Politics and Society in Europe

1. Politics and Society in Europe Alistair Cole

2. Politics and Society in Europe • European politics are the politics of liberal democracy? In a formal sense, it is difficult to contest…. • The EU itself acts as a legal order that embeds democratic institutions in its member-states • The new accession states of 2004 and 2007 countries had each to meet strict criteria – the Copenhagen criteria – to be able to join in the European Union. • European liberal democracies are constitutional political regimes: i.e. that political processes are regularised by reference to respect for duly established rules and constitutional norms.

3. European political identity and globalisation • The EU itself acts as a legal order that embeds democratic institutions in its member-states – however much one might criticise the democratic deficit within the EU itself. • The new accession states of 2004 and 2007 countries had each to meet strict criteria – the Copenhagen criteria of 1993 – to be able to join in the European Union. • This provides a very good example of diffusion: of the imposition of norms of good practice and respect for human rights on members wanting to join the club. • EU a strongly normative agenda, as well as a market. • Values of human rights, good governance, anti-corruption, democracy, diversity… citizenship. • Framing as democracy – soutehrn Europe, CEE – or as markets and regulatory stability – UK, nordic states..

4. Comparative Politics • The nations considered in this course are, by and large, the nations comprising the EU. These countries are ‘most similar’ in that they belong to broadly the same family of political regimes and have intense interaction with each other. • These countries operate under very similar constraints, notably their membership of the European Union, which weighs in an increasingly important manner on each of them. • Comparative Politics: middle level analysis. Not really meta- narratives of power or domination • Middle level research objects: institutions, elites, parties, leadership, electorates, policy sectors…. • Generic, cross cutting themes such as Europeanisation. Operationalising new forms of comparative analysis less based on country as unit of analysis, more on variables.

5. Politics and Society • In all European Union countries, the ability of national governments to control policy-making has diminished, as a result of the growing influence of the EU over economic and financial policy, and – especially, as a result of globalisation of international economic and financial exchanges. • The countries of continental Europe each have their own political cultures/state traditions, which mediate the impact of globalised exchanges and norms. The country unit of analysis retains pertinence. Debates about convergence and national policy styles remain vitally important.

6. Cleavage-based approaches • Cleavages are social or value-based conflicts. The term cleavage structure refers to the main lines of political division within a society. • In their classic work, Lipset and Rokkan identify three main sources of division within European societies society: • Anticlericalism [Republic]/Church , from the French revolution and subsequent wave of anti-clericalism across Europe (eighteenth); • Centre-Periphery, from the imperfect process of state formation across Europe in the nineteenth century (19th century); • Social class, inherited from the industrial revolution and the conflict between capital and labour, which largely structured 20th century politics. • For Lipset and Rokkan most of the key cleavages in place in the 1960s were in place by the late nineteenth century; their thesis on the frozen character of cleavages remains very influential. Different countries can be characterised by the importance of one, or more than one cleavage – and this cleavage structure has had a very important effect in structuring the party system.

7. Cross-cutting cleavages • These cleavages could stand alone: where there is only one line of cleavage – the normal or residual social class one – then this acts as the fundamentally structuring element. • But other cleavages might cut across the class one, and be more pertinent politically; this can be the case of religion, for example, where religious behaviour is very closely associated with a conservative orientation in most countries, whatever social class one belongs to. • On the other hand, lower-level cleavages might be nested in higher order cleavages: thus, the centre-periphery cleavage – where minority nations resist the construction of a state – might strengthen divisions based on social class; especially if members of a minority community are also in an unfavourable socio-economic position. • Thus cleavages can be structuring; reinforcing or cross-cutting. • Remains seminal for considering contours of European party system

8. Tim Bale • Bale identifies nine key cleavages that structure politics in Europe today: in order of their appearance, these are: • Land-industry (18th century), representing the conflicting interests of the aristocracy and the emerging bourgeoisie… gradually victory of the bourgeoisie and creation of bourgeois parties • owner-worker, giving rise to the classic labour-capital division and to the birth of SD parties • urban-rural cleavages, especially in countries such as Norway where the urban middle classes were of foreign extraction and the rural areas were peopled by poor indigenous peasants (agrarian parties, today largely disappeared) • centre-periphery (regionalist/ minority nationalist parties) • church-state (clericalism/Christian democracay against anti-clerical parties) • Revolution-gradualism ( Social Democracy and Communist parties in 1917) • Democracy-totalitarianism (rise of fascists in 1930s) • modernism/post-materialism(environmental and quality of life issues, from 1960s onwards (Greens) • multiculturalism/homogeneity (far-right and populism)

9. Class as the main cleavage • The model of residual class-based politics has traditionally been given as that of Britain; this does not necessarily mean that class politics are more intense in Britain than elsewhere, but it does signify that class has usually been regarded as the most significant indicator pointing to political choice. • According to the findings of Butler and Stokes in the 1960s, at the height of the two party system, social class corresponded closely with political choice, with industrial workers largely favouring Labour over Conservatives (65/35), and non-manual strata overwhelmingly favouring the Conservatives (75-25). Indeed, class voting was taken for granted, so much so that all else was ‘embellishment and detail’. • Partisan and class dealignment: class-based voting in steep decline since 1974 and the boundaries between social classes are increasingly blurred • But class has been perceived to be important in British politics because there has been no other major source of division, such as religion or linguistic conflict (except in specific territories)

10. Class and intensity • The British model- class as the only significant source of identity/conflict - can be seen as the European exception. All other countries had rather more complicated cleavage structures; based notably on religion, on the rural/urban dichotomy, on regional identities, on the divisive role of language. But, even where other sources of political division exist, social class has usually - historically - performed an important role as well, with class differences often reinforcing other divisions, such as those seperating catholics and anti-clericals. • The impact of social class must also be assessed in terms on the intensity with which class sentiments are held and the degree of class conflict within a society. For example, whereas industrial workers constituted a majority of the population in Britain, they were never more than a geographically concentrated and resentful minority in France, with the result that industrial workers came to form a strong inward-looking sub-culture isolated from the mainstream of French society, which for several generations saw its salvation in the revolutionary appeal of the Communist party. Thus, to understand identity we need to observe issues of intensity.

11. Religion • The church-State cleavage and the role of religion • Opinion surveys throughout Western Europe have repeatedly shown that religion can have a significant impact upon how an individual perceives of political issues, and his or her role within the political system. Moreover, religion often - but not always – collides with social class to reinforce loyalties adopted by particular individuals. In Italy, for example, the industrial working class was traditionally been both anti-clerical (on account of the support of the Catholic Church for the existing social hierarchies) and left-wing (on account of the close connection of the Church with the former DCI).

12. Declining religosity • Religious identities come in all shapes and sizes. • In the context of European politics, the religious heritage has a central place and models of republican citizenship remained shaped by the history of conflict between Church and State (compare French Republicanism and British multi-culturalism, for example) There has been a decline in religiosity and also a declining capacity for the Church to intervene in politics. Gordon Smith: two levels of religious disengagement: 1). The Church no longer intervenes directly in politics, or, when it does so, it is defeated (e.g. divorce referendums in Italy in 1970s)… 2). Relationships between religious affiliations and voting choice begin to weaken. If the first level of religious disengagement is general, the religious identification is still the best indicator of voting behaviour: anti-clerical stance is correlated with atheism and a left-wing vote, while religious behaviour is linked to a rightwing vote. • New religious fervour?

13. The Staying Power of religion • the Church resists and remains active: Ireland, Italy in particular. In Poland, the Church has a vital symbolic role, symbolising resistance to subjugation by the atheistic Soviet Union • Role of militant Islam • Issues of integration and community: e.g. religious headscarves and the lay State

14. Communitarianism and minorities • The problem of immigrants can, in some senses, be seen as related to that of cultural minorities: in Germany, France, the UK notably, we might argue that first and second generation immigrants possess many of the same characteristics as more established cultural minorities: there is a tendency in these countries for immigrants to form a sub-culture which is defensive of its own members, and which can, in certain circumstances, become a target for a certain type of right-wing political appeal based on the dangers of immigration, and the preservation of national identity. • New evidence of resistance to Islam and diffusion of Islamic values in western societies: the case of Pym Fortyn in Netherlands a case in point.

15. Urban-Rural divide • The post-war period has witnessed a remarkably similar demographic movement in all European nations: a massive move away from the land to the towns and cities. In most European nations, under 5% of the population now works in agriculture (a figure which declines to under 1% in Britain, but which is slightly higher in new members such as Poland). • This inexorable movement - responding to the logic of industrialised and post-industrial capitalism - has provoked serious political crises in a number of European countries. • Survival of rural identities in many countries, sometimes taking a euro-sceptical form

16. Language and linguistic identity • The process of state building in Western Europe takes as its great reference point the French revolution of the late eighteenth century and the national unification movements of the nineteenth century. The process has continued in the twentieth century. • The role of language is important in several respects. There has generally been a coincidence of national state boundaries, and linguistic entities. In certain countries - such as France - the emergence of a strong central state was accompanied by a gradual suppression of all linguistic and regional identities; in this instance, the idea of nation was largely synonymous with that of the state itself. • In Germany, by contrast, the process of unification brought together German speakers previously dispersed through a wide range of separate states: the Federal character of German postwar Republic recognises the cultural and regional diversity of the German people.

17. Belgium: linguistic fracture • The case of Belgium is the most eloquent in terms of demonstrating the centrifugal effects of linguistic divisions • . • Belgium was created as an independent state in 1830… domination of the French-speaking Walloons in the south.. at the expense of the Dutch speaking Flemish, mainly in the north. In the course of the mid 20th century, the economic and linguistic balance began to shift: so that the downtrodden Flemish now became the majority of the population and the more dynamic economic community. • The only solution discovered to prevent the complete dissolution of the Belgian state: the policy of separate language communities (from 1963), to deal with issues of education and culture, for the different communities. • The language issue has had a profound impact in Belgium, to the extent of changing the party system and replacing Belgian-wide parties - e.g. Socialists, with specific parties for each community. Here: language has had the effect of a cleavage

18. Centre-periphery cleavages • The rise of minority nationalism has been one of the major developments in western European countries in the past twenty years… • In Spain, in particular, there has been a move to a form of asymmetrical federalism, where the three ‘nations’ – Catalonia, Basque Country and Galicia – are recognised as historic nationalities in the 1978 constitution and given extended devolved powers. • In the UK, the minority nationalist’ question has been nested in a broader class cleavage: in both Scotland and Wales, ‘ national’ identity came as a result of a specific feeling of class identity and of being different from the rest of the UK. • If there are fashions, this is one. In Italy, a move to regional evolution has accompanied more assertive regional claims, such as that of Padania in the north. • But much less so in central and eastern Europe