Showing papers in "European Journal of Political Research in 2006"

Globalization and the transformation of the national political space: Six European countries compared

Abstract: This article starts from the assumption that the current process of globalization or denationalization leads to the formation of a new structural conflict in Western European countries, opposing those who benefit from this process against those who tend to lose in the course of the events. The structural opposition between globalization 'winners' and 'losers' is expected to constitute potentials for political mobilization within national political contexts, the mobilization of which is expected to give rise to two intimately related dynamics: the transformation of the basic structure of the national political space and the strategic repositioning of the political parties within the transforming space. The article presents several hypotheses with regard to these two dynamics and tests them empirically on the basis of new data concerning the supply side of electoral politics from six Western European countries (Austria, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland). The results indicate that in all the countries, the new cleavage has become embedded into existing two-dimensional national political spaces, that the meaning of the original dimensions has been transformed, and that the configuration of the main parties has become triangular even in a country like France.

Political opportunity structures and right‐wing extremist party success

Abstract: West European right-wing extremist parties have received a great deal of attention over the past two decades due to their electoral success. What has received less coverage, however, is the fact that these parties have not enjoyed a consistent level of electoral support across Western Europe during this period. This article puts forward an explanation of the variation in the right-wing extremist party vote across Western Europe that incorporates a wider range of factors than have been considered previously. It begins by examining the impact of socio-demographic variables on the right-wing extremist party vote. Then, it turns its attention to a whole host of structural factors that may potentially affect the extreme right party vote, including institutional, party-system and conjunctural variables. The article concludes with an assessment of which variables have the most power in explaining the uneven electoral success of right-wing extremist parties across Western Europe. The findings go some way towards challenging the conventional wisdom as to how the advance of the parties of the extreme right may be halted.

The meaning and measure of state legitimacy: Results for 72 countries

Abstract: . This article presents a quantitative measurement of the political legitimacy of states in the late 1990s and early 2000s for 72 states containing 5.1 billion people, or 83 per cent of the world's population. First, the concept of state legitimacy is defined and justified. The definition includes the subjects, objects and sub-types of legitimacy. A strategy to achieve replicable cross-national measurements of legitimacy is then outlined and implemented, including a discussion of data sources and three alternative aggregation methods. The results are briefly examined and tested, and the uncertainties of quantitative measures discussed. Finally, the role of supplementary qualitative measurement is considered.

Reducing complexity in Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA): Remote and proximate factors and the consolidation of democracy

Abstract: . Comparative methods based on set theoretic relationships such as ‘fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis’ (fs/QCA) represent a useful tool for dealing with complex causal hypotheses in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions under the constraint of a medium-sized number of cases. However, real-world research situations might make the application of fs/QCA difficult in two respects – namely, the complexity of the results and the phenomenon of limited diversity. We suggest a two-step approach as one possibility to mitigate these problems. After introducing the difference between remote and proximate factors, the application of a two-step fs/QCA approach is demonstrated analyzing the causes of the consolidation of democracy. We find that different paths lead to consolidation, but all are characterized by a fit of the institutional mix chosen to the societal context in terms of power dispersion. Hence, we demonstrate that the application of fs/QCA in a two-step manner helps to formulate and test equifinal and conjunctural hypotheses in medium-size N comparative analyses, and thus to contribute to an enhanced understanding of social phenomena.

Political participation and three theories of democracy: A research inventory and agenda

Abstract: This article proposes an agenda for political participation research aimed at providing empirical answers to questions derived from normative political theory Based on a threefold distinction between responsive, participatory and deliberative models of democracy, the article first distinguishes three conceptions of political participation: as influencing attempts, as direct decision making, and as political discussion Second, it is argued that each of the three models is associated with different desired consequences of political participation: equal protection of interests, self-development and subjective legitimacy Third, a procedural standard is identified from which to evaluate the mechanism generating the three types of participation By analogy with theories of distributive justice, this mechanism should be sensitive to incentives but insensitive to resources The empirical questions thus implied are finally drawn together into an integrated agenda for future participation studies

The portfolio allocation paradox: An investigation into the nature of a very strong but puzzling relationship

Abstract: Perhaps the strongest empirical finding in political science is 'Gamson's Law': the near-perfect relationship that exists in parliamentary systems between a coalition party's seat contribution to the government and its quantitative allocation of cabinet portfolios. Nevertheless, doubts remain. What would happen if the salience or importance of the various portfolios was also taken into account? Should it not be the case that payoffs correspond with bargaining power rather than seat contributions? And perhaps most significantly, would addressing these issues produce evidence that the parties desig- nated to form governments extract disproportionately large payoffs for themselves, as pre- dicted by 'proposer' models of bargaining? Utilizing the results of a new expert survey of portfolio salience in 14 Western European countries, the authors of this article explore each of these questions. Their basic finding is that salience-weighted portfolios payoffs overwhelmingly mirror seat contributions, contra proposer models and any other models based on bargaining power. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for formal models of bargaining.

Rethinking Duverger's Law: Predicting the Effective Number of Parties in Plurality and PR Systems – Parties Minus Issues Equals One

Abstract: Attempts to predict the number of political parties emerging in democracies have usually been based on one of two seemingly incompatible approaches: (1) the ‘institutional’ approach (e.g.. Duverger’s Law and Hypothesis) focuses on the nature of the electoral system and also on the number of seats per district: (2) the ‘ideological’ approach stresses the nature and extent of social cleavages. This article attempts a synthesis by showing that election system and cleavage type interact to affect the number of parties. with the former factor determined in part by the latter. Our most striking finding. however. is that the effective number of parties tends to be obtained by adding ‘one’ to the number of issue dimensions. -Nithin this broader framework, Duverger’s Law emerges as a special case for polities with a single issue dimension. and Duverger’s Hypothesis is replaced by a much more quantitative prediction as to the effective number of parties.

Organizing consent: The role of procedural fairness in political trust and compliance

Abstract: . Political theory often attributes democratic legitimacy to the fairness of the processes by which collective decisions are taken; empirical research by contrast has primarily investigated whether citizens' approval of democratic institutions derives from satisfaction with the substantive output of those institutions. This article examines whether assessments of decision-making processes shape public willingness to consent to authority. The role of procedural fairness in institutional legitimacy has previously only been investigated in the context of the United States, and has fallen short of demonstrating that procedural assessments actually have a causal effect on institutional legitimacy. Panel survey data of attitudes in a large-scale land use issue provide the empirical base of the analysis. The results indicate that assessments of procedural fairness have a bearing on two conceptualizations of subjective legitimacy: respondents' trust for the authority and their willingness to accept a decision outcome.

Voter satisfaction and electoral systems: Does preferential voting in candidate-centred systems make a difference?

Abstract: Since the onset of the current wave of democratization, there has been a growing interest in researching the institutional factors underlying citizen support for democracy. This has also, in part, reflected a renewed scholarly interest in seeking answers to the questions of whether and how institutions ‘matter’. Of all the institutions that may matter, few would deny that electoral systems are among the most significant. They are the central institutional design issue for a new polity to resolve; and they are also among the most malleable of the political institutions. The aim of this paper is to assess whether ballot structure has a wider impact on levels of voter satisfaction with democracy. This paper uses the latest wave of data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) to assess the role of ballot structure, as well as a battery of other electoral system and individual-level variables, in influencing voter satisfaction with democracy in thirty countries. Using an intra-party measure which identifies the main characteristics of preferential system, our comparative analysis has shown that such systems promote a greater sense of fairness about election outcomes among citizens, which in turn is a major component of the public’s satisfaction with the democratic system.

Political participation and procedural utility: An empirical study

Abstract: Democracy can be characterized by policy outcomes as well as governmental processes. In this article, it is argued that people have preferences about both aspects and that they derive utility from the processes involved in decision making over and above the utility gained from outcomes. The authors study political participation possibilities as an important source of procedural utility. To distinguish between outcome and process utility, they take advantage of the fact that nationals can participate in political decision making, while foreigners are excluded and thus cannot enjoy the respective procedural utility.Utility is assumed to be measurable by individually reported subjective well-being.As an additional indicator for procedural utility, reported belief in political influence is analyzed. This article seeks to discuss theoretically and identify empirically proce- dural utility from political participation possibilities over and above outcome utility. It studies the effects of direct democratic participation possibilities on reported satisfaction with life and the reported belief of political influence using cross-regional data for Switzerland. To identify procedural utility, we take people's nationality into consideration. As political participation in ini- tiatives and referenda is restricted to Swiss nationals,only they can benefit the procedural utility to be derived from it. We find supporting evidence that citizens gain more life satisfaction from direct democracy than foreigners. Moreover, people believe they wield more political influence in jurisdictions

May the weak force be with you: The power of the mass media in modern politics

Abstract: . The idea that the modern mass media have a strong and malign effect on many aspects of social and political life is widely and strongly held. Television is often said to undermine democratic government popular support for leaders and institutions. In spite of all that has been written about media malaise, however, both theory and evidence suggests that the media are a comparatively weak force whose effects can be deflected, diluted and diffused by stronger forces. These include bedrocks political values associated with class, religion, age, gender and education, as well as social networks and discussions, distrust of the mass media, and personal knowledge and experience. Equally, the variables that mediate the media may also magnify its effects so that what appears to be a large media effect is, in fact, the result of an interaction between the media and other forces. This article lays out the argument of the media malaise literature that covers government and politics, then outlines the social forces that mediate the media, and finally provides some evidence to illustrate the argument that the media are generally a weak force in society.

Bowling the state back in: Political institutions and the creation of social capital

Abstract: While some studies have revealed that social capital is shaped within civil society, the role of political institutions in forming social capital has not yet been clearly shown. This article, therefore, tries to evaluate the politico-institutional foundations of social capital mea- sured in terms of associational life in Switzerland. The purpose is to apply Putnam's method of comparing subsystems to the Swiss cantons. The empirical analyses show that govern- ment structures are strongly associated with social capital. More specifically, the availabil- ity of direct democracy promotes a lively associational life. In addition, consensus democracy and decentralized political structures contribute to social capital. In this vein, the access points of the politico-institutional structure constitute a feasible 'top-down' path to break- ing out of the vicious circle of distrust, disengagement and weak democracy.

The Voters Decide?: Preferential Voting in European List Systems*

Abstract: The electoral law in many European countries permits voters to indicate preferred candidates within a party list rather than to make a choice only between parties. This paper examines briefly the various voting arrangements which allow this and considers in some detail the patterns of their utilization and their possible consequences. Whilst such behaviour can be understood as a form of political participation, it is evident that patterns vary and consequences are uncertain due to the complex interrelationship between the different elements in the electoral situation.

Standing Apart and Sitting Together. Enforcing Coalition Agreements in Multiparty Systems

Abstract: One of the most obvious questions to be asked about coalition governments is what these governments do, but this question has received little systematic attention from coalition researchers. A key element of coalition governance that may inform our empirical knowledge of the actions of government – their origin, organization and results – is coalition agreements. Party leaders negotiating a new government invest time in writing coalition agreements, and they do this because they expect beneficial effects: more efficiency in coalition policy making, and more peace in the government. Written coalition agreements are considered to reduce uncertainty and mistrust, and this is why they have become institutionalized in countries with coalition governments. This article presents an approach to the comparative study of coalition conflicts as they emerge during government formation, the management of this conflict through drafting coalition agreements and the effects of this during coalition life. The article sets out a number of expectations about the effects of types of deals that parties make; and asks what types of conflict management are most effective and what are the conditions for enforcement – structural and strategic? In recent comparative work, the features of coalition agreements and mechanisms of coalition governance in Western Europe have received attention. This article sets out, with empirical material, how further comparative research on coalition governance may be developed.

Why do so many people vote ‘unnaturally’? A cultural explanation for voting behaviour

Abstract: The traditional class approach to politics maintains that the working class 'natu- rally' votes for left-wing parties because they represent its economic interests. Such tradi- tional voting patterns have, however, become less typical, giving rise to the 'Death of Class Debate' in political sociology. Against this background, using data collected in the Nether- lands in 1997, this article examines why so many people, working and middle class alike, vote for parties that do not represent their 'real class interests'. Critically elaborating Lipset's work on working-class authoritarianism and Inglehart's on postmaterialism, the article confirms that 'natural' voting complies with the logic of class analysis. 'Unnatural' voting, however, is not driven by economic cues and class. Right-wing working-class voting behaviour is caused by cultural conservatism that stems from limited cultural capital. The pattern of voting for the two small leftist parties in Dutch politics underscores the signifi- cance of this cultural explanation: those with limited cultural capital and culturally conser- vative values vote for the Socialist Party ('Old Left') rather than the Greens ('New Left'). Breaking the traditional monopoly of the one-sided class approach and using a more eclec- tic and open theoretical approach enables political sociologists once again to appreciate the explanatory power of the class perspective.

On the problems of responsibility and accountability in referendums

Abstract: . Supporters of representative democracy tend to be critical of referendums. They argue that referendums give citizens more responsibility for political decisions than they have either the capacity or the competence to take. Moreover, they argue that referendums may undermine representatives' accountability. In this article, these arguments about responsibility and accountability are analyzed in the light of normative theories of democracy, especially the theory of deliberative democracy. Furthermore, different institutional forms of referendum are analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the following aspects: the extent to which governments control the use of referendums, how referendums interact with parliamentary decision making, and whether referendums are advisory or binding. It is argued that sometimes governments indeed use their control over referendums to avoid taking stands on difficult issues. More importantly, however, current forms of government-initiated referendums tend to weaken the accountability of the representatives, at least when interpreted in terms of liberal and deliberative democracy, and to distort parliamentary deliberations. Since delegation is a necessity in modern democracies, referendums should not undermine the mechanisms of representative democracy. In addition to the issues of citizens' capacity and competence, this viewpoint should be taken into account when designing referendum institutions.

Does a public sphere exist in the European Union? An analysis of the content of the debate on the Haider case

Abstract: . This article sets out how the public sphere can be studied through an analysis of the content of a specific debate. A public discourse can be said to pertain to a European Union-wide public sphere where the discourse within the EU is significantly different from that developed in non-EU countries, where such differences are not nationally defined, and where the debates in individual newspapers (which provide the fora for a public sphere) should be connected on the basis of some underlying factors. These conditions are tested with a quantitative analysis of the newspaper debate in 1999 and 2000 on the sanctions of the EU-14 against Austria. To the extent that the conditions are found, it can be concluded that there exists a European public opinion. The objective of studying this specific case is to demonstrate that, as far as an EU issue is concerned, there are already signs of an EU transnational political community.

Broadening and deepening or broadening versus deepening: The question of enlargement and Europe's 'hesitant Europeans'

Abstract: The European Union sees the inclusion of many Eastern European states -enlargement- as a natural progression in the process of building an 'ever closer union'. For the European Commission in particular, the process of enlargement (broadening) is part of the process of integration and acts as a complement to the development of a stronger role for the European Union and its institutions or deepening of integration. Yet as the first Irish referendum on the Nice Treaty showed, not all of European's citizens see the two processes of enlargement and integration in the same light. This article addresses two related questions. First, how are attitudes towards deepening and broadening related, and do European citizens see them as complementary or contradictory? Second, and related to the first, what factors drive popular attitudes towards enlargement?

Democratization as an emancipative process: The neglected role of mass motivations

Abstract: Despite major differences, prevailing approaches in democratization research have one thing in common:they downplay the role of mass attitudes.This article criticizes the neglect of mass attitudes,arguing that it ignores the very essence of democratization.In light of human development theory, democratization is essentially an emancipative process, for it manifests human freedom by empowering people with civil and political rights. From this premise,the author concludes that democratization should be driven by emancipative forces in the population and that these forces are reflected in particular mass attitudes: liberty aspirations. Based on evidence from the Values Surveys, the analyses show that more widespread liberty aspirations facilitate progress and impede regress in the process of democratization.No other indicator - including GDP/capita and social capital - outperforms the effect of liberty aspirations on democratization.The article concludes that human devel- opment theory is useful because its emphasis on people empowerment highlights something that has been ignored in the democratization literature:emancipative motivational forces in the population.

Shaky attachments: Individual-level stability and change of partisanship among West German voters, 1984–2001

Abstract: . Individual voters’ identification with a political party is believed to be a highly stable core of the political personality, and an ‘unmoved mover’ of political behaviour. In this article, the authors take advantage of a unique longitudinal database – the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) – to test the basic premise of partisanship's high persistence. Analysing individual-level data from 18 annual panel waves conducted in West Germany between 1984 and 2001, it was found that only a minority of the electorate appears steadfast with regard to partisanship over the entire period. Using event history analysis, the authors demonstrate how movements from partisanship into independence and changes between parties are affected by: personal attributes of voters, especially cognitive mobilisation; by properties of their social contexts, in particular spousal relationships and family constellations; by situational contexts, specifically election campaigns; and by the type of party with which voters identify.

Policy competition in the 2002 French legislative and presidential elections

Abstract: The French two-round system of presidential elections forces candidates to choose strategies designed to maximize their votes in two different, potentially conflicting strategic contexts: a first round contest between many candidates, and a second round between (typically) a left- and a right-oriented candidate. Following a constitutional change in 2000, furthermore, presidential elections are synchronized with legislative elections, more tightly linking presidential candidates to the policy platforms of the parties they represent. This article examines the consequences of policy positioning by presidential candidates, measuring, comparing and assessing positioning in the legislative elections and in the first and second presidential election rounds.The measures come from an expert survey taken in 2002,from content analysis of party manifestos and presidential speeches,and from the 2002 French National Election Survey. The findings provide hard empirical confirmation of two commonly perceived propositions: first, that Jospin's first-round loss resulted from strategic error in moving too close to the policy centre, and second, that Chirac's won an overwhelm- ing second-round victory because he collected all of the voters from candidates eliminated in the first round.

Regulating biomedicine in Europe and North America: A qualitative comparative analysis

Abstract: . This article explains the variation in policy design processes and the resulting policy-outputs of ‘biopolicies’ implemented within the domain of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) for eleven European and North-American countries. By applying the method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis, the comparison describes and defines the ‘multiple conjunctural causation’ to explain the divergences or similarities of ART policies in Europe and North America. The policy preferences of the actors involved in the relevant ART policy network and the institutional rules characterizing the respective polity need to be considered together in order to explain why different countries adopted similar or different ART policies. In particular, the analysis stresses the influence of party politics, the self-regulation of ART by the physicians, the mobilization of interest groups, the number of institutional arenas involved in the designing process and the nature of decision-making rules (power-sharing versus majority) on the designing processes and the resulting policies. Thus, different policy designs are linked to different designing processes, encompassing four ideal-typical decision-making modes: ‘designing by non-decisions’, ‘designing by elites’, ‘designing by accommodation’ and ‘designing by mobilization and consultation’. These results shed new light on the challenges for developing a policy design theory that could provide a robust framework for describing and explaining policy formulation.

The rise of post-imperial populism: The case of right-wing Euroscepticism in Britain

Abstract: Recent approaches to contemporary Euroscepticism have explained it in terms of the politics of opposition and peripherality characteristic of competitive party systems. Euroscepticism becomes a central strategy by which non-mainstream parties or factions within mainstream parties attempt to gain political advantage. In the British case, there has been a focus on the influence Eurosceptic factionalism can have within a first-past-the-post parliamentary system. This article challenges explanations of British Euroscepticism in terms of the politics of opposition and the workings of the party system. Instead, it is proposed that a structural crisis of British party politics has allowed Euroscepticism to enter the political mainstream. The author conceives of Euroscepticism as a distinct and powerful national movement asserting conceptions of Britain's exceptional national identity. This is viewed as part of a post-imperial crisis that shifts parties, and factions within parties, towards populist forms of legitimation that have weakened possibilities for stable and coherent political leadership over European integration. Consequently, mainstream parties have struggled to protect themselves against the ideological influence of this populist Euroscepticism. This is particularly evident during periods of Eurosceptic mobilization, and is demonstrated in this article through the examination of the extensive role played by right-wing Eurosceptic forces during the attempt by the Major Government to ratify the Maastricht Treaty.

Do Parties Matter for Local Revenue Policies? A comparison of Denmark and Norway

Abstract: : This paper investigates the impact of party ideology on revenue politics. Theoretically, claims can be made that party ideology should matter for revenue policies. First, leftist governments are more favorable towards government intervention and a large public sector. To accomplish this, leftist governments need more revenue than bourgeois governments. Second, revenue policy is a redistributive policy area well suited for ideological positioning. However, the claim that party ideology does not matter can also be made since raising revenue is unpopular, and politicians may shy away from new initiatives. Empirically, the question is unsettled. The paper investigates the problem by looking at three revenue policy areas (income and property taxation and user charges) in two countries (Denmark and Norway). It uses data from the municipal level and thus has several hundreds of units to compare. The evidence favors the “parties-matter”-argument, particularly in the Danish case. 1. Introduction

Explaining individual-level support for privatization in European post-Soviet economies

Abstract: This article explores the sources of individual-level variation in support economic privatization in seven European post-Soviet countries. It tests economic utilitarian and psy- chological explanations of variations in support for economic privatization. The economic utilitarian explanation posits that individuals seek to maximize their potential material gains from economic liberalization. The psychological explanation posits that if individuals are generally risk averse, they are not likely to support economic privatization. These hypothe- ses are then tested using two separate regression models. The first model estimates pooled data from across all seven European post-Soviet economies. The second model is a pooled analysis that interacts country-specific dummy variables with each of the independent variables in order to examine the country-specific effects of the responses. The results show that the economic utilitarian and psychological explanations are both strong predictors of why some support and others oppose privatization in the seven European post-Soviet countries.

Why so few, and why so late? Green parties and the question of governmental participation

Abstract: . Green parties have been represented in the parliaments of European Union countries since 1981, but it was not until recently that a few have entered national governments. Using a data set comprised of 51 government formation opportunities (where the Greens were represented in parliament), the authors of this article show that the parties involved in these bargaining situations are more office-oriented than earlier studies had found. As Green parties are seen to be less office-seeking than other parties, this general tendency for office-seeking behaviour in government formation may partly account for the scarcity of Greens in government. Furthermore, a number of hypotheses derived from theories that account for the specific nature of Green parties in terms of their office-, policy- and vote-seeking orientations are tested. It is found that Greens participate in government when they have lost votes in at least one election, when the main party of the left identifies them as a clear electoral threat and when the policy distance between the Greens and either the formateur party or the main left party is small (the latter condition must be accompanied by a substantial proportion of seats for the Green party in parliament). As most of these simultaneous conditions only materialized recently, and in a few countries, it is argued that this analysis, which is the first comparative and multivariate test focused on this question, explains the scarcity and the delay of Green governmental participation.

Analyzing Greens in power: Setting the agenda

Abstract: What are the key questions that political scientists investigating Green parties in government have to address? What are the possible contributions of a variety of theories and approaches to the explanation of the Green governmental experience, in a cross-national context? The international experience with Green party governmental participation is reviewed, followed by a discussion of past work and future challenges to explain Green parties' entry into government, their performance in government, the impact of government on them, and the conditions for their survival in or exit from government.

The East European ‘ethnic nation’– Myth or reality?

Abstract: This article challenges the assumption that there is an essential difference between a West European 'civic' and an East European 'ethnic' conceptualisation of the nation. If there were such a dist ...

Transfer and transformation in processes of Europeanization

Abstract: . There is a missing link between studies that investigate how regulation is becoming more similar, on the one hand, and studies that focus on how national policy styles and administrative traditions create patterns of stable diversity on the other. This article attempts to bridge these views in an analysis of how ideas transform as they transfer. The article shows that the idea of creating independent regulatory authorities (IRAs) has become institutionalized as a ‘script’ regarding how the regulation of liberalized electricity markets ought to be organized. This script has transferred to the European Union 15 Member States (EU-15) in processes moving from mimetic and normative to more coercive isomorphism, but the transformation is influenced by the way the need for credibility is mediated by contextual factors. Thus IRAs have more formal independence in countries formerly dominated by state ownership, where policy makers are perceived as corrupt and where decentralization is low. In this way, the analysis reveals how impulses of institutional change from the international arena are mediated by more stable and robust institutional factors at the domestic level.

The Greens in Brussels: Shaping or shaped?

Abstract: The challenge for contemporary Green parties in government is to demonstrate both that they have not been completely de-radicalised, and that their presence in government can make a difference Green party involvement in the European Union (EU) adds distinctive elements to this challenge Does engagement in supranational decision making provide new opportunities for Green parties to exercise influence beyond borders? Or does it simply further exacerbate de-radicalisation tendencies? Focusing on the German and Finnish Green parties, this article explores the 'European dimension' of Green parties' governmental incumbency Three sets of literature (Europeanisation, party change and EU policy making) are used to derive and test several hypotheses related to the impact of EU involvement on Green parties, and the impact of Green parties on EU policy making It is argued that EU governmental engagement has accelerated Green party de-radicalisation both organisationally and programmatically, but the dynamics of this process are complex and surprisingly interactive as Greens also attempt to exercise influence over EU policy The findings are relevant not just for those studying Green parties, but for those exploring wider questions of Europeanisation, party change and EU policy making