Do parties converge? : an empirical analysis of party organizational and policy issue saliency change in Western Europe (1970–2010)

Abstract

This article aims at assessing whether party organizational profiles and policy issue saliency converged in 7 European democracies (Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UK), from the 1970s to the 2010s. Building on the theoretical premises of the cartel party thesis and historical new-institutionalism, the paper argues that general tendencies in party policy issue saliency and organizational evolution driven by contextual factors have been taken for granted by party literature based on ideal-typical models. We maintain that party convergence is mainly associated to higher levels of socialization to government. Our empirical analysis shows that patterns of cross-country convergence among parties actually emerge concerning the saliency of the issues placed on the classical left-right divide, as well as party resources, while higher variance characterizes all the other organizational dimensions and post-materialist/value-based policy issues.