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This thesis aims to study the indirect effects of the Europeanization on national parties and the presence of an established national opposition towards the European Union (EU) and its effects in Sweden, as a result of the so-called conflict of Vaxholm.   The questions asked were whether or not it existed an established national opposition towards the EU, and if so, what the opposition consists of substantially. The research method, which was used, is a quantified text analysis on the chamber debates of the Swedish Riksdag and the party congresses of Socialdemokraterna. The study shows that there is an ambivalent opposition towards the EU and its effects in the aftermath of the conflict of Vaxholm.  Socialdemokraterna presented resistance, but did not manage to present apparent alternatives, which left the party with a rather indistinctive opposition. In contrast to the right-wing party, the left-wing party had some profound difficulties in positioning itself in the new and globalized economy. I therefore suggest, that it might be more providing and exhaustive to introduce Azmanova’s ideal-type analysis, which instead of positing parties on a left-right continuum, posit parties after respective party’s opinions concerning the risks or opportunities which the EU and the internal market’s effects.

This dissertation addresses two important questions: what constitutes regionalist party success and what factors explain this success? Regionalist parties are political parties that compete within a confined geographic region and focus on gaining greater political autonomy. This differentiates them from mainstream parties who prefer to emphasize traditional left-right political issues and compete across the entire country. I argue that to better understand the electoral outcomes of these parties, their results need a more nuanced categorization: breakthrough, failure, and persistence. Breakthrough occurs when a party has a large surge in support. Electoral failure happens when a party suffers a precipitous decline in vote shares, diminishing its political relevance. Persistence results when a party replicates its previous electoral outcome with minimal change. I used a supply-side and demand-side theoretical framing to consider the influences on regionalist party outcomes. Demand-side or “bottom-up” based theories state that political parties are primarily responsive organizations that adapt to changes in public attitudes. Thus, they must respond and closely align with the social, cultural, and economic positions of the public. I hypothesized, however, that supply-side factors best explain a regionalist party’s fate. Supply-side or “top-down” theories maintain factors outside of public demand can shape elections. These include institutional arrangements and party strategies, such as the positions the parties take and salience they give to particular issues. In this framework, the choices parties make can impact citizens’ voting. To explain breakthrough, failure, and persistence, I found three factors most relevant: the emphasis mainstream parties put on issues related to regional autonomy compared to left-right issues, the positions mainstream parties take on decentralizing power, and the positions that regionalist parties adopt regarding regional autonomy. When all of these align favorably in an election a party is more likely to breakthrough. In instances where all of them align unfavorably the probability of failure increases. Persistence is most probable when one or two of the factors is beneficial, but not all of them. I analyzed these questions using a mixed-methods approach that included multiple regression analyses and case studies of eight different elections in Scotland.

The outbidding model of intraethnic party competition has dominated the literature on ethnic party competition. The emphasis of this literature on radicalization as an inevitable consequence of intraethnic competition has recently faced fair criticism. Scholars have presented new empirical evidence for intraethnic party competition that runs counter to the predictions of outbidding. Nevertheless, the major assumptions of the outbidding model persist. Scholars generally focus on ethnic outgroups as a source of intraethnic party competition, disregarding other factors that affect competition between ethnic parties within the same ethnic group. My approach to study intraethnic party competition is different. Instead of merely focusing on ethnic politics as the main factor driving intraethnic competition, I investigate other factors that determine intraethnic competition beyond ethnic politics, including social cleavages, and the electoral system. I submit that intraethnic party competition cannot be boiled down simply to ethnic politics. Ethnic parties within the same ethnic group compete over various issues ranging from socioeconomic concerns, to foreign policy and regionalists.

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<p>How can we explain variation in support for radical right parties over time and across post-communist democracies? This project suggests that support for radical right parties is driven by the politics of accommodation, and is aimed at counteracting the political inroads, cultural concessions and economic gains of politically organized minorities. It differs from other studies of extremist politics in three primary respects: (1) Unlike current approaches that focus on competition between the extreme and mainstream parties, I emphasize dynamics between the radical right party and non- proximate parties that promote minority rights. (2) Several approaches argue that xenophobia drives support for the radical right, whereas I show that xenophobia is not a distinct feature of the radical right party support base; what differentiates radical right voters from other voters is opposition to governmental transfers towards politically organized minorities. (3) I endogenize issue salience and identify coalition politics - i.e., coalitions of mainstream parties and parties supporting minority protection - as a key mechanism that increases the salience of identity issues in political competition, and benefits radical right parties. The project tests these propositions empirically, and finds supportive evidence using two unique micro-level surveys and an original party-election-level data set covering all post-communist democracies.</p> / Dissertation

The purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent skeptical attitudes towards the European Union is driven by materialistic-, postmaterialist values and populism in different parts of Europe. To achieve this aim, the study is based on multivariate regression analysis with data utilized from the European Social survey 2014. The findings show that cultural questions associated with TAN values, such as a nationalistic resistance towards immigration, have the best ability to predict EU-skepticism over economic questions related with a subjective placement on the political left-right scale, or populism associated with a lack of trust in the state of political governance. These findings suggest that the subjective left-right scale do not structure attitudes toward the European Union to a great extent. Instead, the results of this study are in line with scholars that argue that the TAN-GAL scale as well as populism have grown in importance, as these axes of competition are both more linked with opinions on EU. These results hold for all regions in Europe that are examined in this study, although particular strong effects are found in Germany, where populism and TAN values shape attitudes towards EU to the greatest extent.

This paper examines the causal effect of niche parties’ council representation on policy outcomes in Spain between 2003 and 2022. Focusing on the far-left IU and far-right VOX as niche parties, it utilizes local-level data on municipal elections. To account for possible endogeneity, I apply a regression discontinuity design using the 5% electoral admission threshold, generating quasi-experimental variation in the probability that a niche party is represented in the council. I show that if IU obtains council representation, municipal budgets shift from a surplus to a deficit. Moreover, I find large effects on revenue and spending if PSOE is forming the coalition, even if it is not the strongest party in the election. These findings suggest that IU plays a crucial role as a coalition partner, exerting a considerable influence on local policies. Conversely, there seem to be no effects of IU’s representation for single-party majority governments. This indicates that in contrast to research looking at parties’ policy positions, bargaining about resources rather than electoral competition for voters drives the results. Additionally, I provide evidence for spillover effects to the regional level, resulting in a higher level of party favoritism between regional and local governments due to IU’s council representation. Regarding VOX’s entry into the council, I find a substantial reduction in fee revenues.

Depuis le milieu des années 1980, la construction européenne est entrée dans une phase d’accélération quivoit l’affirmation de l’Union européenne comme un espace de décision politique à part entière, dont lesprérogatives et les interventions deviennent toujours plus palpables au niveau domestique. Cette thèseexplore les conséquences de ce processus sur la compétition électorale. Le questionnement de ladistinction populaire entre effets « directs » et « indirects » nourrit une réflexion sur les mécanismes parlesquels les partis sont affectés et nous conduit à conceptualiser l’intégration européenne comme unealtération de l’environnement et de la structure d’opportunités des partis, à travers l’européanisation despolitiques publiques et la mise sur agenda de nouveaux enjeux. Cette perspective permet à la fois de mieuxintégrer dans l’étude des partis le tournant interactionniste des recherches sur l’européanisation, etd’enrichir l’analyse en l’inscrivant dans des cadres théoriques depuis longtemps éprouvés pour étudier lespartis et la compétition politique. L’européanisation de la compétition électorale en France, en Allemagneet au Royaume-Uni entre 1986 et 2009 est étudiée au prisme des opportunités et des contraintes découlantde l’intégration, puis des réponses apportées par les acteurs partisans à différents niveaux. Notre enquêtes’appuie pour cela sur l’analyse d’un vaste corpus de documents, de données et de littérature, notammentsur la couverture médiatique des questions européennes, les orientations européennes discernables dansl’opinion publique des trois pays, l’européanisation des politiques publiques, les discours tenus lors descongrès des partis sociaux-démocrates et les programmes électoraux des différents partis. Nous observonsune européanisation différenciée, mais significative, de la structure d’opportunités des partis. En raison desrésistances déployées par les acteurs partisans qui dominent la compétition inter- et intra-partisane, cettetendance n’affecte les dynamiques de compétition électorale qu’à la marge. / European Union to establish itself as a full-fledged political space whose prerogatives and interventionsbecome more and more palpable at the domestic level. This thesis explores the consequences of thisprocess on party competition. The questioning of the popular distinction between « direct » and« indirect » effects nourishes a reflection about the mechanisms by which parties are affected and leads usto conceptualize European integration as an alteration of parties’ environment and structure ofopportunities, through the europeanisation of public policies and the agenda-setting of new issues. Thisperspective allows both to better integrate in the study of parties the « interactionnist » turn of research oneuropeanisation and to enrich the analysis by anchoring it within ordinary frameworks of parties andelectoral competition. The europeanisation of party competition in France, Germany and the United-Kingdom between 1986 and 2009 is studied from the perspective of opportunities and constraintsgenerated by European integration and, then, from the perspective of partisan actors’ reponses at severallevels. Our inquiry relies on the analysis of a vast corpus of documents, data and literature, notably on themedia coverage of European issues, European orientations in the public opinion of the three countries,europeanization of public policies, discourses held at the congresses of social-democratic parties andelectoral manifestos of the different parties. We observe a differentiated, but significative, europeanisationof parties’ structure of opportunities. Due to the resistances of the actors who dominate inter- and intrapartycompetition, this tendency affects the dynamics of party competition only marginally.

Das erste empirischen Kapitel analysiert die ,Parteieninteraktion’ im Wettbewerb. Parteien sind empfänglich für die Agenda ihrer Mitbewerber. Allerdings sind nicht alle Parteien in gleichem Maße empfänglich. Erfahrung in Koalitionen sollte etablierte Regierungsparteien empfänglicher für Signale der wettbewerblichen Umgebung machen, wohingegen herausfordernde Parteien ihre eigene Agenda antreiben und Veränderungen in der system-internen Salienz von Themenbereichen ignorieren. Weiterhin nehmen die Parteiführungen eine größere Notwendigkeit wahr, auf Konkurrenten zu reagieren und auf der Welle der Themen des Parteisystems mitzuschwimmen. Aktivisten sind stattdessen eher von policy-seeking-Motivationen angetrieben und bevorzugen eher, dass die Partei thematisch einen traditionellen Fokus beibehält. Das zweite empirische Kapitel behandelt die Reichweite von parteilichen Themenkatalogen. Das Argument ist dabei, dass herausfordernde Parteien den Status quo zu ändern suchen, indem sie sich auf wenige Themen fokussieren. Etablierte Parteien verteilen ihre Aufmerksamkeit auf eine Vielzahl von Themen. Weiterhin ändern etablierte Parteien die Reichweite ihrer Agenda, wenn sie mit elektoralen Verlusten konfrontiert, oder von Regierungen ausgeschlossen sind. Parteiführungen versuchen breitgefächert anzusprechen, wohingegen Aktivisten wollen, dass zur Parteibasis gesprochen wird. Der dritte empirische Teil behandelt Innovationen auf dem Markt der politischen Themen. Das Kapitel untersucht der Einfluss von Wählerunterstüzung für grüne, rechtsaußen- und euroskeptische Parteien auf thematische Agenden. Neben Unterstützung für grüne und rechtsaußen Parteien, provoziert auch der Erfolg von euroskeptischen Parteien andere Parteien dazu, ihre thematischen Berücksichtigungsstrategien anzupassen. Dieser Effekt ist konditional und hängt von der Salienz ab, die die herausfordernde Partei dem Thema zumisst. / The first empirical chapter analyses `party interaction' in issue competition. It shows that parties are responsive to the agendas of their competitors. Not all parties are equally responsive. Experience in government coalitions makes mainstream parties more `sensitive' towards their competitive environment whereas challengers push forward their own agendas and ignore systemic salience shifts. Furthermore, party leaders perceive the need for their party to respond to competitors more strongly than do activists. Activists are driven by policy-seeking motivations and would like to see the party focus on its traditional agenda. The second empirical chapter deals with the scope of parties' issue agendas. Why do parties sometimes offer a broad agenda to voters, whereas at other times they confine their policy appeals? Challenger parties seek to change the political status quo by focusing on a few issues only. Mainstream parties distribute their attention across a wide range of issues. Moreover, mainstream parties change the scope of their agenda when after electoral losses or when excluded from office. This depends on intra-party politics. Leaders seek to satisfy vote- and office-seeking motivations and `appeal broadly', activist want the party to `speak to the base'. The third empirical chapter deals with innovations in political issue-markets. It examines how parties respond to the pressure to address new issues. This chapter examines the impact of electoral support for green, far right and Eurosceptic parties on the issue agendas of other parties. In addition to green and far right support, Eurosceptic party success also provokes other parties to adjust their salience strategies. This effect is conditional: if Eurosceptic parties regard European integration issues as particularly important, other parties adapt and shift salience to this issue dimension. For green and far right parties such a conditional effect is absent.