The Europeanization of Politics

In a broadly comparative, historical and quantitative analysis, this study reveals the unity of European electorates and party systems. Investigating thirty countries in Western and Central-Eastern Europe over 150 years of electoral history, the author shows the existence of common alignments and parallel waves of electoral change across the continent. Europeanization appears through an array of indicators including cross-country deviation measures, uniform swings of votes, the correspondence between national arenas and European Parliament, as well as in the ideological convergence among parties of the same families. Based on a painstaking analysis of a large wealth of data, the study identifies the supra-national, domestic and diffusion factors at the origin of Europeanization. Building on previous work on the nationalization of politics, this new study makes the case for Europeanization in historical and electoral perspective, and points to the role of left-right in structuring the European party system along ideological rather than territorial lines. In the classical tradition of electoral and party literature, this book sheds a new light on Europe's democracy. 'To what degree have political ideologies in different European nations converged over time? Are national politics becoming European politics? In this book, Daniele Caramani provides a deeply informed, insightful, and persuasive account of how national cleavages, party politics, and electoral behavior have been transformed across Europe since the nineteenth century. The result is an immense contribution to our understanding of the political development of Europe.' Gary Marks, Burton Craige Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Research Chair in Multilevel Governance, VU Amsterdam 'With this book, Caramani, the authority on party nationalization in Europe, extends his ideas and methodological tools to explore Europeanization. In spite of many cross-national differences, Caramani convincingly argues about the commonality among voters and parties across Europe. By weaving together a wealth of electoral, survey, and other types of data, the book provides a weighty and informative analysis.' Scott Morgenstern, University of Pittsburgh 'In the tradition of Stein Rokkan, Caramani's work seeks broad scope and long reach in portraying the development of party system configurations in Europe. Caramani's study is a necessary and welcome foundation to more fine-grained analysis of strategic interaction among parties. His research uncovers lasting patterns and slow-moving trends across European democracies, such as the early development of matching cleavage alignments and cohesion within party families or over-time swings in the fortunes of party families across Europe, as well as the correspondence of programmatic configurations of parties at both the European and the national system levels. Any investigation of democratic party competition will have to draw on Caramani's findings.' Herbert Kitschelt, George V. Allen Professor of International Relations, Duke UniversityIntroduction: electoral integration in Europe; Part I. Framework: 1. Theoretical framework: Europeanization in historical perspective; 2. Research design: European party families and party systems; Part II. Analysis: 3. Homogeneity: convergence and deviation in European electoral development, 1848-2012; 4. Uniformity: electoral waves and electoral swings across Europe, 1848-2012; 5. Correspondence: overlapping vs distinctive electorates in national and European elections, 1974-2012; 6. Cohesion: ideological convergence within European party families, 1945-2009; 7. Closure: the Europeanization of cabinet and coalition politics, 1945-2009; Part III. Assessment: 8. Sources of Europeanization: supra-, within-, and trans-national; Explanations; Conclusion: toward European-wide representation.