The CDU/CSU’s election victory is in stark contrast to the experiences of other Christian Democratic parties across Europe.

On Sunday, Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU won 41.5 per cent of the vote in Germany’s federal election, falling just short of an absolute majority of seats in the Bundestag. Tim Bale and André Krouwel note that the success of Germany’s Christian Democrats is at odds with their sister parties across Western Europe. The strength of Merkel’s leadership, and the fact that the CDU/CSU have not faced strong competition from right-wing populist parties, might offer a partial explanation for this success

Finding the Way Forward. Positioning of Europe’s Progressive Parties and their Voters

Four main strategies of social democratic competition can be distinguished when the official party positions on salient political issues are compared with the positions of core voter groups on the same issues: 1) Corbynism (Left-wing economic polarisation); 2) Macronism (pro-market economic polarisation coupled with culturally progressive/libertarian stances); 3) Progressive-libertarian distancing (the adoption of moderate economic stances with culturally progressive policies) and 4) Catch-all (traditional social democratic centrism). The results from the European countries included in the study show that, with regard to the relative positioning of social democratic parties visà-vis their core voter groups, the most beneficial strategies, in terms of electoral appeal, are the traditional social-democratic catch-all strategy of moderation along both the economic and cultural dimensions, as well as the Corbynist strategy of polarisation along the economic dimension

Talk of a revived European centre-left is premature

Recent election results have led some commentators to suggest a successful ‘repurposing’ of social democracy is underway in post-pandemic Western Europe. André Krouwel and Nick Martin argue that despite this optimism on the left, the patchy recovery of social democratic parties has been driven by the tactical considerations of voters. Meanwhile, to the left of social democracy, Europe’s radical left is facing its biggest electoral crisis in a generation

The polarisation of the German party system in the 2013 elections and the disappearance of the FDP explain the country’s tortuous coalition negotiations

Coalition negotiations are continuing in Germany, following federal elections in September. André Krouwel, Theresa Eckert and Yordan Kutiyski use each of the major parties’ manifesto pledges to illustrate the state of the German party system in 2013. They note that the party system has become more polarised, with an ‘empty centre’ between those on the left and right of the political spectrum. The distance between Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU and the SPD gives an indication of the difficulty involved in forming a governing coalition. By analysing German voters’ party preferences and issue positions, they also provide a preliminary explanation of why the FDP failed to enter parliament for the first time in the party´s history

Brexit was not the voice of the working class nor of the uneducated - it was of the squeezed middle

Lorenza Antonucci, Laszlo Horvath, and André Krouwel challenge the popular view of Leave voters as those left behind educationally and financially. They explain why it is individuals from an intermediate class, whose financial position has been declining, that represent an important section of the Brexit vote

Voters can be influenced by voter advice websites, but they do not follow the guidance blindly

Voter advice websites, where voters are matched with parties that share similar views to their own, have started to appear in the UK after becoming popular in the Netherlands and other countries. In this post Matt Wall, André Krouwel and Thomas Vitiello discuss a new site launched for the European Parliament elections and consider how influential these services can be on the choices voters make at the ballot box

Stealth populism: explaining the rise of the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians

One of the major stories from the 2020 Romanian election was the success of a new nationalist party, the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, which surprised observers by winning over 9 per cent of the vote. Drawing on new data, Mihnea Stoica, Vladimir Cristea and André Krouwel explain how the party managed to build support so rapidly