Green Parties and Policies after the Economic Crisis - European ...

Dr. Sebastian U. Bukow

Dr. des. Niko Switek

[email protected] Institute for Social Sciences & Duesseldorf Party Research Institute (PRuF) Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf (Germany)

[email protected] Institute for Political Science, NRW School of Governance University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany)

ECPR General Conference Montreal 2015 Section: Environmental Politics Panel: Green Parties and Partisan Politics

Green Parties and Policies after the Economic Crisis *** Draft: Please do not cite without permission ***

Abstract The financial and economic crisis has lasting effects on European political systems. Governments were replaced, parties challenged by new populism and party systems reconfigured. In this paper we ask for the impact of the crisis on party policy change, particularly with regard to green parties and environmental policies. We argue that the crisis – which emphasizes economic-materialistic issues and downplays ecologic-postmaterialistic issues – poses a specific threat to green parties. We ask: Is the era of ‘new politics’ over as support for a postmaterialistic agenda decreases or did green parties react to the crisis by successfully intertwining economic issues into their ecological portfolio? Is there a ‘green’ or a party-specific response? Which saliency has environmentalism for green parties after the crisis? We conduct a longitudinal comparative analysis of policy change (before/after crisis) in European green parties, based on a broad empirical dataset (manifesto, party, party system and political system data).

Keywords Comparative Politics, Environmental Policy, Green Politics, Party Manifestos, Policy Analysis, Political Competition, Political Parties

I

Introduction

The global financial crisis and the resulting turmoil have lasting effects on European politics (e.g. Claessens et al. 2010). The political discourse on European integration is strongly focused on monetary and fiscal policies and short-term reactions to stabilize the common currency. Notably Eurozone member states are scrutinized for their debt and efforts for budget consolidation, but all European Union members experience pressure on national politics. In the wake of the crisis some national governments were replaced and several party systems reconfigured. Even though countries in Europe are affected differently it is safe to say that the financial crisis means an extensive external shock – for the political systems of European states and therefore for political parties as the central actors. In that respect the financial and economic crisis might pose a threat especially for green parties, which emerged in the seventies and eighties in most of Western Europe in a time of economic growth and welfare system expansion, pushing a postmaterialistic agenda and quality of life issues. Building on party system, party competition and party change theory we therefore address the question, how green parties, whose identities are closely linked to postmaterialistic issues, reacted to a widespread financial crisis, which undoubtedly activates materialistic concerns in the electorate (Margalit 2013). In a first step we look for a systematic effect on election results for green parties. Referring to the theory of issue-ownership (Budge/Farlie 1983) and party competition we ask: Does the financial crisis systematically disadvantage green parties in elections? A general downward trend would be an indicator for waning support for postmaterialistic issues in the electorate. In a second step we present models to capture and explain possible programmatic change of green parties in the wake of the financial crisis. On the one hand we are interested in highlighting the scope of programmatic change in the green party family. Do we see widespread policy change or do they stand firm on their established positions? On the one hand the global dimension of the crisis as an external shock allows us to test for systematic patterns of different party families. On the other hand we incorporate other factors in our model, which are known to spur programmatic change in parties. We try to identify specific patterns of green parties’ policy change. Our empirical analysis is based on data from election databases, the comparative manifesto project (Volkens et al. 2015) and the ParlGov database (Döring/Manow 2012). Additional data regarding possible influences for programmatic change were compiled from different sources by the authors.

Bukow/Switek: Green Parties and Policies after the Economic Crisis

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II

Theoretical aspects

Political Parties, Policies und Policy Change Parties are central actors in national, democratic political systems. They link citizens and the state by engaging in competitive elections with candidates and specific policy positions. These party positions are most prominently articulated in electoral manifestos and follow two logics: They either correspond to differing positions on one issue or parties stress and emphasize certain policies as part of their identity. Programs tailored for elections are more specific and sensitive to current trends than the broader and long-term basic programs. Party manifestos allow an assessment of the party positions as well as tracing of these positions over multiple elections. Research on these manifestos shows that parties are rather stable regarding their policy stance

– fundamental changes are the exception

(Budge/Klingemann 2001). This coincides with findings from party change theory that parties are predominantly change-resistant organizations (Harmel/Janda 1994), due to the costs and risks that are related to organizational or programmatic changes. Addressing policy change, change creates uncertainty of voter’s acceptance of divergence of the hitherto pursued path (Budge 1994). Especially for smaller parties it seems to be an attractive strategy to focus on a distinct set of policy issues (Green-Pedersen/Mortensen 2010). Nevertheless, parties do occasionally change their positions. In general, “party change is normally a result of leadership exchange, a change of dominant faction within the party and/or an external stimulus for change” (Harmel/Janda 1994: 262). An external stimulus is most relevant in the most cases of party policy change. This stimulus is a (externally caused or generated) shock that is directly related to the party’s primary goal (Harmel/Janda 1994: 267). According to Strøm parties’ goals are threefold (vote-, office- or policy-seeking), but voteseeking is a central goal in any case (Strøm 1990). We therefore argue, that all parties participating in elections are at least to some extent vote-seeking organizations. Consequently, these parties at least in part reflect their voter’s interest and link them with the parties’ policy preferences. In this respect a widespread crisis like the financial crisis has an impact on party policies, as voter preferences diverge from party positions. This triggers pressure on parties to adapt their positions, in other words: parties – at least partly – change or emphasize their positions in response to their environment (Schumacher et al. 2013, Adams et al. 2009), at least if they are afraid of electoral loss or interested in electoral success. Consequently, if parties are understood as vote-seeking organizations, it is reasonable for them to keep policy positions in line with their electorate. Changes in their electorate are an important impulse for party policy change, given that parties are responsive to these shifts (e.g. Schumacher et al. 2013). Nevertheless, the problem for parties is that they have no reliable


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indicator how relevant these shifts are and how in line their platform is with the preferences in their electorate. Hence election results function as a cue for parties, how popular their manifesto was for the voters. Therefore „(…) parties are expected to react to electoral loss at the previous election by changing their policy positions at the current election” (Somer-Topcu 2009: 238). Electoral defeat, experienced as an external shock by parties, increases the probability of a programmatic change (at least as long as parties do not see other reasons for their failure), while electoral success reduces incentives to transform policies (Janda et al. 1995). Taking the office-seeking goal of parties into account, this relation has to be qualified: An electoral defeat may be softened if the party nevertheless manages to secure government participation (Schumacher et al. 2013). In addition to this, changes within the party in public office (esp. joining or leaving government) may cause – as an indirect electoral result – policy change as well. However, not only electoral results cause party policy change. As parties are responsive to their environment, other environmental incidents affect a party. This holds especially true when these external incidents are – or are expected to be – important for a parties’ voters. For example it is well-known fact in literature, that “parties adjust their positions due to changes in economic conditions such as globalization patterns and the concomitant risks of unemployment this brings for workers and entrepreneurs” (Schumacher et al. 2013: 465; Haupt 2010). We therefore assume that the financial crisis plays an important role for party policy change, due to incentives from (party) system and micro (voter) level. The financial crisis began in 2007 (timeline in Claessens et al. 2010). What started out as a problem with mortgages in the US, cumulated in the collapse of the Lehman Brothers bank in 2008 and subsequently evolved into a global financial and economic crisis. Several (not only) European countries entered into recession and budget problems intensified. The Euro-zone member states agreed upon diverse measures like cutting off social welfare state spending and aiming for balanced budgets, esp. for those countries struggling with pivotal budget problems. Besides this impact on state level the crisis had an impact on micro level. Recent research shows that the economic recession influences individuals’ policy preferences: “Voter’s preferences regarding welfare state policy are strongly affected by changes in their own economic circumstances. In particular, the loss of employment is found to have a major effect, increasing the […] probability of support for greater welfare state spending” (Margalit 2013: 81). Consequently it is most likely that there is a comeback of materialism within the economic crisis, as financing daily life tends to be a problem (e.g. due to unemployment). Furthermore, the revitalized importance of materialistic issues especially threatens parties whose core competence is located in non-materialistic, i.e. postmaterialistic issues: Greenecological parties who are closely linked with these new politics.


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Green parties and new politics Green parties entered the party systems in Western Europe in the late 1970ies. Their emergence is associated with a fundamental change of values. On the grounds of economic prosperity and growth postmaterialistic attitudes like autonomy and self-expression gained importance (Inglehart 1977). Ecology, peace and anti-militarism, feminism, civil rights and grassroots participation were put on the political agenda by new social and protest grassroots movements. These movements served as extra-parliamentary forerunners of the early green parties, esp. in Germany (Bukow 2008). Furthermore, the idea of postmaterialism can be linked with cleavage theory (Lipset/Rokkan 1967). It is argued in literature that the emergence of green parties is based on a new cleavage (materialism vs. postmaterialism or old vs. new politics; Müller-Rommel 1984, 1988; Kitschelt/Hellemans 1990).1 Merging these aspects with the idea of political parties’ issue-ownership (Budge/Farlie 1983) one can argue, that green parties are closely linked to new politics and postmaterialism. Being the party-political branch of new social movements and furthermore ‘early-adopters’ of new politics they addressed and therewith acquired ownership of these issues. Speaking in general terms, green parties still have high reputation in environmental and ecological policies, in gender-, women and civil rights and in the rather vague area of quality of life-issues. It has to be emphasized though that besides the postmaterialistic moment green parties do not share a coherent ideology. It is more a set of political issues they have in common. One should keep this in mind when looking at green parties’ reactions on the financial crisis. Due to a lack of a coherent ideology a broader range of reactions is possible and even likely (depending e.g. on the local political system/competition or the type of green party). This also holds true for green parties in Europe, even though the coherence of their platform is supported by a common group in the European Parliament and a transnational party organization (i.e. the European Green Party). 2 While the difference between green parties and parties of other families in an institutional dimension are in fact small, there are still quite different policy positions within the green family (Bukow/Switek 2012). This is a heritage of the early party days, when Greens resembled alliances of factions instead of well-organized party organizations. Through electoral success and government participation they converged with established parties and shed their outsider status (Bukow 2013; Bukow/Poguntke 2013). But green parties in Europe still are on differing stages of this process. Today there is a scope from minor extra-parliamentarian, to electoral successful and to governing green parties.

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In addition to this in some countries (e.g. Germany) institutional aspects were most important for the success of green parties as well (Probst 2013; Bukow 2008). Cp. in this context esp. the European Green Party Resolution on the Financial Crisis (EGP’s 9th Council Meeting, 9.-12.10. 2008, http://europeangreens.eu/policies/financial-crisis).


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Financial crisis and new politics As argued above, the financial crisis could be responsible for a diminished demand for postmaterialistic issues (Probst 2013), what for green parties – often supported because of their core competence ‘postmaterialism and quality of life’ – means (electoral) trouble. Voters, struggling with daily life, rediscover traditional, pro-materialistic values and therewith parties representing these issues. On the other hand the crisis could lead to a radicalization. In this sense voters, being unsatisfied with the established parties and their crisis management in general, show a growing support for radical and formerly extra-parliamentary parties. The consequence is an increase of voters on the populist or even extreme left and right side, as seen e.g. in France (Hewlett 2012). This implies an opportunity for left-wing, non-governing green parties. As we know from literature, parties’ policy positions and parties’ answers to the crisis differ, even though there is no over-all alternative addressed (Armingeon 2013). Consequently, our research interest arises from the expected friction between the postmaterialistic origin (and base) of the green party family on the one hand and the revoking of materialistic issues (such as job security, welfare state spending) in the wake of the financial crisis on the other hand. In a first step we ask if green parties are systematically disadvantaged by the crisis – e.g. due to changing policy preferences in the electorates – or not. An overall downward trend for green parties would point to a decline in postmaterialistic demands in the electorate.

Hypotheses: (Green) Party Policy Change and the Financial Crisis Combining the different theoretical aspects, we analyze the extent of manifesto change of (green) parties before and after the economic crisis. Our analyses are guided by several theses deriving from the arguments listed above. The first two theses are derived from the assumption that postmaterialistic issues are diminished in the wake of the crisis as materialistic problems gain importance. We specifically address green parties (i.e. parties belonging to the “ecologist party family”). We assume that (1) in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis green parties systematically lose voters at the polls. Furthermore we assume that (2) parties belonging to the green party family change their policy positions more extensively than other parties. Beyond this rather broad first perspective we need to reflect that the extent of the crisis differs and thereby the deriving pressure. Considering this, we assume that (3) parties in countries hit hard by the crisis are more likely to change their positions than parties in countries with a lower impact of the crisis.


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As already argued, not only economic aspects and related (assumed) shifts in voters’ preferences have an impact on party policy change. Furthermore, electoral results should have an impact, as (almost) all parties are vote seeking organizations and therefore electoral defeats are at least partly interpreted as a misfit of the electoral program and voters’ demands. Therefore we expect that (4) parties who have experienced an electoral defeat are more likely to change their policy platform. In addition we see the consequences of elections regarding the government participation of a party as crucial for stability of the party platform. While a party staying in opposition or contrariwise in office will see few incentives to change, an alternation of the governmental status means external pressure. Losing government office needs an explanation, or causes a change in the intraparty factional balance. On the other hand entering government exerts pressure as well, as the party has to reflect friction between goals articulated in opposition and governmental action. Therefore (5) manifesto change is more likely when a party has entered or left government as the program must be adjusted for the new situation. III

Data and Methods

The hypotheses will be tested by combining several data sources with detailed information on party policy change, impact of the crisis and electoral results of (not only) green parties. To systematically analyze the election programs we draw on data from the Comparative Manifesto Project (Budge at al. 2001; Volkens et al. 2012). The MARPOR data set consists of quantitative content analysis of election programs in all democratic national elections for numerous countries since 1945. All programs are coded with the same coding scheme, which is built up of 56 categories in seven major policy areas. It should be mentioned that the CMP data set has one disadvantage: There is quite a number of green parties, which are too small to be included in the data set (esp. Eastern European parties struggle with an absent postmaterialistic voter base; Bugajski 2002). Nevertheless the MARPOR data are helpful and used here as they allow us to compare green parties with other parties. Fundamental relevance for any MARPOR research has the decision, how coding results are translated into party positions – different approaches exist (overview in Dinas/Gemenis 2010; Lowe et al. 2011: 127-130). For this paper we rely on a suggestion of Janda et al. (1995: 179). This method calculates the similarity of manifestos in two consecutive elections: “[We] compare the profiles of topics discussed in the party manifesto for one election with the profile of topics discussed in the same party's manifesto for the subsequent election, using correlation and regression analysis. We regress the percentages of topics discussed in the second election on the prior election and compute the product-moment correlation to summarize the comparison. […] If parties do not change much in the issues they emphasize from one election to the next, the Bukow/Switek: Green Parties and Policies after the Economic Crisis

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correlation between the profile of manifesto topics discussed in adjacent election years will be high. The greater the change in issue emphasis, the lower the correlation.” This is our measure for congruence and used as dependent variable in our analysis (1 would mean a high correlation, i.e. a high stability; the lower the value the larger the differences). With this method it is not possible though to determine the direction of the change (i.e. left or right). On a more general level we are able to see how stable or flexible green parties reacted after 2008. Moreover we employ the programmatic change as a dependent variable for explaining why party change took place and to which extent this change was related to the financial crisis. To explain party manifesto change before and after the crisis, we merged the MARPOR data with additional data. While the MARPOR set also contains election results for the coded elections, for the systematic test further results were included and mainly taken from the European Election Database (EED)3 and partly specified by data of electoral commissions (if recent elections were not yet added or in cases of electoral lists). Information about governmental participation was taken from the ParlGov database (Döring/Manow 2012). Data concerning consequences and impact of the economic crisis (i.e. inflation and unemployment rate, national debt) stem from statistics form the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD 2015). All data were merged into one dataset, integrating all information that are needed for our analyses.4 As we set the first vertex of the financial crisis for summer 2008 with the Lehmann Brothers bankruptcy, we include the last national election before this date – arguing that these results are not yet influenced by the developing crisis. We need to consider some latency as processes of policy formulation take time. This is even more the case for green parties stemming from grassroots movements, emphasizing an open participation structure for all party members (e.g. for Germany: Poguntke 1993). Regarding the national election after the crisis we therefore look at elections since early 2009. These combined results offer a first descriptive look at electoral support for green parties and act as a background for checking policy change in the second step. Our final dataset spans 13 countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden) and covers elections from June 2004 to April 2014. 192 cases are included, thereof 147 cases with data concerning the programmatic change. These parties are, necessarily, more or less established parties in that sense that we can analyze change only for parties that were running

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The data are collected from original sources, prepared and made available by the Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD; www.nsd.uib.no/european_election_database). 4 This new dataset was generated in cooperation with Simon Franzmann and Johannes Schmitt (Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf). Bukow/Switek: Green Parties and Policies after the Economic Crisis

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for subsequent elections for at least two times. What we cannot include here are newcomers such as new populist parties that were successful in some countries after the crisis (e.g. the German AfD, cp. Berbuir et al. 2015).

IV

Empirical Findings

Along the lines of our argument regarding friction between the postmaterialistic stance of green parties and a comeback of materialistic issues through the global financial crisis, we asked in a first step rather broadly if green parties experienced specific electoral pressure after the crisis. We tested the electoral win/loss-ratio of green parties in elections before and after the crisis’ first peak, but did not find a significant correlation (Pearson -.161; n=21). In fact, green parties were slightly more successful in those elections taking part after 2009 than those directly previous 2009. This could either mean, that the electoral turnout for green parties is not threatened by the crisis or that they reacted with changing their policies by successfully addressing the alteration of economic conditions in their election platforms. In a second step we asked if the label ‘green’ makes a difference for the extent of programmatic stability in general, before and after the crisis (table 1). We expect a significant lower degree of programmatic stability after the crisis due to the need to tailor Greens’ postmaterialistic programmatic foundations to the changed economic background. The results shown in table 1 do not confirm our expectations. There is no significant correlation referring to the programmatic stability within the green party family in general and more specifically after the crisis. This means, that green parties do not differ from other parties regarding to programmatic change, neither before nor after the crisis started. At a first glance, the crisis in general had no effect on green parties. Nevertheless, it might be the case that Greens did not react that quickly but rather decided to stick to their original core issues (for instance addressing the limit of growth), as these are technical not falsified through the development of the crisis. Table 1: Programmatic Change and Green Parties

Pearson’s r

In General

Before the Crisis

After the Crisis

.138n.S. (n=147)

.079 n.S. (n=68)

.176 n.S. (n=79)

own calculation; source: merged data set.

As argued above though, despite the global and all-encompassing dimension of the financial crisis countries – and therewith their political systems and the parties in those systems – are affected in different ways and to different extents. Consequently, the impact of the crisis on parties should vary as well. According to our thesis we expect a higher degree of manifesto change in countries who are hit hard by the crisis, as this translates to a bigger external shock for all parties in the respective party system. To analyze the impact of the crisis on manifesto Bukow/Switek: Green Parties and Policies after the Economic Crisis

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change we run a linear regression with three models, again testing for higher correlation of party manifestos (table 2). First we tested for an effect of the crisis of its own. Therefore we used a dummy variable, differentiating between elections before (< 2009, dummy = 0) and after the crisis (>= 2009, dummy = 1). Second, we included aspects controlling the impact of the crisis in each country for the year of the election, which we measure by the inflation, the unemployment and the public debt rate (in relation to GDP). Finally we entered a green party dummy variable, controlling for the aspect in how far the criterion ‘member of the green party family’ makes a difference (green party = 1). The results are shown in table 2. The data show quite clearly, that the crisis itself has a significant, but small impact on program stability, as especially the very low adjusted R2 points out. Nevertheless, the crisis does not trigger a higher change rate for the party manifesto in general. Rather the contrary seems to be true: The analyzed (established) parties show a higher programmatic stability in their manifestos after the crisis than in those before. At first sight, this is a counterintuitive finding. It might be caused by the fact, that we analyze the stability of the complete manifesto and not only crisis-relevant topics. We can conclude, that the crisis does not trigger a general manifesto change. However it is still possible, that certain parts of the manifesto undergo a change, which just does not show for the whole manifesto. Addressing manifesto stability in general, a second finding in Model II illustrates the impact of the public debt rate. Public debt has – before and after the crisis - a significant impact on parties’ program change. As expected, a higher debt ratio corresponds to a lower manifesto correlation, i.e. the higher the debt ratio the more parties see a need for programmatic renewal.


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Table 2: The Impact of the Crisis for Programmatic Change (Complete Manifesto) Model I

Model II

Model III

Constante

.697*** (.021)

.856*** (.060)

.841*** (.060)

Manifesto after crisis (dummy; after = 1)

.060** (.028)

.095** (.030)

.094** (.030)

Inflation Rate

-.021 (.016)

-.019 (.016)

Unemployment Rate

-.005 (.007)

-.005 (.007)

Public Debt Rate

-.002*** (.000)

-.002** (.000)

Green Party (dummy; green = 1) Adjusted R²

.057 (.039) .024

.098

.105

n=147; table entries are non-standardized regression coefficients (B) and standard errors; significance: * p ≤ 0.05; ** p ≤ 0.01; *** p ≤ 0.001; own calculation; source: merged data set.

These results lead us to the conclusion, that general economic aspects are strongly relevant for parties’ programmatic development. What we do not yet know is, if this connection is even higher in regards to parts of the manifesto, where economic issues are specifically addressed. We would expect this relation, as parties might reconsider their economic concepts in the face of the crisis and voters probably anticipate a response to the widespread and global problem complex. To analyze this, we run the same model (this time neglecting the non-relevant aspect of inflation rate) for changes of solely economic policies in the party manifestos (table 3). What we see in table 3 is a higher explained variance and – more important – a highly significant aspect of the election date. The model therefore confirms, that the crisis acts as an external stimulus for party manifesto change, not exclusively but especially for parties’ economic positions. Notably, this is not an effect confined to green parties. There is no significant difference, if it the manifesto belongs to a green or some other party; the external stimulus affects all parties alike. But, and this is a surprise, the crisis has a highly positive effect on coherence of economic issues in the first post-crisis manifestos – the crisis triggers stability and not change or renewal. This might be a consequence of these first after-crisis manifestos: Parties need more time to respond, and their first reaction was to wait and see how the crisis develops further and which measures are useful for fighting the crisis. The reason for this could have to do with our data,


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as our dataset only contains established parties, because we cannot calculate manifesto change for newcomers with only one election manifesto. This confirms findings from party research, that parties like many organizations have a tendency to structural conservatism, as they overemphasize risks and costs associated with manifesto change. Another reason could be that the party elite – who is in charge of party manifesto work or at least usually initiates corresponding processes – is involved in managing the crisis itself and due to that has less capacities for programmatic work. This should be even truer for green parties in government office. In any case, this finding needs some further investigation. Table 3: The Impact of the Crisis for Programmatic Change (Economic Policies Only) Model I

Model II

Model III

Constante

.558*** (.029)

.677*** (.065)

.669*** (.065)


.198*** (.039)

.240*** (.043)

.238*** (.043)

Unemployment Rate

-.010 (.009)

-.010 (.009)

Public Debt Rate

-.001 (.001)

-.001 (.001)

Green Party (dummy; green = 1) Adjusted R²

.056 (.055) .145

.165

.165


Looking specifically at programmatic change within the green party family, we have two main findings so far. First Greens change their manifesto to a lesser extent than other parties (tab. 1) and second the crisis does not exert any measureable influence for programmatic stability or change. This leads us to the question, what pushes green parties to change their manifesto, if it is not only the economy, or – as analyzed here – what motivates them to programmatic continuity. We try to pursue this question in two separately run regression analysis, one for the overall manifesto change and the second explicitly for economic issues (this model is limited to green parties; table 4). Looking at the overall manifesto stability first, we controlled for aspects concerning the party in public office, i.e. electoral results in the previous election and


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changes in government participation. 5 Even though we only have a (unavoidable) small number of cases, our results are quite obvious and show a high explanatory power. Green parties are pushed to change their program by an electoral loss or – as shown here – electoral success has a positive impact on programmatic coherency. Parties that suffered a defeat in the election beforehand, tend to change their program to a higher extent than those who kept or increased their vote share. This clearly illustrates, that green parties are indeed sensitive for electoral outcomes, i.e. they are responsive vote-seeking parties. In addition to this, the change of governmental status (i.e. getting in or leaving government after the previous election) shows a lower significant effect for the aspect of manifesto stability. Here, further analysis for entering or leaving government would be useful, but this is a problem due to the small number of cases for green parties. Addressing economic policies explicitly as part of the manifestos, again electoral results are relevant at a significant level and show a positive effect for stability. In contrast to the overall program, the crisis in this model has an effect, while government participation seems not be relevant. Table 4: Programmatic Change of Green Parties (Complete Manifesto; Economic Policies Only) Complete Manifesto

Economic Policies Only

Constante

.783*** (.100)

.584*** (.126)

Public Debt Rate

-.001 (.002)

.000 (.002)


-.012 (.084)

Electoral Results (win/loss previous election)

.084** (.026)

.078* (.032)

Government Participation (change after previous election; dummy; change = 1)

.230* (.099)

.050 (.124)

Adjusted R²

.438

.277* (.105

.599


5

These aspects were tested in the models of table 2 & 3 as well, but they did not show any significant impact and due to that we decided to exclude them there.


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V

Conclusion

Our analysis sheds some light on the consequences of the global financial and economic crisis for parties and party policies, especially addressing green parties. First of all the overall look at election results of green parties did not show a systematic threat by the crisis for green parties. So far the crisis did not push green and ecological parties with their focus on postmaterialistic values, environmental protection and quality of life issues out of the party systems. Taking a closer look at the effects by supplementing the question of programmatic stability or flexibility we uncovered a rather surprising high stability regarding green parties election manifestos – overall and in elections after the first peak of the crisis. At the same time our analysis uncovered a significant effect of key economic indicators on the configuration of manifestos for all parties and independent of the date of the election. A negative economic outlook seems to trigger programmatic change. In this respect we therefore can confirm our hypothesis, that parties in countries hit hard by the crisis are more likely to change their positions than parties in countries with a lower impact of the crisis. Finally the analysis revealed two specific findings regarding green parties. Contrary to the often accentuated policy-seeking profile of green and ecological parties, our model shows a significant effect of electoral loss and change in government status on the probability to adapt or modify the party position. Interestingly enough this effect is stronger for economic aspects of their election manifestos. While we have some interesting first insights into effects of the crisis, this points to the need of more detailed studies breaking down the different segments of the CMP data and looking for specific profiles of parties which mirror their identity. With our analysis we ultimately confirm one more time the overall stability of manifestos, but by singling out economic policies as one coding category we did find an interesting and significant effect: The crisis acts as a stabilizer for economic issues in party manifestos of established parties, at least in those first post-crisis manifestos we could analyze yet. A first interpretation could be, that parties are in a state of shock regarding their economic policies. Because of the extent and global dimension of the financial and economic crisis parties rather stand firm on what they always said than risk to offer quick and possibly short-winded solutions in renewed manifestos. On the one hand this speaks to the argument about a missing conclusive global alternative and on the other hand this might be a consequence of a strategy described by German chancellor Angela Merkel as “driving by sight”. Up to now, our results show the need for further investigation, especially including the second generation of postcrisis manifestos (and therewith long-term longitudinal analysis) which could uncover patterns of latency in reference to manifesto change of established parties.


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