 106, 146, Free Democratic Party (FDP), 64
173 German People's Party (DVU),
Flemish Bloc, 36, 42 35,42
Beller, Dennis, 84 Green Party, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30,
Belloni, Frank, 84 64,83,85, 105, 107, 145, 173,
184
Chemobyl,6 National Democratic Party
Consociationalism, 64 (NPD), 35, 42
Corporatism, 13, 14-15, 24 party system and cartelisation, 64
RepUblicans, 36, 37, 39-40, 42,
Denmark 102-4, 144, 170, 195
Green Party, 28, 30 Social Democratic Party (SPD),
party system and cartelisation, 65 13-14, 189n
Progress Party, 36, 37, 39, 40, Gillberg, Bjorn, 5
42, 65, 73, 116, 140, 143, Graham, B.D., 84
171-3 Greece, National Political Union
Social Democratic Party, 65 (EPEN), 35, 42
Socialist People's Party, 29, 30, Green Party (Miljopartiet de Grona)
107 (Sweden), 4-6, 8, 26, 30, 82,
Duverger, Maurice, 18, 116, 119, 180-5
124, 137 factionalism, 87-102, 107-9, 134
party organisation, 110-14,
Esping-Andersen, G",sta, 51-3, 63, 129-36, 138, 140-2, 147
78, 80 electoral base, 155-70
Extreme right, see under Neo- Green parties, see New Politics
fascism and New Populism
European Community/European Hine, David, 84
Union, 11
Ignazi, Piero, 35-6
Fascism, see under Neo-fascism Inglehart, Ronald, 20-1, 27
210
Index 211
Italy organisation of, 25-6

Christian Democrats, 63 and party system cartelisation,
Forzia Italia, 42, 186 65-7
Green Party, 173-4 and postindustrialism, 57-9
Italian Social Movement (MSI), and system openness, 70-1
35, 42, 186 and the welfare state, 51, 54
Lombard League/Northern New Populism, 2, 12, 17-18, 19,
Leagues, 34, 36, 38, 42, 60, 31-45,45-6, 177-86
73, 104-5, 117, 143-4, 170-1, anti-system, 32-5
186 defined, 32, 40
party system, 186 and economic strength, 60-1
Radical Party, 29, 30 electoral base, 38-40
factions, 83, 85-7
Karlsson, Bert, 6-8, 37, 88, 92, 94, ideology of, 32-36, 118-21
115, 123, 125-7, 129, 136, leadership in, 37-8, 120
137, 189n organisation of, 36-8, 143-5
Katz, Richard, 63, 117-18 and party system cartelisation,
Keynesianism, 13, 16-17, 24 65-6
Kitschelt, Herbert, 22, 23, 57, 62, and postindustrialism, 57
85-7, 112, 119, 146 and system openness, 68, 70
and the welfare state, 51, 53-4
Lipset, Seymour Martin, 18 New Protest parties, 2-3, 12, 18,
19-20,45-6,49-77, 177-86
Mair, Peter, 63, 117-18 electoral base, 148-76
Michels, Robert, 113-14, 119 factionalism, 82-109
organisation, 110-47
Neo-fascism, 2, 31, 35, 36, 38,41, New Right, 17
76 New social movements, 2, 11, 17,
Netherlands 21, 23
Green List, 66 Norway
Green Party, 66 Progress Party, 36, 37, 39, 42,
CP' 86, 36, 42 116, 140
New Democracy (Ny Demokrati) Socialist People's Party, 29, 30,
(Sweden), 6-9, 37, 38, 42, 82, 107
180-5
electoral base, 155-70 Panebianco, Angelo, 18-19, 102,
factionalism, 87-8, 90-102, 108, 110, 113-15, 136-8
107-9 Parties
party organisation, 110-13, factions, 83-7
121-9, 136-8, 140-2, 147 party systems, 1-3, 18-19
New Politics, 2, 12, 17-18, 19, party organisation, 113-21; cadre
20-31,45-6, 177-86 party, 18, 116, 120, 137; cartel
anti-system, 24, 28 party, 3-7, 117-18, 139-41,
defined, 22-3, 29 189n; catch-all party, 37, 63,
and economic strength, 60-2 116-17; mass party, 3,18,38,
electoral base, 26-9 116, 120, 137, 180
factions, 83, 85-7, 112 see also under individual parties
ideology of, 23-5, 118-21 Pempel, T.J., 63
leadership in, 120-1 Poguntke, Thomas, 23-4, 26, 145
212 Index
Populism, 32-3 Landsorganisationen (LO), 78, 79

see also New Populism Left Party (Viinsterpartiet), 3, 4,
Portugal, Christian Democratic 80, 98, 100-1, 133, 157
Party (PDC) , 35, 42 Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) , 3, 4,
postindustrialism, 55-9 80, 97, 122, 130, 133, 140,
postmaterialism, 20-1, 27 167
postwar settlement, 1, 9, 13-18, 34, Moderate Unity Party (Moderate
47,49-77, 178-82 Samlingspartiet), 3, 4, 8, 80,
124, 140, 153, 158, 164, 167
Rokkan, Stein, 18 nuclear power referendum, 4, 78
Rose, Richard, 83-4 parliament (Riksdag), 77
Rudig, Wolfgang, 21 party system, 77, 139, 149-52
postindustrialism, 79
Sartori, Giovanni, 24 postwar settlement, 77-81
Social democracy, 3, 13, 24 Social Democratic Party
Spain, National Front, 35, 42 (Socialdemokratiska
Sweden, 3-9 Arbetarparti), 3, 4, 8, 63, 78,
antinuclear movement, 4, 95 79-80, 98, 100-1, 139,
Basic (Saltsjobaden) Agreement, 149-50, 152-3, 157, 160, 167
77-8 taxation issue, 7
Centre Party (Centerpartiet), 3, 4, Wage-Earners Funds, 78
78, 80, 123, 133, 140, 157, 167 welfare state, 78-9
Christian Democratic Society Switzerland
Party (Kristdemokratiska Automobilist Party, 36, 42
samhiillspartiet), 8, 139-40, Green Party, 146
152, 158, 167, 188n Ticino League, 37, 40, 42
corporatism, 78-9
elections, 149-52 United Kingdom
1982 election, 5 British National Party, 36, 42
1985 election, 5 Conservative Party, 185
1988 election, 5-6, 154 Green Party, 26, 29, 30, 106,
1991 election, 8, 79, 97, 152-4 146, 173, 184
1994 election, 79-80, 152, 154 National Front, 36, 42
environmental movement, 4-5, 95
European Communi ty/European Wachtmeister, Ian, 6-8, 37, 88, 94,
Union, 7, 8, 79, 152 123, 125-9, 136, 137, 189n
immigration issue, 7 welfare state, 13, 15-16, 24, 51-4,
Keynesianism, 78-9 114

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THE NEW POPULISM AND THE NEW POLITICS

The New Populism and

First published in the United States of America 1996 by

Brighton PAUL TAGGART

forts to maintain their positions of prominence. Spinning out of this

Swedish politics has always stood as a by-word for consensus. With

On September 19, 1981 a Green Party was founded at Orebro. It

It was no coincidence that the props were ordinary, brightly-coloured

OUTLINE OF THE BOOK

Chapter 2 builds up definitions of New Populism and New Politics

argument is developed to suggest that both parties have evolved dif-

2.2 FROM THE PILLARS TO THE •POST' : THE DECLINE OF

Table 2.1 Number of years of cabinet membership of social democratic

Country Party Years %

Sources: Blondel and Muller-Rommel (1988); Damgaard (1992).

find terms like 'Butskellism' used to characterise the inter-party con-

Table 2.2 Social welfare expenditures as percentage of total government

Country 1960 1970 1980 1985

British Labour government attempting some ill-fated incomes policy

2.3 PARTY FORMS AND THE FORMING OF PARTIES

Although Maurice Duverger, in his seminal work on political parties,

system distortions (Offe, 1985b; Habennas, 1976), but these distor-

2.4 NEW POLITICS: ON THE LEFf, AGAINST THE SYSTEM,

Another approach stresses the New Politics parties as the function

2.4.1 Defining the New Politics

The New Politics sees the consolidation of the bureaucratic-professional

like societal control of the economy and an emphasis upon egalitarian-

The inclusiveness of New Politics ideology has found its embodi-

2.4.1.3 Electoral Base

dimension is of crucial importance. It is also important for other the-

importance of youth as a variable (Rtidig and Franklin, 1992, p. 42).

Although the activists of New Politics parties seem to be drawn

Table 2.3 New Politics Parties in Western Europe

Country New Politics Party Best Year

Austria The Greens 4.8 (1986)

Sources: Mackie and Rose (1991); Muller-Rommel (1989); Kitschelt (1989);

2.5 NEW POPULISM: ON THE RIGHT, AGAINST THE

2.5.1 Defining New Populism

The practice of an ideology is always an important test of its efficacy.

of the postwar settlement in Western Europe. In this sense it is indeed

2.5.1.3 Electoral Base

1992b, p. 120). In terms of some basic demographic characteristics we

to 9 per cent in 1988. Similarly the Finnish Rural Party dropped to a

Austria Freedom Party (FPo) 23 (1994) I (1991)

New Populism New Politics

Figure 2.1 'New' Protest Party comparisons

but it is necessary to recognise the different character of the parlia-

form a type of political cartel. Finally we also examine the relative

3.2 LEVELS OF MOBILISATION

Table 3.1 Levels of New Politics mobilisation

Country Best Combined Vote' Year

Germany 8.3 1988

Netherlands 4.1 1989

3.3 TOWARDS A THEORY OF THE 'NEW' PROTEST PARTIES

Table 3.2 Levels of New Populist mobilisation

Country Best Vote I Year

Italy 8.7 1992

3.3.1 Welfare State