A Study of the Europeanisation of Party Organisation in the British
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Royal Holloway Research Online Don’t mention Europe: a study of the Europeanisation of party organisation in the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party and the German Social Democratic Party. Isabelle Hertner Thesis submitted to the Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London, for the completion of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, September 2011. 0 Declaration of Authorship I, Isabelle Hertner, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. 1 Abstract This thesis examines how the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party (PS) and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) have ‘Europeanised’ their organisations in three different arenas: (1) in the electorate and party system; (2) in central government and parliament; and (3) in their internal procedures and activities. ‘Europeanisation’ is defined as ‘a shorthand term for a complex process whereby national actors (in this case, parties) adapt to, and also seek to shape, the trajectory of European integration in general, and EU policies and processes in particular’ (Bomberg: 2002, 32). The underlying argument is that social democratic parties have to respond to challenges created by the European Single Market, which demands the reduction of state subsidies, and by the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), which sets limits to public spending. Social democratic parties are expected to react to these challenges by Europeanising their organisations. This thesis draws on the academic literature, party documents and contemporary newspaper articles, together with insights gained from 70 semi- structured interviews with EU experts at the European and national levels. The central claim is that Labour, the PS and SPD have not become as Europeanised as might have been supposed for three ostensibly pro-European parties. Whilst successive party leaderships have paid lip service to the increasing importance of European integration, their party organisations have barely been involved in the formulation of European policy. The findings have serious implications for the three parties and domestic politics in Britain, France and Germany, since the memberships lack the enthusiasm and expertise to lead well-informed, critical, Europeanised debates and election campaigns. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 10 1.1 PARTIES IN EUROPE ..................................................................................................................................... 13 1.2 THE THREE CASES ........................................................................................................................................ 17 1.3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK, QUESTIONS AND METHODS ............................................................ 25 TABLE 1.1: THE EUROPEANISATION OF ‘THE PARTY IN THE ELECTORATE’, ‘THE PARTY IN GOVERNMENT’ AND ‘THE PARTY AS ORGANISATION’ .......................................................................... 26 TABLE 1.2: NUMBER OF INTERVIEWS.......................................................................................................... 30 1.4 THE STRUCTURE OF THIS THESIS............................................................................................................ 34 CHAPTER 2: EUROPEANISATION, POLITICAL PARTIES AND PARTY SYSTEMS .......................................................................................................................................... 38 2.1 DEFINING EUROPEANISATION................................................................................................................. 40 2.2 THE EUROPEANISATION OF PARTY POLITICS .................................................................................... 45 2.2.1The Europeanisation of party programmes .............................................................................. 45 2.2.2 The Europeanisation of party competition ............................................................................... 48 2.2.3 The Europeanisation of party-government relations ........................................................... 49 2.2.4 The Europeanisation of ‘relations beyond the national party system’ ......................... 50 2.2.5 The Europeanisation of party organisation ............................................................................. 52 TABLE 2.1: ILLUSTRATIVE LIST OF PUBLICATIONS ON THE EUROPEANISATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES BY FOCUS (UP TO JULY 2011) ....................................................................................................... 54 3 2.3 THE EUROPEANISATION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY ORGANISATION .......................... 56 2.3.1 Europeanistaion: one process amongst many ........................................................................ 57 2.3.2 Critical junctures in the process of Europeanisation .......................................................... 60 2.3.3 What would a Europeanised party organisation look like? .............................................. 64 FIGURE 2.1 EUROPEANISATION: AN INTERLINKED PROCESS IN THREE ARENAS ....................... 64 TABLE 2.2 THE PUBLIC FACE OF THE PARTY: INDICATORS OF EUROPEANISATION ................. 66 TABLE 2.3 THE PARTY IN GOVERNMENT: INDICATORS OF EUROPEANISATION ........................ 68 TABLE 2.4 THE PARTY AS AN ORGANISATION: INDICATORS OF EUROPEANISATION .............. 69 2.4. CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................................................................. 71 CHAPTER 3: THE EUROPEANISATION OF PARTY SYSTEMS .................................. 72 3.1 THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE BRITISH PARTY SYSTEM.......................................................... 74 FIGURE 3.1: BRITISH PARTIES’ NET SUPPORT FOR THE EU, 1945-2005 (CMP DATA) ............ 81 3.2 THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE FRENCH PARTY SYSTEM ......................................................... 81 FIGURE 3.2: FRENCH PARTIES’ NET SUPPORT FOR THE EU, 1945-2005 (CMP DATA) ............ 85 3.3 THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE GERMAN PARTY SYSTEM ........................................................ 88 FIGURE 3.3: GERMAN PARTIES’ NET SUPPORT FOR THE EU, 1945-2005 (CMP DATA) .......... 90 3.4 CONCLUSIONS................................................................................................................................................ 92 TABLE 3.1: THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE BRITISH, FRENCH AND GERMAN PARTY SYSTEMS .................................................................................................................................................................. 93 CHAPTER 4: THE EUROPEANISATION OF PUBLIC OPINION ................................. 94 4 4.1 A BRIEF LITERATURE REVIEW: EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND THE MASS-ELITE LINKAGE ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 96 4.2 THE EUROPEANISATION OF PUBLIC OPINION IN BRITAIN, FRANCE AND GERMANY ..... 100 FIGURE 4.1: % AGREEING THAT MEMBERSHIP OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY/UNION IS A GOOD THING ........................................................................................................................................................ 101 TABLE 4.1: DOES THE EUROPEAN UNION GIVE YOU PERSONALLY THE FEELING OF...? ..... 103 FIGURE 4.2: % INTERESTED IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY? ..................................................... 104 FIGURE 4.3: % HEARD OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT? .............................................................. 105 4.3. THE MASS-ELITE LINKAGE IN BRITAIN, FRANCE AND GERMANY ....................................... 106 4.4 CONCLUSIONS............................................................................................................................................. 116 CHAPTER 5: THE EUROPEANISATION OF CENTRAL GOVERNMENT............. 117 TABLE 5.1: THE LABOUR PARTY, PS AND SPD IN GOVERNMENT............................................... 119 5.1 THEORISING INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION .................................................................................... 120 5.2 THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE BRITISH CENTRAL GOVERNMENT AND LABOUR ....... 123 TABLE 5.2 LABOUR’S MINISTERS FOR EUROPE BETWEEN 1997 AND 2010 ............................. 132 5.3 THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE FRENCH CENTRAL GOVERNMENT AND THE PS .......... 133 5.4 THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE GERMAN CENTRAL GOVERNMENT AND THE SPD..... 141 5.5 CONCLUSIONS............................................................................................................................................. 149 CHAPTER 6: THE EUROPEANISATION OF PARLIAMENT ..................................... 151 6.1 A BRIEF LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................................................. 153 5 6.2 THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AND BUNDESTAG .......................................................................................................................................................