Not-­‐so-­‐new beginnings and the fate of new parties: a foolproof plan? Paper prepared for the 4th ECPR Graduate Student Conference, section 12, panel 58: “The Lives of New Parties: Burning Bright, Burning Out, or Fading Away?” 4-­‐6 July 2012, Jacobs University, Bremen. Stefanie Beyens [email protected] Vrije Universiteit Brussel First draft (25 June 2012), please do not quote without permission from the author. Abstract: The recurring emergence of new parties in the last three decades heralded a dearth of research on its effect on long-­‐established party systems, which were deemed either stable or in flux, depending on the electoral tenacity of the newcomers. However, this emphasis leads to neglecting a party’s origin and its degree of ‘newness’ in determining its persistence/early demise. As Peter Mair (1999: 217) so succinctly put it, there is a distinction between “old wine in new bottles” and “new wine in whatever sort of container modern tastes might find appealing”. The impact of a party’s origin on those ‘containers’ is the focus of this paper. In order to turn the concept of a party’s origin into an independent variable with exclusive categories, Panebianco’s genetic model (1988) is modified using four cases so it distinguishes between a party built from scratch, a minor splinter party that broke away from a mother party, a party conceived by merging two or more pre-­‐existing parties, and a party that can claim to be the sole successor after a predecessor’s dissolution. The parties used for building this model are, respectively, Party for the Animals (PvdD), Flemish Interest (VB), GreenLeft (GL), and New-­‐
Flemish Alliance (N-­‐VA). Both Belgian cases, VB and N-­‐VA, originated from the same party but were built at different moments in time and in different circumstances. Both Dutch cases, PvdD and GL, can be categorised as green parties but their histories bear few resemblances. The qualitative comparison of the four cases will explore the assumption that building a new party on the remains of another one allows a party to have its cake and eat it too: the strength of pre-­‐existing foundations combined with the excitement of being new as a recipe for success. 1. Introduction The emergence of new parties is a recurring phenomenon in the established party systems of Western-­‐European democracies. The fact that some of these parties manage to cross the threshold of representation has caused concern about the stability of the party systems they are invading. Most research on new political parties has focussed on their emergence. But how can we assess this phenomenon without scrutinising their staying power? This paper tries to address the knowledge gap in the current literature that is caused by a disregard for party origin. After all, the formation process of a new (or not-­‐so-­‐new) party determines how a party will evolve as an organisation and will ultimately play a role in its demise. This paper is a first step to develop independent variables that capture a party’s ‘genetic model’. Further research will focus on how the genetic model and party organisation development influence a ‘new’ party’s reaction to the formidable challenges it faces. Newly parliamentary parties often find themselves having to compete on two fronts: on the one hand, the traditional parties have home advantage as they have had decades to master the rules of the game, both in the electoral and in the parliamentary arena; on the other hand, even newer parties can emerge and take over the excitement and attention that accompanies being the new kids on the block. Some parties hold their ground electorally and maintain a presence in parliament, while others either disappear quickly (the so-­‐called flash parties) or have their electoral decline spread over a few elections. I argue that there are degrees of novelty when it comes to new parties and that the links a political party has to other (party) organisations should be taken account of when researching new party survival. Following Panebianco’s pivotal work (1988) that reintroduced the parties-­‐as-­‐organisations in the party literature, this paper will focus on a party’s ‘genetic model’, a particular combination of factors that give an organisation its unique flavour (Panebianco 1988: 49). The purpose of this paper is to design analytical categories and independent variables that capture the context of a political party’s formation. What constitutes as a ‘new party’ in the relevant literature is mentioned first by way of contextualising and introducing the subject. Then, the genetic model or origin is operationalized in two steps: first, I describe the formation process of a party organisation, which can fall in one of four origin categories and which shows origin from the angle of other parties in the system; secondly, several origin variables are added in order to contextualise a party’s birth by also focussing on its wider role in the political system and on the actual people who populate the organisation. A third section then applies this framework on four parties: Party for the Animals (PvdD), Flemish Interest (VB), GreenLeft (GL), and New-­‐Flemish Alliance (N-­‐VA). Both Belgian cases, VB and N-­‐
VA, originated from the same party but were built at different moments in time and in different circumstances. Both Dutch cases, PvdD and GL, can be categorised as green parties yet their histories bear few resemblances. A fourth and last section tries to show the relevance of the origin categories and variables by summarising the results of the analysis of the four parties. 2 2. What are ‘new’ parties? Scope of inquiry One obvious approach common to new-­‐party research is establishing a strict dichotomy between parties that are new and parties that are not. Four broad criteria have been applied to define a ‘new’ party: ideology, type of party organisation, age and type of formation. According to the first basis of definition, a new party is one that addresses cleavages or issues that have been ignored by the established players in the party systems (e.g. Lucardie 2000). A second criterion that can be used to separate new from old parties is the type of party organisation that has been set up (e.g. Poguntke 1987, Katz & Mair 1995). Defining new parties based on age – the party was formed after a certain cut-­‐off point in time – is a third possibility (e.g. Mair 1999). The latter is often applied in combination with a fourth criterion, type of formation. For instance, Hug (2001) only considers those parties as new which either “emerge without any help from members of existing parties” (13) or are a splinter resulting from a split of an older party. Besides these broad criteria that distinguish between new and old parties, another approach is possible where a party can exhibit a certain degree of ‘newness’. Barnea and Rahat (2011: 306) set out such a continuous ‘newness’ variable and measure a party’s novelty on eight accounts: party label, ideology, electoral base, formal registration, party institutions, activists, public representatives, policies. The authors combine two of these criteria to transform the continuous ‘newness’ variable into a dichotomous one: a party is new when it has a new label and when fewer than half of its top candidates come from a single other party. The method selected in this paper is twofold. First of all, ‘new’ is interpreted in a chronological and dichotomous way by establishing 1968 as the cut-­‐off point: parties that were formed before 1968 are not taken account of here. The type of formation – ‘party origin’ – is the second criterion. Instead of using party origin as a measure to decide whether or not to include a party (as Hug does), I conceptualise different types of origin as though they were independent variables and build a genetic model. This renders it possible to test the impact of a party’s formation process (‘party origin’) on its viability. The focus on party origin is in line with the actor-­‐centred approach of the project: parties-­‐as-­‐organisations are under scrutiny and the decision to regard a party as new is based on the party institution itself, not on the content (ideology, policies) nor on the individuals populating the party (representatives, candidates, activists) nor on the individuals voting for it (electoral base). Scholars who have worked on new party emergence will not always agree with my contention that the four categories mentioned below are types of new parties. But the reason for the disagreement is not a matter of theory and concepts; it is related to the conclusions one is prepared to draw from new party presence. For instance, even established concepts such as party mergers or looser electoral alliances would not make the cut in Hug’s seminal work, where parties born out of fusion or alliance are considered as reconfigurations of established parties (Hug 2001: 13). The reasoning behind this conception is that parties can only be new if their emergence implies the entrance of a new competitor in the electoral arena. In what is arguably the first overview of the appearance and success of new parties in established party systems, Mair (1999) applies an ageist criterion – ‘new’ equals first contested election after 1960 3 – and initially disregards party origin, assuring the inclusion of party mergers, minor splinters and genuinely new parties alike. This first foray into the study of new parties as such does nonetheless mention the variance in success rates of these different types of ‘new’, with parties demonstrating some linkage to the past attaining the most success (Mair 1999: 220). The point of this distinction is to dampen the enthusiasm that hails every new party entering its party system as the bringer of radical change: despite being new, the enduring new parties largely reflect old politics. Dramatic party system change would not be the result of “[o]ld wine in new bottles”, but rather of “new wine in whatever sort of container modern tastes might find appealing” (ibid: 217). With this warning duly noted, the categories mentioned below capture varying levels of novelty. 3. The genetic model: different categories of party origin As will become clear from the descriptions of the separate categories, the focus is put squarely on the party organisation as such. The proposed actor-­‐oriented approach does initially disregard the importance of the actual individuals forming the party. Other variables will be added to the scheme in order to allow for further specifications without changing the intended parsimony of the origin categories. The party origin categories draw attention to the narrow context a new political party is operating in. To be precise, they describe a new party in relation to ties it may have to the older parties that already existed when the newcomer entered the political arena. Putting the spotlight on the older parties that may have played a part in the newcomer’s past specifies the degree of novelty of the so-­‐called new party. 3.1. From scratch A party built from scratch (other terms: genuinely new, newly born) is, in this context, defined by its relation to other parties (not to individual politicians): a newly born party is not built on the remnants of another party (not a successor); it was not formed by a faction defecting from another party (not a minor splinter) nor does it refer to the organisation still continuing after a split (not a ‘major’ splinter). A genuinely new party is not the result of a merger either. A political party is considered to be built from scratch when a person, a group of people or a sponsor organisation decide to enter the electoral fray and therefore found a party organisation independently of the existing parties present in the system. The definition of the ‘from scratch’ category does not preclude elements of existing parties being transferred to the new one: it is possible that activists and especially supporters once belonged to other parties (Mair 1999: 216). But unlike the other categories of party origin, parties built from scratch have no ties to existent party organisations. This prompts the question: what defines a political party? What makes that particular organisation different from others? As Panebianco persuasively argues, assigning all parties one overriding goal would be unrealistic when contemplating the diversity of outcomes a party may at one point in its existence want to achieve (votes – policy – office). He suggests instead a minimal definition based on the activity in a particular environment that is unique to party organisations: competing for votes in the electoral arena, regardless of the goal a party may want to attain by this particular activity (Panebianco 1988: 6). Janda (1980: 5) adds to this definition a requirement that renders it easier to identify parties as a collective endeavour: “organizations that pursue a goal 4 of placing their avowed representatives in government positions”. This definition does ascribe a goal to these organisations in the electoral arena: they try to achieve parliamentary representation. As this paper is concerned only with parties that have crossed that threshold, the more demanding definition applies here as well. 3.2. Minor splinter party A splinter party is the result of an existing party – i.e. a party that already had a presence in the party system – breaking up, a process also described as fission (Mair 1990). The founders of the new party were prominent members of another party, which they defected from. Upon leaving their ‘old’ party, the founders of the new party did not take the majority of the organisational infrastructure with them. However, they had formed a clearly identifiable group or faction within the mother party, e.g. they represented the liberal wing of a nationalist party. The splinter party is always smaller than the mother party it left; party literature often refers to it as a minor splinter. Labels such as split-­‐
away or breakaway (Hug 2001: 13, 34) could also refer to splinter parties. It can be difficult to identify the group of individual politicians in the mother party that went on to form a new party. Of course, founders of a new party will be inclined to stress the commonalities they share and the distinction between their old and their new party. It is therefore a challenge to separate post-­‐factum rhetoric about having formed a distinct tendency in the old party from the actual presence of factionalism that could have caused the split to occur in the first place. This endogeneity problem, which permeates the literature on factionalism, is circumvented here by accepting Harmel and Tan’s contention (2003) that factional dissent can be based on personality conflicts. It thus logically follows that individual-­‐level motivations sometimes inform party splits. 3.3. Merger A party merger is the result of two (or more) political parties deciding to end their existence as standalone actors and to form a new entity together. Merging is the most extreme form of interp-­‐arty co-­‐operation and is usually preceded by the composing parties presenting themselves in an electoral alliance at the polls. But there are more aspects to the process of fusion than tying a party’s electoral fate to another; a party may also lose its partisan identity (Mair 1990). Whatever the causes or consequences, merging two (or more) parties entails radical changes on the organisational level. The old parties will have to officially disband before entering into a partnership with each other. In this interpretation, the merger of parties is formally preceded by their deaths. Of course, the new partners will not perceive the situation quite as dramatically. Indeed, even in the scholarly community there is a common view of mergers being nothing more than a reorganisation of established parties (e.g. Hug 2001: 13). While a fusion can be a survival strategy for the parties involved and thus an attempt to maintain a situation instead of changing it radically, things look slightly different when looking at the process from an institutional point of view. As parties-­‐as-­‐organisations are at the core of this paper, the merging of two (or more) party organisations with the goal of forming a new one is indeed regarded as the creation of a new political party organisation. As mentioned above, electoral alliances often preclude mergers. Wherever this is the case, the initial co-­‐operation is interpreted as an intention statement of the partners to eventually merge. The date of birth is then coded as the first time the later composite 5 parts of a merger party formed an electoral alliance with the members of the different parties presented on one list. 3.4. Successor party The concept ‘successor party’ originated in the literature on post-­‐1989 Central and Eastern European party systems. Within that literature, it refers to parties “which were the primary successors to the former governing party in the communist regime and inherited the preponderance of the former ruling parties’ resources and personnel” (Bozóki & Ishiyama 2002: 3). The category of successor party can be a useful analytical tool in the context of mature democracies as well, because it allows us to include those parties that are both old and new at the same time.1 Successor parties are old in the sense that they can profit from the assets that organisational continuity offers: experienced personnel on the ground, institutional makeup of local chapters, financial resources and even a group of supporters socialised in unions and other formal organisations and thus ready to put their shoulders under a new (party) project (Mahr & Nagle 1995: 399). Successor parties are also new, which in the former Soviet Union implies they have disassociated themselves from the pre-­‐1989 communist regimes in order to avoid an aversion of voters and distrust of other party elites that accompanies their reputations as (old) wolves in (new) sheep’s clothing (Tzelgov 2011: 532-­‐3). Both the partial organisational continuity and the partial renewal process can occur in a political party belonging to a Western institutionalised democracy; the event that prompted the birth of the communist successor party, however, is unique to the former Soviet Union. Most of the literature on communist successors indeed includes references to the previous regime and to the consequences of the dramatic regime change (e.g. Kitschelt 2002, Kuzio 2008). It is thus necessary to redefine successor party in the context of Western party literature, that means redefining it in relation to other modes of party origin. A successor party is founded on the remnants of an existing party that has officially dissolved and is a registered legally as a new party. It is important to distinguish between a mere reorganisation or rebranding of an existing party and a successor party. Therefore, the minimal requirements for this category include: the dissolution of the predecessor (to distinguish it from reorganisation); a name change and a position as the sole surviving heir to the pre-­‐existing party (to distinguish it from being a continuation as the biggest partner after a party split, in other words, from being a major splinter); an inheritance of some of the resources of the predecessor, for example real estate (to distinguish it from a new party built from scratch); prominent members of the predecessor were involved in the foundation of the successor (again, to distinguish it from an origin built from scratch). The latter requirement refers to more than just a continuation of individuals; it is assumed that prominent members bring with them valuable experience in running a political party in general, but they also transfer their unique knowledge of the functioning of the successor party’s predecessor and its place in the party system. 1 David Arter (2010) has used ‘successor party’ in a West-­‐European context, a.o. to describe the True Finns. 6 4. The genetic model: party origin contextualised The party origin categories capture the formal part of a new party’s formation process, but the wider political context and the professional history of the founders are still not taken account of. The origin categories are therefore joined by other variables measuring features of a party’s history that have proven their relevance. The conceptualisation of these variables is in line with what scholars have called the ‘founding context’ (Gunther & Diamond 2003) and its effects on a party’s organisation. It refers to a wide social context that surrounds the formation of a political party and therefore affects the makeup of an organisation to such an extent that, even when the founding context has undergone dramatic changes, it “leave[s] a lasting imprint on the basic nature of the party organization for decades to come” (ibid: 173). The first three variables are related to a party’s existence in (or absence from) the political environment; a further two reflect the new party’s personal link to the context by gauging its founders’ roots; a last origin variable recounts the story of the internal party hierarchy at the moment of foundation. 4.1. Societal linkage: roots vs. entrepreneurial party There are two viewpoints when looking at whether or not a party is embedded in society through formal organisation: either a party exhibits societal roots, or a party can be classified as an entrepreneurial party. The presence of societal roots is hypothesised to have a positive effect on party organisation building; entrepreneurial parties are hypothesised to have a weak organisation and they will therefore disappear quicker than parties rooted in society. The first perspective is highlighted first. A party with roots has formalised links to society, i.e. it refers to what Panebianco has called a sponsor institution. If a party does indeed have roots, it means that it was formed by or with the explicit support of a movement or organisation. Both the party and the movement/organisation in question recognise this link between the two. A party’s roots can be useful on three accounts: they provide external legitimacy (Panebianco 1988: 51-­‐2), resources in terms of experienced personnel (recruitment pool), and transferred loyalty (ready-­‐made group of voters). The workings of the latter two are mentioned in Bolleyer and Bytzek (2011): the loyalty of this organised movement’s followers can be transferred to the new party, thereby creating a potential group of voters even before the party’s first array into the electoral arena. Similarly, ties to an organised movement present the party with a ready-­‐made recruiting pool of activists who have already paid their dues in a hierarchical environment and who are therefore less likely to be opportunists who would use the party only to achieve their own ends. A party that lacks formalised links to society is ‘a party of entrepreneurial origin’; Harmel and Svåsand (1993: 67) introduced this term when scrutinising leadership profiles and applying them to the Norwegian and Danish Progress Parties. Although they carefully point out that an entrepreneurial leader is not necessarily the same as a charismatic leader, the implications of both on further party development certainly overlap: if a party of entrepreneurial or charismatic origin wants to achieve persistence, it will have to institutionalise and develop loyalties other than personal ties to the leader. This might prove difficult in “parties formed by one leader who imposes himself as the undisputed founder, conceiver, and interpreter of […] the party’s original ideological goals […] which become inseparable from his person” (Panebianco 1988: 7 52). The common reliance on personal ties to the leader in the construction of the party organisation causes the intrinsic instability of charismatic and entrepreneurial parties (ibid: 143, Harmel & Svåsand 1993: 76). 4.2. Internal formation vs. external formation Duverger’s (1951) distinction between internal and external formation – the distinction between a party created while its members were in parliament and a party that formed while it was not yet part of the legislature – is also mentioned by Bolleyer and Bytzek (2011) and Panebianco (1988). The reason for incorporating the factor internal or external formation refers to party founders paying attention to organisation building: the pre-­‐existing parliamentary elite already had access to the spoils of legislative office and is subsequently less likely to focus on constructing a strong party organisation. This stress on features that facilitate the development of strong institutions permeates Panebianco’s work as well; it is equally present in the explanations for the next two measures. 4.3. Length of a party’s existence outside of parliament This variable counts the number of years between a party’s foundation and its parliamentary breakthrough (i.e. the first time a party manages to get its avowed representatives elected in parliament). It captures how long a new party exists outside of national parliament and describes how many years there were between party birth – the year in which a party organisation was officially set up – and the first time it crosses the threshold of representation at the national level. The attention of party officials trying to set up a party organisation is diverted away from that task when the same people are also the ones answering to the demands of public office, as was explained above. This implies that the longer a party exists before experiencing its parliamentary breakthrough, the more time its founders can dedicate to constructing its organisation and thus the higher its chances of persistent success. So-­‐called flash parties, who enter parliament almost immediately after contesting their first elections, may seem like the pinnacle of new party success, but the implications for their party building suggest that this success is also their downfall. 4.4. Bottom-­‐up formation vs. top-­‐down formation Panebianco (1988: 50) distinguishes between two processes a party can follow when constructing its local and intermediate party organisation: territorial penetration refers to the centre being in control over the periphery; territorial diffusion means that the centre brings together local organisations that had formed without direction from the top. Janda (1980) recognises this principle and sees it at play at the building of functional party chapters as well. If a party’s foundation was bottom-­‐up, it originated in local organised movements that centralised their efforts (diffusion) or in functionally distinct organisation that decided to pool their resources in the party. If, on the contrary, a party’s foundation was top-­‐
down, then founders at the national level orchestrated the development of local party organisations (penetration). Panebianco notes that this last procedure indicates the presence of an already powerful centre. In the context of the developments hypothesised in the previous variables, one should assume that top-­‐down foundation 8 heightens a party’s chances of survival because of its implications for the strength of its party organisation. 4.5. Political and parliamentary experience vs. lack thereof These variables are the only ones to explicitly take account of the professional profile of a party’s founders. Experienced leaders who have fulfilled legislative duties or who have merely been present on the political stage are expected to have a positive influence on their new party’s survival chances. This includes experience in subnational parliaments as well at the national stage. It should be noted that although splinter parties will be the bulk of parties for which this variable is coded positive, there are examples of prominent figures dipping their toes in the political waters first before deciding to found a new party from scratch, even if that happens years after their first forays into politics. 5. The genetic model applied from scratch splinter PvdD: Animal VB: Flemish Party Interest °2002 / 2006 °1977 / 1978 Roots yes yes Int/Ext external external Outside exi 4 years 1 year Top-­‐down top-­‐down top-­‐down Pol Exp no yes Parl Exp no no merger GL: GreenLeft ° 1990 / 1989 yes internal none bottom-­‐up yes yes successor N-­‐VA: New-­‐Flemish Alliance ° 2001 / 2001 yes internal none top-­‐down yes yes The years under the party names refer respectively to foundation date and parliamentary breakthrough. 5.1. GreenLeft and Party for the Animals GroenLinks (GL, GreenLeft) and the Partij voor de Dieren (PvdD, Party for the Animals) are both ecological parties from the Netherlands. In a country that boasts a proportional electoral system with a single countrywide constituency and a mere 0.67% electoral threshold, it is no surprise that new parties enter parliament regularly. In this context, it is surprising that it took a long time for a successful ecological party to emerge. The paradoxical combination of no successful ecological party with a vibrant scene of social movements, a receptive audience for green politics and the welcoming electoral system is blamed on an assorted band of small progressive parties who took up the ecological issue before a ‘pure’ green actor could establish itself (O’Neill 1997, Lucardie & Voerman 2008). A solution to the fractionalisation of green politics was found in 1989, when some of those small progressive parties merged into GroenLinks, the first party labelled – at least partially – ‘green’ to enter Dutch parliament. The party’s category of origin seems like a logical conclusion befitting a history of fragmented ecological tendencies. The foundation of the PvdD a decade ago ensured that the Netherlands now counts two parliamentary green parties. Whereas the merger GL could not be more embedded in the Dutch party system from the start, the PvdD emerged as an outsider of the political party system (Krouwel & Lucardie 2008). Whereas GL’s ideology is a mix of ‘green’ and ‘red’ (Lucardie et al 1995); the PvdD highlights only an aspect of the ecologist ideology, viz. animal welfare and rights. In the parlance of Krouwel and Lucardie (2008: 284, 287), GL is a prophetic party in that it adds issues to the dominant Dutch ideologies; PvdD is 9 an advocate or prolocutor, in that it merely “claim[s] to articulate the interests of neglected social groups.” The origin of this party is of particular interest to this project as the PvdD is a straightforward ‘built from scratch’ party that claims to represent a peculiar group (the animals) and that competes with a straightforward merger GL. 5.1.1. GroenLinks °1989-­‐ History The official foundation of GroenLinks happened in 1990, when four parties that had entered the 1989 general election as an electoral alliance decided to make a more permanent commitment. The reasons for merging were both ideological – the parties’ common denominator New Left demonstrates this – and strategic – their other common denominator ‘small left’ was apt as well. On both levels, renewal was the goal of the merger; the inclusion in the party label of ‘Green’, which had not been a part of the founding parties’ names, underlines this (Lucardie et al 1995). This supports the (albeit qualified) inclusion of mergers in the new party category. The history of the component parts of GL is one of slowly growing into the role of traditional parties in established party politics: they started out at a time when a diversity of voices was considered to be a good thing and ‘post-­‐materialist’ values were thought to be better expressed by small new social movements which had outgrown their initial one-­‐issue position (Voerman 1995). From the mid-­‐1990s onwards, GL gained opposition potential and is now considered as a party ready for executive responsibilities (Verkuil 2010: 112). The four founding parties of GL are the Communistische Partij van Nederland (CPN, Communist Party of the Netherlands, °1909), the Pacifistisch-­‐Socialistische Partij (PSP, Pacifist-­‐Socialist Party, °1957), the Politieke Partij Radikalen (PPR, Political Radical Party, °1968), and the Evangelische Volkspartij (EVP, Evangelical People’s Party, °1981). Only after the second electoral defeat in 1986 (after 1977) did the three ‘small left’ parties (CPN, PSP, PPR) decide to make their occasional stretches of co-­‐operation official in an electoral alliance, a first step towards merger. Electoral defeat in 1977 had prompted the CPN to make the move from the Old to the New Left, which resulted in co-­‐
operation with the PSP and the PPR at election time and in social movements. PSP and PPR had worked together intermittently both inside and outside the electoral arena during the 1970s and 1980s. On the local and Frist Chamber level, the two parties had formed electoral alliances to jump the high electoral threshold. Members and elites of the three parties met each other in the many social movements that flourished surrounding diverse issues such as pollution, the Cold War, women’s liberation, nuclear weapons. Starting at the 1984 European elections, the co-­‐operation between the three New Left parties also occurred even when ‘going it alone’ would have resulted in representation for the individual parties. However, the road to alliance and merger was bumpy; both the successful and the botched attempts at co-­‐operation caused heavy disputes between the intraparty factions that lead to party splits. Even the EVP suffered from defections, despite being the youngest of the four partners (the party had emerged as a splinter that did not agree with the impending merger of three Christian-­‐democrat parties) (Lucardie et al 1999: 31-­‐66). At the local level, the separate party chapters quickly and fairly painlessly dissolved to form united ones; at the national level as well, the separate research institutions and 10 other functional associations merged (Lucardie et al 1999: 104). Life after the merger has been fairly successful for GL, which has maintained a steady presence in parliament and has participated in local government in some large Dutch cities (Lucardie & Voerman 2008: 159). One might expect a higher level of factionalism in parties resulting from fusion, especially when factionalism and party splits were common in the founding parties (Buelens & Lucardie 1998). However, it seems that GL purged itself of dissidents at its conception and was coherent enough to allow the initial debate about the party’s direction and ideological profile. The party has been preparing to take on governmental tasks, but has not crossed that threshold yet at the national level. Origin variables and their implications for GL • Societal linkage: roots The founding parties of the merger GL had a history of extra-­‐parliamentary activism and co-­‐operation (Lucardie et al 1995). This meant that both on the personal as on the ideological level, a convergence happened without which the fusion would arguably not have taken place (Voerman 1992). It seems that GL inherited its societal linkage from its composing parts. The environmental movements that had sprung up in the activist 1970s survived and, because GL was for a very long time the only legislative ecological party, supported GL’s candidates at election time (Buelens & Lucardie 1998). This predicted transferred loyalty provided the party with a core of ready-­‐made voters. The other predicted outcome of a party’s links to social movements also happened: the environmental organisations worked as a recruitment pool in that the party’s first president had been of one those organisations (Buelens & Lucardie 1998). Of course, the chances of a merger being also an entrepreneurial party are slim (though not completely absent). A good indicator of this is leadership turnover: GL has survived multiple leadership contests. • Internal or external formation Two of the four founding parties, CNP and EVP, had lost their parliamentary representation at the election preceding the electoral alliance; PSP held to one of its previous three seats and only PPR managed to maintain its seat tally (two seats). If one partner was in parliament at the time of a merger party’s birth, this variable is coded as internal formation. However, the nature of the fusion process was such that the expected implication of internal formation – not enough attention for organisation building – is not relevant here: the run-­‐up to the merger had been intense, long and intermittently on the table for a decade – from the first shared lists in the early 1980s to the electoral alliance in 1989 to the dissolving of the founder parties in 1991. In fact, it remains to be seen if this variable will ever have the same implications for mergers as for the other origin categories. • Length of a party’s existence outside of parliament If a party was formed internally, if follows that it had a parliamentary presence. • Bottom-­‐up or top-­‐down formation Merging four autonomous party organisations, including their local and intermediate chapters, is bound to be a collaborative process of all those different levels. Because the foundation of GL was a process of constant negotiation that included the input of the 11 composing parties’ members and rank-­‐and-­‐file, the formation is coded bottom up. The long history of co-­‐operation between the founder parties both inside and outside of the electoral arena points to grassroots enthusiasm as well as elite decisions towards convergence. Inside the political arena, the pre-­‐electoral co-­‐operation took place on all levels and originated in the local and subnational chapters, but had to be signed off by the party headquarters (Lucardie et al 1999). The collective activism outside of parliament adds to the evidence that the pre-­‐merger co-­‐operation really was present throughout the ranks of the party. Statements made by the autonomous party leaders also signal the inevitability of the merger (ibid: 103), which implies that the merging process developed a logic of its one once the wheels had been set in motion. If the forces driving the merger are to be found in the parties’ support network (the social movements), throughout the party ranks (members voted in favour at conferences and local chapters had a history of collaboration) and at the top of the party (the intricacies of the merger were negotiated at the highest level), if follows that the new merger’s formation occurred through diffusion, not penetration. • Political and parliamentary experience of the party elite All of the founder parties had experience in the parliamentary arena, from which logically follows that the political personnel of the new merger party were experienced from the start. 5.1.2. Partij voor de Dieren °2002-­‐ History The Partij voor de Dieren (PvdD, Animal Party) was founded in 2002 (°28/10/2002), participated in the 2003 general elections without crossing the parliamentary threshold, which it did do in 2006 and 2010 when it won two seats (Lucardie 2008). In 2003, it did not gain any of the votes that GL lost that year (and two of its seats), but it was the biggest party not to win representation (van Holsteyn & Irwin 2004). In 2006, the party secured the support of many celebrities from the artistic and cultural establishment; though without ambition to actually take up a seat in parliament, half of the candidate lists consisted of famous people who also featured prominently in the campaign (van Holsteyn 2007). The party strives for more rights for animals and a better protection of the environment; on the traditional class divide, its positions show an affinity with social democracy and, therefore, with GL, although it does stress its social-­‐democratic credentials and claims to transcends to left-­‐right divide (Lucardie 2012, Lucardie 2008). Recent research demonstrates that the PvdD has indeed raised the saliency of animal welfare: the legislative attention paid to agriculture as increased since the party entered parliament, with the established parties becoming more active on this issue as well (Otjes 2012). Origin variables and their implications for PvdD • Societal linkage: roots The Dutch Animal Party is a straightforward example of a party founded outside of the parliamentary system by a environmental organisation (Bont voor Dieren, translation: Animal Association or, because of the homonym ‘bont’: Fur For Animals): not only did the PvdD reproduce the movement’s viewpoints, the three founders all had high-­‐profile positions in it (Lucardie 2008). This demonstrates the relevance of this variable and 12 confirms the expected result of a linked social movement working as a recruitment pool. It has been suggested that the high-­‐profile celebrities who supported the PvdD in 2006 gave the party an extra nudge towards electoral success (Krouwel & Lucardie 2008). Although hardly comparable to the support gained from social movements, this backing from outside the confined world of party politics may have played an, albeit short-­‐term, role in securing two seats in parliament. • External formation The party was formed outside of parliament and, in terms of it extra-­‐parliamentary existence, had to wait 4 years before winning representation. The roots of the PvdD are in the animal rights movement, but if one discounts that as political experience, then the founding members did not have political nor parliamentary experience. • Top-­‐down formation The provisional assumption is that the PvdD’s elite managed the creation of local and intermediate organisations. The possible presence of local chapters of the social movement that supports the party does not imply that this movement also inspires the construction of a formal party-­‐on-­‐the-­‐ground organisation. This recalls the crucial characteristic of this project: parties-­‐as-­‐organisations are emphasised, only once the structural aspect has been established do I look to the actual people populating the structure. 5.2. Flemish Interest and New-­‐Flemish Alliance The linguistic cleavage in post-­‐war Belgium gave birth to a Flemish-­‐nationalist party from which all other Flemish-­‐nationalist parties emerged, including the two mentioned in this paper. It is therefore necessary to paint a short sketch of the predecessor before moving on to the analysis of the splinter and successor party it spawned. The Flemish Volksunie (VU, People’s Union) broke through in 1954 and rose steadily until it commanded the title of third Flemish party in 1971; after recovering from a brief setback in 1978 – the cost of governing taking its toll – the VU’s electoral decline had started up again in the eighties and ended with the death of the party in 2001 (van Haute & Pilet 2006: 299). Nationalism being a thin ideology, factionalism was to be expected on issues that did not belong to the core business of the party, i.e. left-­‐wing tendencies opposed right-­‐wing ones concerning economic matters. However, it was the party’s core business – its demands for more Flemish autonomy – that caused a split and the end of the party: in 1977, a radical Flemish-­‐nationalist faction broke away after the party had supported an agreement to further regional autonomy; the schism that ended the party centred on what the end game of the party was: the pragmatists believed they had been successful in ensuring federalisation, the radicals wanted to take regional autonomy further. It has therefore been argued that the party’s success in achieving its goals was also its downfall (van Haute & Pilet 2006). 5.2.1. Vlaams Belang °1977-­‐ History Vlaams Belang (VB, Flemish Interest, Vlaams Blok until 2004) is a splinter party from the VU, but its conception was not as straightforward as the idealtype of minor splinters 13 might suggest. The VU’s decision to vote in favour of the Egmont Pact, an agreement on regional autonomy in 1977 caused discontent and defections At the general elections of 1978, an electoral alliance of two splinter parties (‘Vlaams Blok’ = Vlaams-­‐Nationale Partij, VNP, + Vlaamse Volkspartij, VVP) both originating in the VU contested and gained one representative, Karel Dillen (VNP-­‐chairman), who then adopted the label Vlaams Blok as the name of his party. The most important members of the losing partner party of the electoral alliance (i.e. the VVP) decided to follow him, thereby effectively creating one splinter party based on the more conservative, radical faction of the mother party (Govaert 1992). Initially, the party was regarded as a conservative separatist party (Art 2011: 142). In the early 1980s, in a bid to attract young voters, the party changed course and effectively became a party of the radical right, combining a Flemish-­‐nationalist with an anti-­‐immigrant ideology (Coffé 2005: 34). The pinnacle of its success came in 2004 when it commanded 24% of votes and became the largest party in the Flemish parliament (ibid: 37). However, the other Belgian parties have agreed never to share governmental responsibilities with the VB – the so-­‐called cordon sanitaire – because of its radical-­‐right stance. The party formally disbanded and then re-­‐founded itself under another name in 2004 after several associations that pertained to it were found to be in breach of the law against racism (Erk 2005: 493). The party leaders were nevertheless triumphant after the conviction because it cemented their reputation as the only outsider party. Tensions have become apparent in the party, which is surprising seeing that the party boasts an iron discipline that does not allow for dissent, let alone a public airing of its dirty laundry. The tensions are centred on its pariah position: defying the leadership, some activists want to end the party’s marginal position and partake in the executive (Tréfois & Faniel 2007: 22). This demand for a softer stance on immigration is arguably prompted by the success of the N-­‐VA, the VU’s successor, which has been monopolising the Flemish-­‐nationalist vote since 2009. In sum, VB acts as one would expect from a (partly) anti-­‐system splinter party: it was born from factionalism, has inhabited its own niche in the party system, but the fact that electoral success is not followed by executive power causes frustration and the same kind of factionalism that ultimately destroyed its mother party. So far, the party’s internal cohesion has been guarded closely by the party top, which does not hesitate to expulse dissident voices from the party. Origin variables and their implications for the VB • Societal linkage: roots The mother party of the Vlaams Belang, the VU could lean on a myriad of organisations that were themselves built on the linguistic cleavage. Similarly, the VB recruited its personnel from the more radical wing of the Flemish-­‐nationalist movement (Govaert 1992). The movement itself was fragmented and reflected the factionalism present in the VU, especially after the signing of the Egmont Pact. As described above, disagreement with the Pact was expressed in different ways and activists from the radicalised Flemish movement were looking for a party that would echo their sentiments (Art 2011: 112-­‐5). They found that in Karel Dillen’s Vlaams Blok and followed him there from the VU to the benefit of both the Flemish-­‐nationalists organisations and the party itself. The Flemish movement “provided the VB with a ready-­‐made rank and file and organizational network” of committed, “motivated and 14 ideologically coherent” party activists (ibid: 112; 113), who could move up through the ranks quickly as the rapidly growing new party needed bodies to contest elections and establish a presence on the ground. This party’s links to society thus acted as they are predicted to act: as a ready-­‐made pool of voters and of political personnel. Minor splinters do not always benefit from the ties their mother party had with social movements, which should not come as a surprise: loyalties transferred from society to one party do not always travel even further to a splinter party. However, in cases similar to VU and the Flemish movement, where the organisation in society is just as hit by factionalism as the political party it is linked to, a minor splinter just might take its roots with it on its way out. • External formation The split happened at a time when the mother party VU was represented in national parliament, but none of its MPs left the party to found a splinter party. The VU did lose senators and other high-­‐level political personnel to its breakaway offspring. The party is thus coded as externally formed. • Existence external The party existed a year before it won parliamentary representation for the first time in the 1978 election. It should be noted that the foundation moment here is not the day when the party Vlaams Blok was founded officially (as would be the case with a party built from scratch); nor is it coded as the first time the electoral alliance between two brand new splinter parties contested elections (as would be the case for a merger). Instead, it is coded as the foundation date of the VNP, one of those splinter parties, whose chairman Karel Dillen was the only one on the VB list to win a seat in parliament. That was the trigger for many of the other splinter party’s members to join Dillen in what was of that moment called the VB, the party. This is the best course of action here because the event that qualifies the VB as a splinter party is its relation with its mother party. In this interpretation, the moment when the conservative faction decided to split from the VU and go it alone (albeit initially in different parties) is the VB’s founding moment. • Top-­‐down formation The local and intermediate chapters of the VB were created by the central party elite, which took advantage of its heritage to field as many candidates as possible, as quickly as possible: it copied the structures of the VU and counted on members of its allied organisations in civil society to populate them (Art 2011: 112-­‐3). So the resources were already present on the ground; it nonetheless took a strong and disciplined hand to direct them into a formal hierarchical party organisation. • Political and parliamentary experience All splinter parties benefit from their politically experienced staff. None of the founders had experience in the national parliament’s second chamber, although some could fall back on familiarity with other executive positions. 15 5.2.2. Nieuw-­‐Vlaamse Alliantie (°2001-­‐) History Before the Nieuwe-­‐Vlaamse Alliantie (N-­‐VA, New-­‐Flemish Alliance) could enter the political scene as the successor to the VU, its predecessor had to be disbanded first. Whereas in the context of post-­‐1989 communist successor parties, regime fall was the shock that precipitated the end of their predecessors, a range of events led to the referendum among VU-­‐members that ended that party’s existence. The death of the VU has been attributed to its success in attaining its goal of extensive regional autonomy (van Haute & Pilet 2006, De Winter 2006). But there are indications that factionalism, which often accompanies a thin ideology, played a role as well. For instance, the profiles of the two parties that resulted from the VU’s break-­‐up are distinct on the issue of two cleavages in the Belgian political landscape, class and the linguistic divide. Spirit claimed social-­‐liberalism as its ideology, while the N-­‐VA continued to emphasize its demands for more (if not total) Flemish independence and a more right-­‐
wing approach to economic matters (Govaert 2002: 36). The resulting parties can alternatively be interpreted as pragmatists and radicals clashing over what the end game of their Flemish nationalism should be, as the split followed heated debates within the party concerning the further federalisation of the Belgian state (Govaert 2002: 25). This all took place while the party was part of the Flemish government, indicating that the pressures of governing can add to an already divided party irrespective of the level at which a party has executive responsibility. Initially, the N-­‐VA was not the sole successor to the VU. Indeed, three options were put to the VU-­‐members in a referendum regarding the continuation or dissolution of their party: the conservative group that was to become N-­‐VA (47.18% of VU-­‐members), the group that opposed dissolution (30.18%) and the left-­‐leaning group that considered the Flemish-­‐nationalist demands to be answered (22.63%, was to become Spirit) (Govaert 2002: 32). The winners took with them the preponderance of the VU’s resources (including real estate) and personnel, but not the name because they had not convinced a majority of members. But above all, the N-­‐VA embodies the legacy of its predecessor: it was founded by those people who thought it necessary to return to the VU’s ideological roots and to represent Flemish nationalism. The reason why I consider the N-­‐VA as the VU’s successor and not Spirit, is double: on the one hand, they clearly inherited the party organisation and, on the other, Spirit never contested elections as a standalone party. Spirit allied its electoral fate to that of the social democrats (Onclin 2009) and after significant losses at the 2007 national election and several high-­‐profile defections, the party decided to be independent again. It tried its hand at renewal through name change and leadership change, but ultimately decided to throw in the towel at the end of 2009, after which it dissolved into the Flemish Greens. For all intents and purposes, the N-­‐VA is the sole successor to the VU. Origin variables and their implications for the N-­‐VA As was shown in the discussion of the VU and of its radical splinter VB, the Flemish movement is a house with many rooms that could support both of these parties with the voters who transferred their loyalty to the parties and the convenient recruitment pool for political personnel. The assumption then follows that the N-­‐VA, as the VU’s 16 successor, could fall back on the same sort of benefits associated with societal linkage. The formation of the N-­‐VA is coded as internal, despite the party’s predecessor’s official dissolution in September 2001 (Mabille 2002: 26) and its own birth taking place a month later. The reason is that VU-­‐representative, former VU-­‐chairman and future N-­‐
VA-­‐chairman Geert Bourgeois remained a member of parliament even though his party had disbanded. Similarly, the party had no pre-­‐parliamentary existence but could count on political and parliamentary experience. The formation of the party is also coded as top-­‐down, because the N-­‐VA inherited a party organisation that was continued at the lower levels, in spite of the dissolution of the party top. The inherited party organisation was hierarchically structured with most power in the hands of the central party (at national or constituency level) (De Winter 1998: 37-­‐38). 6. Discussion The overview of the merger party GreenLeft’s history demonstrates the relevance of the origin category ‘merger’. Knowing that GL originated from a fusion of previously standalone parties leads to a particular interpretation of some origin variables. For instance, the implication that the distinction between internal and external formation has on organisation building disappears: it is safe to assume that party building is a complicated process when the composing parts are other party organisations, not people, and that extensive attention will be paid to it. This distinction may, however, shine a light on the motives that led to the merger: a steady electoral decline and especially a loss of representation provide a powerful incentive to change course dramatically. The interpretation of the variable top-­‐down or bottom-­‐up formation also needs tweaking to fit the peculiar circumstances of party fusion: the geographically and functionally distinct chapters that form a party organisation belong to different parties, adding a level in need of co-­‐ordination. If one interprets the separate parties forming the merger as separate chapters, then all mergers are formed bottom-­‐up; however, a detailed history of GL’s particular fusion process shows that bottom-­‐up formation can occur at all levels of the composing parties’ hierarchies. The PvdD (Animal Party), used to demonstrate which parties could fall in the category built from scratch, is the most straightforward case when measuring the origin variables. It is clearly benefitting from having its roots in the animal rights movement, which acted both as a ready-­‐made recruitment pool and as a pool of voters who could transfer their loyalty to the movement to the new party. The PvvD spent four years outside of parliament during which time it built its local and intermediate chapters in a top-­‐down logic. The PvdD is thus a classic example of a party built from scratch, with the bonus of bringing new salient issue to the table (Otjes 2012) and, possibly, even a new ideology (Lucardie 2012). The relatively short span in which the PvdD has been present in the electoral arena prohibits the formulation of preliminary conclusions on the impact that its origin has on its viability. The importance of adding the splinter category to the origin variables is demonstrated when we realise that a large part of the VB’s success must have originated with the resources it could start out with, both in terms of its ties to Flemish national movement and for the purpose of party building. In fact, the VB copied the organisational structures of its mother party and took with it the radical wing of the party members. The roots in 17 organised movements in society proved their worth as a recruitment pool for political personnel – activists trained in the movements became candidates – and for voters – supporters of the more radical societal organisations allied to the VU could transfer their loyalty to a more radical splinter party (Art 2011: 112-­‐3). The case of the VB also demonstrates the role top-­‐down formation can play in a party’s persistence: the party top has retained a lot of power and can therefore nip dissent in the bud. The N-­‐VA participated as a standalone party at the 2010 national elections and currently commands the largest seat share in the Belgian federal parliament. This extraordinary electoral success is not to be explained without taking account of the N-­‐VA’s position as a successor party. Potential alternative explanations such as the rise of a more radical Flemish nationalism among voters have been disproved by a voter survey in 2007: since 1991, the positions of the Flemish voters on the linguistic cleavage have been stable (Swyngedouw & Rink 2008). If the Flemish voters have not grown more radical when it comes to nationalist demands, then it follows that the reasons for the party’s success should be located on the supply side. As a successor party, the N-­‐VA is built on the remnants of a party organisation that had established three ‘faces’ of a party (Katz & Mair 1994): there once was an experienced party in central office, there was also a party on the ground in the form of local chapters, and a number of people in their ranks have been in public office. Similarly to the VU’s earlier splinter party Vlaams Belang, the N-­‐VA has access to the benefits accorded to its societal linkage. However, a successor party is more than just a major splinter with enhanced benefits. A successor can also lay claim to the excitement accompanying a ‘new’ party (Sikk 2011) and a cleaner slate with regards to its reputation (Tzelgov 2011). Research by Swyngedouw and Abts (2011) confirms that the dual nature of a successor party – harbouring both old and new features – is also discernible among the voters of the N-­‐VA. At the 2010 national elections, the party retained its loyal voters with its message of Flemish nationalism, while at the same time attracting new voters who do not value Flemish nationalism as highly as the loyal voters do and instead appreciate the good reputation of both the party and its chairman (Swyngedouw & Abts 2011: 21-­‐24). Further research is needed to elaborate on the position of the N-­‐VA as a successor party. This should include scrutiny of the party’s membership organisation, its non-­‐political personnel, its finances and its formal institutions to determine to which extent the N-­‐VA is a continuation of the old VU and what part of the organisation is new. The histories and the characterising founding contexts of the four cases of new parties scrutinised in this paper demonstrate the efficacy of the genetic model. 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