From Pariahs to Players? Left Parties in National Governments

Abstract

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, Koß and Olsen, 2007: chapter 4).