The role of europarties in framing the European Union Foreign and Security Policy

The implementation of the Lisbon Treaty assessed new prerogatives to the European Parliament (EP) on the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and on the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). This has increased the role of the EP thus changing the balance of power with other EU institutions, as the Council of Ministers, the European Council and also the new High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR). This new situation conveys more powers and responsibilities to the EP and to its main actors, i.e. the political parties. Even if also national parties have their own opinions on CFSP and CSDP issues, it is obvious that their supranational and EU level organisations, the so-called Europarties, devote to the foreign policy of EU much more attention. Aim of this paper is to analyse whether Europarties share the same attitude towards the existence of a EU common foreign and defence policy, and what are the main conceptual frames adopted by each Europarty on some of the main EU foreign and defence issues. Europarties’ positions are analysed through a discourse analysis approach in order to understand their ideas towards three fundamental institutional frameworks of the EU foreign policy: the Lisbon Treaty, the existence of the CFSP and the existence of the CSDP (and the European Defence Agency). Moreover, a content analysis is conducted on Europarties’ electoral manifestos and on the main EU strategic documents in order to understand which are the main conceptual frames used by parties and by EU on the foreign and defence issues. In particular four categories concerning different aspects of the CFSP and of the CSDP are identified: nature of threats, foreign and defence policy tools, geographical areas of interest, multilateral organizations. Results show that not only the non-mainstream Europarties, whose critical views towards the EU or some aspects of the EU were already known, but also amongst the EPP, the PES and ELDR there are some differences in their attitude towards the CFSP and the CSDP. While the EPP and the ELDR seem to be clearly enthusiastic of the new CFSP and CSDP - as designed by the Lisbon Treaty - Socialists, even if they agree and underline the importance of the reformed CFSP, are more critical towards the CSDP. With respect to the four categories (nature of threats, foreign and defence policy tools, geographical areas of interest, multilateral organizations) the Europarties offer different attitudes and priorities to those expressed in the official documents of the EU. In particular, Europarties seem to have a completely different perception of which threats have to be considered the most dangerous. It is worth noting that every Europarty considers the climate change as the threat which deserves more space and attention while for the official documents the environmental issue represents only one of the menaces posed to the EU

Students' knowledge and perceptions of International Relations and the 'Model United Nations'. An empirical analysis

open2Unconventional learning activities such as games and simulations have been widely used as teaching tools in international relations (IR) in the recent years. The literature on simulations and student learning has often highlighted a lack of empirical evidence in the existing research. The paper aims at providing empirical support to illustrate the ways in which simulations might influence students’ levels of (factual and self-evaluated) knowledge and perceptions of IR. The study is based on extensive empirical material, collected through questionnaires submitted to 298 students who participated in the 2014 edition of the National Model United Nations in New York (NMUN!NY)openCalossi, Enrico, Coticchia, FabrizioCalossi, Enrico; Coticchia, Fabrizi

Os partidos políticos ao nível europeu evolução, institucionalização e possíveis desenvolvimentos

The aim of the present article is to assess the main aspects of the institutionalization of party politics at the European Union level. The Political Parties at European Level (PPELs) originated outside the European institutions and were basically, before the approval of Regulation 2004‑2003, transnational federations of national political parties. The introduction of public funding from the eu budget to the PPELs aimed to institutionalize and reinforce these organizations. However, the influence of ppels in the European political sphere is still limited. Two institutional and political changes – namely the approval of a new Statute for European Parties and the nomination of candidates for the Presidency of the EU Commission – have been implemented, but their consequences on the consolidation of PPELs still need to be verified empirically

How to Create a Transnational Party System

This study has been prepared by the Observatory on Political Parties and Representation (OPPR), part of the European Democracy Observatory (EUDO) at the European University Institute (EUI). It covers four aspects: 1) An analysis of the political doctrine and programme of major political parties in several Member States. 2) An examination of current procedures applied to political parties to choose leaders for European Office. 3) The development of proposals on how to help a European political party system evolve from national structures strongly influenced by historical traditions and cultural factors. 4) Suggestions regarding the extent to which the European electoral system and different systems of party financing would have to be revised in order to facilitate the above objectives

Party rules, party resources, and the politics of parliamentary democracies: how parties organize in the 21st Century

This article introduces the first findings of the Political Party Database (PPDB) project, a major survey of party organizations in parliamentary and semi-presidential democracies. The project’s first round of data covers 122 parties in 19 countries. In this paper we describe the scope of the database, then investigate what it tells us about contemporary party organization in these countries, focussing on parties’ resources, structures and internal decision-making. We examine organizational patterns by country and party family, and where possible we make temporal comparisons with older datasets. Our analyses suggest a remarkable coexistence of uniformity and diversity. In terms of the major organizational resources on which parties can draw, such as members, staff and finance, the new evidence largely confirms the continuation of trends identified in previous research: i.e., declining membership, but enhanced financial resources and more paid staff. We also find remarkable uniformity regarding the core architecture of party organizations. At the same time, however, we find substantial variation between countries and party families in terms of their internal processes, with particular regard to how internally democratic they are, and in the forms that this democratization takes

Party Organizational Change: Formal Distribution of Power between National and Regional Levels in Italian Political Parties (1991-2012)

In the last 20 years an increasing number of scholars have centred their attention on the relationships between party national structures and party sub-national branches. A relevant part of the specialized literature has interpreted party change as the by-product of the denationalization of party politics. The aim of this contribution is to investigate to what extent eight relevant Italian parties have followed patterns of organizational change, after the reforms of the municipal, provincial and regional election sys-tems; and the process of devolution of administrative powers begun during the Nineties. By focusing on two analytical dimensions (the level of involvement and the level of autonomy of party regional units), we analyse diachronically continuity and change in party formal organization, through an in-depth analysis of the statutes adopted from 1992 to 201

The role of europarties in framing the European Union Foreign and Security Policy

The implementation of the Lisbon Treaty assessed new prerogatives to the European Parliament (EP) on the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and on the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). This has increased the role of the EP thus changing the balance of power with other EU institutions, as the Council of Ministers, the European Council and also the new High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR). This new situation conveys more powers and responsibilities to the EP and to its main actors, i.e. the political parties. Even if also national parties have their own opinions on CFSP and CSDP issues, it is obvious that their supranational and EU level organisations, the so-called Europarties, devote to the foreign policy of EU much more attention. Aim of this paper is to analyse whether Europarties share the same attitude towards the existence of a EU common foreign and defence policy, and what are the main conceptual frames adopted by each Europarty on some of the main EU foreign and defence issues. Europarties’ positions are analysed through a discourse analysis approach in order to understand their ideas towards three fundamental institutional frameworks of the EU foreign policy: the Lisbon Treaty, the existence of the CFSP and the existence of the CSDP (and the European Defence Agency). Moreover, a content analysis is conducted on Europarties’ electoral manifestos and on the main EU strategic documents in order to understand which are the main conceptual frames used by parties and by EU on the foreign and defence issues. In particular four categories concerning different aspects of the CFSP and of the CSDP are identified: nature of threats, foreign and defence policy tools, geographical areas of interest, multilateral organizations. Results show that not only the non-mainstream Europarties, whose critical views towards the EU or some aspects of the EU were already known, but also amongst the EPP, the PES and ELDR there are some differences in their attitude towards the CFSP and the CSDP. While the EPP and the ELDR seem to be clearly enthusiastic of the new CFSP and CSDP - as designed by the Lisbon Treaty - Socialists, even if they agree and underline the importance of the reformed CFSP, are more critical towards the CSDP. With respect to the four categories (nature of threats, foreign and defence policy tools, geographical areas of interest, multilateral organizations) the Europarties offer different attitudes and priorities to those expressed in the official documents of the EU. In particular, Europarties seem to have a completely different perception of which threats have to be considered the most dangerous. It is worth noting that every Europarty considers the climate change as the threat which deserves more space and attention while for the official documents the environmental issue represents only one of the menaces posed to the EU

Organizzazione e funzioni dei partiti politici a livello europeo : il caso del Partito della sinistra europea

The theme of so-called Europarties generally has been analysed from two main different points of view: one stressing on the party parliamentarian organisations (the Eurogroups) and one focusing on transnational federations (Parties at European Level) (Hix and Lord 1997, Kreppel 2002, Marks and Steenbergen 2004). The aim of my thesis is the empirical application of the theoretical framework of organisation and functioning of the extraparliamentarian federation to the case of the European Left. The first chapter of the thesis is devoted to define the object of the analysis. In literature a persistent lack of clarification in the use of terms such as Europarties, supranational parties, European party federations and Eurogroups still exists. This confusion is not longer acceptable after the approval of the EU regulation 2004/2003 that fixes the term of Political Party at European Level to define the European party federations. The analysis of these parties has been conducted from two different points of view. The first is based on an organisational approach. The well-known theory of cartel party, by Peter Mair and Richard Katz (1995), divides party organisation in three faces: the party in institutions (Party in Central Office/PPO);the extraparliamentarian structures (Party in Central Office/PCO); the membership and base units (Party on the Ground). This party organisation leads to a growing autonomy (stratarchy) of each part towards the others (Carty 2006). This model seems to function well for those parties operate at European level. Using this approach we can interpret the process of institutionalisation of Parties at European Level as the application of PCO concept in the European domain. Eurogroups and National Parties would be identified respectively with party in Public Office and with Party on the Ground. In this view the expression “Europarty” should be used to identify the amount of relations amongst these three faces. In this optical this work tries to define the ideal typical organisation of the Political Party at European Level, devoting particular attention to its bodies (congress, council of national leaders, executive board, and president), reporting the data of funds received from European Parliament and describing the growing role of the political foundations at European level. Parties at European level are then analyzed also along a functionalist approach, that is how parties perform their role of mediation between public institutions (the State) and society (the citizens). In classic literature (Bryce 1921, Schattschneider 1942, Neumann 1956, King 1969, Sartori 1976) the main party functions are: interests’ articulation and aggregation, vote structuring, political communication and citizens’ education, development and organization of citizens’ participation, and policy-making. In the analysis of these variables, chiefly on the review of the political parties at European level having lost much power in managing these functions. It seems they have devoted much power to the other faces of Europarty: National Parties and Eurogroups. Before facing the real application of ideal typical framework to the empirical case of the European Left, the first historical efforts of coordination of the alternative Left have been reconstructed. The first and the second Labour and Socialist Internationals were the earliest organisations to promote the cooperation of national groups, movements, trade union and parties at the international level. For this it can be said that Left parties have been the first partied to face with the problems related to international cooperation. After the critical juncture of the Russian Revolution a split occurred inside the Left parties’ family creating the apparently incurable dichotomy between the socialdemocratic and reformist Left and the other Left, nicknamed, according to different point of view, as Alternative, Extreme, Radical, Revolutionary, etc… At the beginning the coordination of this not-reformist Left has been directly managed by the Soviet Communist Party and by the Soviet Government. During the 70s the experiment of Eurocommunism tried to find a “third” way between Soviet Communist and pro-west Socialdemocracy. Only after the fall of the Soviet Union the Alternative Left succeded in creating its autonomous and not-governmental forms of coordination. In 1991 the New European Left Forum has been the first loose not-institutional attempt to coordinate again these parties. In 1994 the Eurogroup of the Ghauce Unitaire Européenne – Nordic Green Left (GUE-NGL) has been the first institutional coordination in the European Parliament. These organisations have bene the first steps towards the foundation of the Party of the European Left (EL) whose break-in in the European political system has been promoted just by some parties that were used to meet each other in these two preceding organisations. After having described the formation process of the European Left, in the third chapter, the general framework described in the first chapter, has been applied on the empirical case. Thus I have analyzed the party organizational structure and the functions’ performing of the European Left, taking care of the different party bodies and pointing out their real functioning. These studies have been carried out through the analysis of the official story (i.e. party Statutes, internal Regulations and financial budgets) and the interviews of privileged observers (EL President, members of internal bodies, party employees, etc…). In the analysis of budget I have stressed that only a minor part of the party expenses are dedicated to the organization and the strengthening of the relationships between the EL and the European citizens. Rather the largest part of funds is devoted to the organisation of meeting (of party organs or with other organisations or movements). This is also at the basis of what I have discovered in analyzing the EL role in performing party functions as they have been described in the first chapter. The main point I have stressed out is the general lack of contacts with the European citizens. This poor performance of the European Left is not only due to the common behavior of political parties at European level that devolve much power and many functions directly to Eurogroups and, especially, to National Parties. That is also reinforced by the fact that only a part of the national parties involved in the Cofederal Group of GUE-NGL are actually members of the Party of the European Left. This weak overlapping amongst parties of the same political family causes the feeble capacity of inclusivity and the partial presence of the EL in the European countries (some important countries are not covered by EL because the chief national Left party of the country is not EL member). This differentiation of parties’ behavior towards such an institutional supranational coordination is a symptom of huge and relevant divisions inside the political family EL would aim to represent. The state of division in the Alternative Left is significantly higher than in the other political families. Such a situation has motivated the fourth and last part of the thesis in which political lines of different political subgroups of Left parties are analysed. Previously the political positions of European Left (through the official positions in electoral platforms, statutes, congress thesis) have been divided in some issues: economy and job policy, civil rights and freedoms, environment, international relations and peace, alliances’ strategy and relation with other parties, EL cultural heritage and the historical judgment over the East-European regimes. These positions, analysed thought a qualitative approach, are confronted with those of several groups of Left parties (taken mainly from the electoral platforms for the European elections). The first is composed by the member parties of European Left. Then there are the political positions and strategies of the observer parties of EL, those of the so-called “communist” parties (the orthodox communists), those of the members of the Nordic Green Left Association (one of the official sub-group of GUE-NGL), those of the AntiCapitalist Left (of Trotskyist origins), and those of parties without any international affiliation that I define as “cani sciolti” (mavericks). These bilateral confrontations lead to some conclusions. For example the different positions on the East-European regimes is the key reason of not-affiliation of the “communists” to the EL (the Hungarian Communist Party has left the EL in the April 2009 just criticizing the EL position towards “Eastern experience”). Again for example NGLA and EL are divided especially over the idea of Europe: the EL (and EL parties) is pro-integrationist while the Nordic (Scandinavian) parties are strongly Eurosceptic. Without going on describing all the differences it is important to conclude this abstract affirming that the differences in more concrete policy field (as the Economic and labour policy, the environmental policy, the questions of civil rights, and the question of peace and opposition to war) are not so important for the political divisions within the Alternative Left parties. The idea of Europe, the strategy of alliances (at European and nation level) and, quite surprisingly, the judgment over real socialism in Eastern Europe are the main element of different international affiliation for the Alternative Left parties of the European Union

Organizzazione e funzioni degli Europartiti. Il Caso di Sinistra Europea

Publication based on research carried out in the framework of the European Union Democracy Observatory (EUDO) of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute.I partiti politici sono stati attori importanti del processo di integrazione europea. Sin dai primi anni della Comunità Europea i partiti nazionali hanno cercato di coordinare le loro attività in strutture sovranazionali sempre sempre più complesse. dop