Jonathan Olsen

From Pariahs to Players? Left Parties in National Governments

Over the last two decades western European party politics has undergone a number of far-reaching changes. One of these changes has been the rise in the number of new parties and also an increase in the political relevance of longer-lived, but hitherto largely marginalised, older ones. Broadly speaking, these parties fall into one of three distinct camps – Green parties, parties of the far right, and parties of the far left. One of the most interesting common features of these three types of party is their initial – and in some cases, still existing – disdainful attitude to striking bargains and entering government alongside other actors. The first of these three party types, Green parties, were initially considered non-coalitionable by their opponents, and for many years they themselves also deliberately rejected participating in national governments, making a virtue out of the necessity of their ‘anti-partyness’ (Frankland and Schoonmaker, 1992; Poguntke, 1993; Tiefenbach, 1998; Shull, 1999; Burchell, 2002). This changed slowly at first, but by the late 1990s most green parties had become ‘coalitionable’, even if many have not yet actually been part of a national government (Lees, 2000; Poguntke, 2002; Hough, Kos and Olsen, 2007: chapter 4).

Conclusion: left parties in national governments

Given their position as key players in their respective party systems – not to mention their growing importance in the coalition formation process – it is perhaps surprising that political science has only reluctantly given left parties serious scholarly attention or, as Bale and Dunphy (2006) have put it, brought these parties ‘in from the cold’. Doing just this has been the major purpose of this book. As is clear from our case studies, a considerable number of factors come into play in shaping the behaviour of these parties. Institutional factors, for example, have clearly impacted on left parties in Norway, Denmark and Sweden (owing to their traditions of minority government and negative parliamentarism), in Finland (with its special rules concerning the government formateur) and in Spain (with an electoral law that works heavily against minority parties without heavy regional concentrations). Leadership and organisation issues, meanwhile, have also affected left parties’ strategic choices in most of the countries considered here (perhaps most especially in the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Finland), while situational factors (including ‘external shocks’) have forced left parties to reconsider their strategies in several cases (above all in Germany, Italy, Norway and the Netherlands). Finally, party system factors – analysed in considerable detail below – appear to play significant roles in shaping left parties’ behaviour across all our case studies. As a result, many of the left parties considered here find themselves in key bargaining positions, especially in those countries where social democratic parties have fewer coalition options and/or historically better relationships with their cousins on the left. Consequently, as the authors in this volume have made clear, left parties are not substantially different from other parties in terms of the ‘hard choices’ that they are forced to make.

The Spring 2011 Landtag Elections: Regional Specificities or National Electoral Dynamics?

The year 2011 is a Superwahljahr in Germany, with five states (Hamburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Bremen) holding Land-level elections in the spring and two more (Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) following in the autumn. The debate on the ‘second-order’ nature of Land elections – whether they are to be understood by their own regionally specific dynamics or whether they primarily serve as a proxy for national electoral trends – provides the frame for this election report and its discussion of campaigns, election results and coalition outcomes. These elections could perhaps best be described as ‘one-and-a-half-order’ elections: in some of these elections there was evidence of national electoral trends and national political issues, and voters undoubtedly rendered something of a judgement on the federal coalition government. Nevertheless, election and coalition outcomes probably had more to do with the specific political conditions prevailing in each of these states than with any overarching national dynamic.

Flesh of the Same Flesh: A Study of Voters for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the 2017 Federal Election

Using the 2017 post-election German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), this article examines the voters for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the 2017 German federal election. We show that AfD voters in 2017 were truly ‘flesh of the same flesh’ of the mainstream German political parties, with the AfD drawing its voters from across the political party spectrum as well as from previous non-voters in 2013. In contrast to previous scholarship, we find that in most respects AfD voters in 2017 did not differ demographically from voters for all other parties, be that in terms of gender, education, employment status, and union membership. Furthermore, we find that AfD voters were not driven by anxiety about their own economic situation: they are no ‘losers of globalisation.’ Instead, AfD voters in 2017 were driven solely by two factors: their attitudes towards immigrants/refugees and anti-establishment sentiment/satisfaction with democracy in Germany.

The Left Party in the 2017 German Federal Election

After the 2013 federal election the Left Party (LP) had three good reasons to be satisfied. First, it had maintained its status as the third largest party in eastern Germany (and in some states, the second largest). Second, by 2013 it had made substantial electoral inroads in western Germany, clearing the 5 per cent hurdle in several state elections and increasing its share of the vote in the west in the federal election as well. Finally, with the SPD joining in another grand coalition, the Greens falling behind the LP’s vote total, and the FDP failing to gain entry to parliament, the LP relished a new role as the leading opposition party in the Bundestag. Coming into the 2017 federal election, in contrast, the LP had clearly been unsettled. In state elections in 2016 in MecklenburgWest Pomerania and in Saxony-Anhalt, the party suffered huge election losses, falling to 16.3 per cent of the vote in the latter and to 13.2 per cent in the former. Meanwhile, the ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD) rocketed to 24.2 and 20.8 per cent in these two elections respectively. Post-election analyses revealed that while most AfD voters came from previous non-voters and from disaffected CDU voters, a significant number also deserted the LP to vote for the AfD (Abdi-Herrle, Venohr, and Blickle 2017). For the LP, the AfD’s rise had started to represent an existential threat. The LP therefore had two main goals for the 2017 election: to demonstrate solid electoral support by achieving a double-digit result as it had in 2009; and, despite the certainty that the AfD would be represented in parliament, to be the largest of the small parties and, if possible, retain its status as the largest opposition party in the case of another grand coalition (Deggerich 2017). To be sure, although it had set its sights on continuing to be a fundamental opposition to Merkel and the CDU, the LP did not entirely foreclose the possibility of a red–red–green government. During the early stages of the campaign – when Martin Schulz was in the ascendancy and appeared to have at least an outside chance to unseat Merkel – the SPD and LP conducted some preliminary discussions on this. But the Saarland state election in the spring of 2017 (where the Social Democrats failed to perform as expected) had halted this momentum. According to Stefan Liebich, a leading figure in Berlin state politics and a prominent pragmatist within the LP, the SPD ‘just lost its nerve’ for seriously discussing red– red–green (Deggerich 2017). Moreover, while the reformist, pragmatic wing of the LP represented by Dietmar Bartsch continued to suggest that a left-wing coalition was at least within the realm of possibility, Sarah Wagenknecht – the voice of the more orthodox wing of the party – constantly took shots at the LP’s potential coalition partners, arguing that before a coalition could be on the table the SPD would need to take a ‘Corbyn turn’ towards a more traditional left-wing programme. The Linke,

Sarah Elise Wiliarty, The CDU and the politics of gender. Bringing women to the party, reviewed by Jonathan Olsen:

fensible shift when the death of one Italian party, the Communist Party, is right there begging to be explored? To keep the record straight it should also be noted that in any case the Italian party system has not died. The players and the names have changed, but the characteristic deficiencies of the system remain. To these deficiencies have been added a higher level of corruption and a further decline of democratic values, but these are differences of degree, not of kind. There are some very unpleasant odours, but there is no corpse. The book concludes with a discussion of the flaws in the contemporary US party system. The chapter purports to be looking for ‘Implications for American Politics in the 21st Century’, but there are very few references to the cases studied and links to the question of dis-alignment are sparse and unconnected: excessive polarization and obstruction of governance are mentioned, but almost no attention is given to the massive de-alignment of US voters nor to the movement of core or medial voters. Dis-alignment is deemed unlikely in the United States because voters have no viable ‘other’ party to turn to (not coincidentally, Mack is a strong defender of the two party system, aware but un-concerned that it is achieved in the US by state legislation crushing the possibility of meaningful third-party participation). His conclusion is appropriately modest: although there may be ‘defining attributes and conditions’ that could produce future party dis-alignments in the US or elsewhere, there is no way of knowing in advance. There is nothing cyclical about re-alignments nor, therefore, of dis-alignments. Overall, Mack has put forward some eminently plausible reasons for party demise, but has not adequately demonstrated empirically their validity. His cases are not up to the task he gives them and he brings no wider knowledge of parties elsewhere to assist: the book is definitely not a significant contribution to the comparative study of political parties. It does, however, provide interesting insights into three of the specific cases studied and is in that respect often a good read.

The Norwegian Socialist Left Party: Office-seekers in the Service of Policy?

The Socialist Left Party (Sosialistisk Venstreparti, SV) originated as a splinter party of the dominant centre-left Labour Party (DNA) in 1961, as Norway’s membership in NATO and that organisation’s nuclear policy sparked a walkout of the far-left faction within the DNA. Known initially as the Socialist People’s Party (SF), the party was, at most, a minor electoral irritant to Labour throughout the 1960s, and by the end of the decade it was near total collapse. Yet it rebounded as a result of mobilisation against Norway’s possible EEC membership in 1972: leading the ‘No’ camp, SF, the anti-EEC opposition within the (otherwise pro-EEC) DNA, and representatives of the Communist Party (NKP) joined forces in a ‘Socialist Electoral Alliance’, which after a period of consolidation into one party (with most of the Communist Party representatives returning to an independent NKP) renamed itself the Socialist Left Party in 1975.

The Left Party in Opposition

There is plenty of evidence to indicate that the Left Party in government has developed into a reliable, ideologically pragmatic and eminently ‘normal’ political party. This, of itself, should not be altogether surprising. But what of the Left Party’s branches elsewhere? Is there evidence that the other eastern German Landesverbande are watching, learning and emulating the pioneers in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin?1 Are they perhaps, on the contrary, scowling and scolding from a distance, becoming ever more resolute in their wish not to lose that radical touch and become part of the political establishment? Or are Land political arenas small, more or less independent, worlds that force Left Party politicians to forge their own individual paths, no matter whether they are keen to do so or not? Put another way, although Left Party branches in other parts of the country are not compelled to do so, can we see evidence of ‘Green-like processes’ elsewhere even though the branches have not (yet) been in government? This chapter tracks the behaviour, in terms of both programmatic development and political strategy, of the Left Party in two states where it is, and always has been, a party of opposition.2 Most of the analysis stems from detailed case studies of Saxony and Brandenburg.

The Left Party in Berlin

The Left Party in Berlin is an altogether different beast not just to the branch in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania but also to all other Left Party Landesverbande. If the Left Party has gone down the Green path towards institutionalisation anywhere, then it is here that it has done so most obviously; this is in terms of de-radicalising its ideology, risking the wrath of the part of its electorate that is ‘hard left’, warming to ideas of shaping rather than opposing policy and also in attempting to appeal to a broader electoral constituency that would (coincidentally) normally have some sympathies with the Greens in cities such as Berlin. The Left Party remains a domain of modern socialism and the other three streams within the party play, at best, a marginal role. The Berlin Left Party has always understood itself, largely as it is rooted in the capital city, as a visionary force within the party, paving the way for the Left Party to embed itself in Germany’s party system and, eventually, to shape policy from inside the corridors of power. It is well aware that this strategy will move it away from its radical past and will force it to deal with complex problems that are unlikely to have popular solutions even within its own clientele. Furthermore, Berlin’s unique position as an east-west city ensures that politics there simply functions a little differently to that of other German cities as well as other, less urban, Bundeslander. There is therefore ample evidence that, in terms of attitudes to taking part in government, the Berlin Left Party is going down the Green path, even if the reasons for this are very different to those in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Policies, Programmes and Personalities: The Post-1998 PDS

The 1998 federal election was a milestone in the PDS’s short history. On 27 September over 2 5 million voters put their cross next to the party’s name. Just over 2 million (2,054,773) were resident in the eastern states (21.6 per cent of eastern voters), and 460,000 in western Germany (1.2 per cent of all western voters). The slightly improved performance in the West (the PDS polled 91,000 votes more than it did in 1994) was enough to push the PDS’s national percentage of the vote over the crucial 5 per cent mark. The margin for error was small; had 55,000 PDS voters opted to support another party on election day, then the PDS would — once again — have been entering the Bundestag as a parliamentary group rather than a fully fledged parliamentary party.1 That the PDS now enjoyed Fraktionsstarke (the status of a parliamentary party) entitled it to more money (to fund the activities of its Fraktion), granted its politicians more time to speak in parliamentary debates (important in terms of gaining visibility and publicity) and to representation on significant parliamentary committees. The PDS was also able to fund a political foundation, which it duly did, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, based at Franz-Mehring-Platz, in eastern Berlin.2