Morlino raniolo the impact of the economic crisis on south european democracies (2017)

We were so lucky to receive one of these few grants on‘Economic crisis and the quality of democracy in Europe’ from the southern European countries... The intro-duction emphasizes the ch

on South European Democracies

The Impact

of the Economic Crisis on South

European

Democracies

Prof Political Science, Vice Rector

LUISS Guido Carli

Roma, Italy

Scienze Politiche e Sociali Università della Calabria Arcavacata di Rende Cosenza, Italy

ISBN 978-3-319-52370-5 ISBN 978-3-319-52371-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52371-2

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© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

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This short book is,first of all, the result of a protracted exchange of ideasbetween the two authors What was at beginning intended to be an article

contempor-ary modes of representation especially in southern European countries

several colleagues in a number of occasions (conferences, seminars, publicdiscussions), both formal and informal In this perspective, one of the twoauthors, Morlino, would like to acknowledge the help the research andbook received during his stay at Wissenschaft Zentrum in Berlin, betterknown as WZB, and warmly to thank Wolfgang Merkel for the invitationand making the stay there effective and pleasant

The research that is behind the book had the vital help of Marco Lisi forfield research in Portugal, Valeria Tarditi for Spain, and Davide Vittori forGreece and Spain as well Without them especially the chapters on newprotest parties would have been much less informed and empiricallypoorer We thank them for the crucial help, together with MaurizioCerruto, Chiara Facello e Stefano Rombi for their help in collectingother empirical data we integrated into the analysis and Lucia Montesantifor helping us with the index

We also decided to ask a few colleagues and friends to read and criticize

Lorenzo De Sio, Liborio Mattina and Angelo Panebianco for all theirvaluable suggestions that contributed to improve the work If with a soimportant help the book still has limits and maybe mistakes the responsi-bility cannot fall if not on us

v

Finally, it is well known how limited are the research funds devoted tosocial sciences We were so lucky to receive one of these few grants on

‘Economic crisis and the quality of democracy in Europe’ from the

southern European countries

1 Introduction 1

2 How to Analyse the Impact of the Economic Crisis

3 What Innovative Destruction? Changes in Parties

5 New Patterns in Interests and Movements 83

vii

Fig 2.1 The growth of public debt in South Europe, as % of GDP

ix

Table 3.1 Electoral radicalization in Southern Europe plus Germany

xi

Abstract There are few doubts that a democratic regime can be deeplyaffected by economic crisis This was so with reference to the greateconomic crises of the twentieth century, but it is also for the real estate

Recession? Are they limited or profound and serious? And what are themechanisms at work that help to explain those consequences? The intro-duction emphasizes the channels of expression (election, protest, interests)that are affected by the crisis and empirical scope of the research, that is,the democracies of South Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) In

electoral success of new protest parties and to the relationships amongthe three channels of expression Ultimately, the main question is how theeconomic crisis will affect the quality of our four democracies in terms ofparticipation and competition

How is it possible that a conjuncture phenomenon, as economic crisis isusually considered, can bring about lasting political consequences? And if

so, what are the main consequences that need to be analysed in depth?What is or what are the core mechanism/s at work to explain them? Wewould like to address these related questions by focusing on the economic

© The Author(s) 2017

L Morlino, F Raniolo, The Impact of the Economic Crisis on South

European Democracies, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52371-2_1

1

crisis, which started in 2007 mainly in the USA and went on in 2008 still

in the USA and in Europe and which on the whole has lasted at least until2014/2015 in some countries Within this span of time we look at howthat crisis affected all the main channels of political expression that are

main results of research done on this topic?

We can start from the widely accepted wisdom that a democratic regimecan be deeply affected by economic crisis In the past, this sometimeshappened in the most dramatic way, with the breakdown of a democratic

or quasi-democratic regime and the installation of an authoritarian or even

of a totalitarian regime, as in the case of Germany During the last century,economic crises also brought about radical, fundamental changes as well

as relatively moderate, partial transformations within democracies Forexample, we may recall the so called New Deal-policy in the USA andthe democratic integration of Northern European Socialist parties aspolitical consequences of the crisis in the early 1930s; the partial creationand spread of the welfare state in most of the European democracies as aresult of the crisis stemming from the destruction wrought by World WarII; the development of neo-corporatist arrangements, complemented bypolicies of privatization and deregulation at the end of 1970s, as a way torespond to the crisis in those years and to pave the way for overcoming it.However, the way to analyse this issue is going to change when we cantake for granted that there is a very broad, large legitimation of democracy

as the dominant type of regime in the world, and this is so, especially afterthe establishment of democracies in Southern Europe and Latin America,and later in Eastern Europe at the end of 1980s with the fall of the Berlin

as South Africa and South Korea or Taiwan Thus, the economic crisisstarting in 2008 in Europe takes place in a new different political context,where there was no longer a risk of democratic breakdown in that part ofthe world Consequently, the question to address is: how to analyse theimpact of the new 2008 economic crisis within a new political culturalcontext?

Here, from our perspective, in addition to a number of articles and

important to take into consideration the political impact of the economic

incumbent parties were punished when there was an economic crisis

(cf Kriesi2014); the more general effects of the economic crisis on voting

voting and the punishment of incumbent leaders and parties, but at thesame time stress that the reactions and consequently the impact were

tem-porary change in voting behaviour and some limited protest Withinthis perspective a socio-economic analysis of the phenomenon, such as

worst economic crisis to beset the world economy since the Great

‘Despite its negative effects on incumbent governments, the economiccrisis has provided few signs of fundamental political realignment, policy

economic nationalism or serious erosion of international collaboration

Thus, on the one hand, the historical analyses suggest that in the pastcrises were opportunities for changes and even for a reinvention of democ-racy with the addition of welfare institutions and policies reshaping therepresentative channels of democracy On the other hand, the present

which at least in a number of areas of the world does not have any viablealternative To solve this puzzle, that is, to better understand if thepolitical consequences of the Great Recession are actually limited, or onthe contrary, are serious and profound, and also to be more precise about

we need to suggest an alternative theoretical perspective from which toanalyse its impact, as we do in this book

expression, that is, inside:

1 the institutionalized participation and competition, that is, on theoccasion of elections and at the parties and party system level;

2 the non-institutionalized participation concerning social movementsand other expressions of protest; and

3 the interest groups associations, especially trade unions and

advocacy of their interests during the economic crisis

The empirical analysis will focus on the four South European countries

will also be necessary to look at what was happening earlier on to singleout the changes during the years we focus on In the second chapter, we

considering the political consequences

The question is whether even in comparison with the Great Crisis of

1929 and later, and also of the other subsequent crises in the early 1970s

despite a large literature that underestimate the political consequences ofthe crisis (see above) We will answer this question in the conclusions afterhaving analysed not so much the fact that international economic crises aremajor breakdowns and reorganizations of global systems of productionand of markets, but above all the windows of opportunity that were open

to political and institutional changes, the strategies of political leaders,

they exist

the basis of the empirical knowledge we have at the moment we will askwhat the impact of the crisis was on contemporary democracy We will dothis by emphasizing the impact on the quality of democracy Why do we

century, characterized by the lessons learnt from World War II, by othereconomic crises, especially in the 1970s and 1990s, by the fall of theBerlin Wall and a widespread legitimization of democracy, we cannotassume that an economic crisis as deep as it can be would bring about

be reconsidered and instead a possible worsening of a democracy should

be analysed Thus, we take into consideration the quality dimensions of a

democracy that can be endangered and worsened by the recent crisis Ofcourse, this implies a discussion of the notion of the quality of democracy

will justify a focus on the above three main channels of expression inconnection with the two key qualities, namely participation and competi-tion We will also discuss the possible core mechanism of impact, the

‘catalysing effect.’

In the third and fourth chapters, within the framework of the key

expres-sion related to parties and party systems and related changes and

be given to the building of and the electoral success of new protest parties,

successful of them in the four countries Reshaping or continuity

of partisan cleavages, and the votes obtained by these parties and theirelectoral bases, organization, institutional presence, and the programmesand policies they support will be analysed together with the consequencesfor party systems Of course, a key aspect of the chapter will be explana-tions of the success of some protest parties, the partial success of others,and the basic failure of still others The chapter will end by assessingchanges, adaptations, or persistence of the basic previous patterns and bydiscussing their consistency or inconsistency with expectations

The problem of participation related to social movements and theaspects of participation and competition characterizing interest groups

expression are often overlooked in this kind of analysis, partly because

persistence of previous characterizing patterns will be assessed and theirconsistency or inconsistency with expectations will be discussed

In the conclusions, we will address a few questions that we considerespecially relevant to understanding what happened as a result of the crisis,not only in this part of Europe but also in a number of other countries

in the same area First, there will be an appraisal and assessment of there-equilibration or stability of the inter-channelling of the means of poli-tical expression More precisely, if during the timespan we are consideringthere was a change or adaptation or persistence of the characterizingpatterns inside parties and party systems, social movements and interestgroups, what happened to the connections among these channels? Was

there a transfer of activism from social movements to parties within an

might suggest? Or was there something else behind the façade of thesechannels? And what happened to interest groups, which were consideredthe institutional solution to the economic crisis of the 1970s (see especially

A relevant and closely connected question to be addressed in theconclusions will take into account some characteristics of the channellingsrelated to parties and party systems, complemented by the role of socialmovements and interest groups We refer to the neo-populist phenom-enon that was revived in the years of discontent brought about by theeconomic crisis and that may characterize the post-crisis democracies with

a resounding success of the extreme right or left

changes contributed to worsening or ironically deepening and improvingsouthern European democracies from the perspective of participation andcompetition We hope that the political debate in these countries will gainfrom the empirical analysis and the related assessments we develop in thisresearch

1 This is classic notion that in comparative politics goes back to Lipset and Rokkan ( 1967 ), first of all Capoccia and Kelemen ( 2007 , 348) de fine critical junctures ‘as relatively short periods of time during which there is a substantially heightened probability that agents ’ choices will affect the out- come of interest ’ See also Mahoney and Thelen ( 2009 ) and Dobry ( 2000 ).

How to Analyse the Impact

of the Economic Crisis on Democracies

Abstract How to analyse the impact of economic crises on democracies

in the South Europe? The theoretical framework of this key question is,first of all, set up by addressing the problem of how to define, specify andmeasure the impact of the independent variable: the economic crisis In

are emphasized also vis-à-vis the management of previous century economic crises After a short overview of the most recent

can vary In particular, the chapter emphasizes the role of the two criticalclassic qualities, participation and competition with its sub-dimensions.The central explanatory hypothesis suggests that the actual impactdepends on the effective existence of background conditions for change,and accordingly, the economic crisis has a catalysing effect on thoseconditions

effect

© The Author(s) 2017

L Morlino, F Raniolo, The Impact of the Economic Crisis on South

European Democracies, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52371-2_2

7

2.1 WHAT IS THE ‘GREATRECESSION’?

This chapter will start by discussing our independent variable with itssubsequent intricacies and will go on by singling out the dimensions ofdemocracy to explore in an analysis of the quality of democracy, that is,how to assess a democratic regime

Regarding measures of the crisis starting especially in 2008 after thebankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, we can look at data on GDP growth,where we already see stagnation or even recession in that year Thepossible end of the crisis is 2014 when there was an evident inversion

course, these data can be complemented by similar data on

among countries even when using the same indicators Moreover, ing at these data, we can see strong evidence that the economic crisisaffected different countries in a deeper or relatively more limited way.For example, not only countries such as Greece but also all the othersouthern European ones were more deeply affected, while easternEuropean countries, e.g Poland and the Czech Republic, were muchless affected

2 a decline in gross domestic product (GDP), despite all the limits this

3 growing unemployment complemented by falls in investment andtrade exchanges;

4 a protracted economic situation which is characterized by very low

While market instability recalls a general disequilibrium and a break in the

GDP and other related aspects single out a break in the system of tion, and in this vein, the economic crisis can be seen in a narrower perspec-

its roots in speculation in the housing market– and eventually affected thereal economy.

When only taking into consideration the decline in GDP and thegrowth in unemployment, we single out the two main classic economicindicators of an economic crisis with a narrow meaning With this in mind,

when looking at GDP and unemployment trends, but also at private and

economic activity in the EU and the Eurozone was still below its pre-crisis

have caused more lasting economic damage in Europe than the Great

Greece Italy Portugal Spain

Fig 2.1 The growth of public debt in South Europe, as % of GDP (1995 –2015)

Source: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database (April 2016)

Figure 2.2shows the changes in GDP and the unemployment rate since

1995 to stress the difference between when the crisis took place and

among the four countries For example, only considering GDP, we can see

years with a reversal only in 2010 Consequently, we can see that Greecewas more heavily affected than the three other countries; that Greeceand Spain suffered most in terms of unemployment and related socialcosts; that Spain was able to recover better, at least in terms of GDP;and, however, signs of recovery have been evident since 2013 Thus, wemight also expect a different impact, that once the economic crisis trig-gered a social reaction, then the emerging new institutions, such as protestparties and others, should start to have a new autonomous existence withemerging vested interests of the new political elite Whether this is actually

so will be seen in the subsequent chapters

state, the effective impact of the crisis became evident when in order to

governments made decisions such as to cut budgets, with all the relatedconsequences for the working of institutions as well as for people, above

decisional strategy of domestic devaluation imposed on the southern

literature has become the GIIPS (see especially the special issue ofComparative Political Studies 49 (7), 2016) As an external devaluationwas not possible, the two European Union authorities (the Commissionand the European Central Bank) and the International Monetary Fund,

public sector employment and in public expenditure to make up for lostcompetitiveness, in addition to other reforms such as those of industrial

is also well known, these austerity measures had a negative impact ondomestic economies in addition to triggering much discussion among the

(a) GDP - % change (constant prices)

Greece Italy Portugal Spain

(b) Unemployment rate (% total labor force)

Greece Italy Portugal Spain

Fig 2.2 Changes of GDP and unemployment rate in South Europe (1995 –2015) Source: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database (April 2016)

Thus, we should acknowledge that the European Union played adistinctive and especially relevant economic and political role in the man-agement of the crisis Therefore, while the independent variable is the

intervening variable that also affected some of the dimensions and dimensions singled out above However, the key important aspect to beunderstood here is that a country-based democracy can assume a politicalresponsibility that is beyond its electorate and refer to another agent oragents, in this case, the EU, and such responsibility leads to decisions that

a democratic government faces in being responsible; that is, in responding

Although such a responsibility may prove to be right and successful in themedium or long-term, in the short-term the related decisions hit the

implemented by the incumbent leaders eventually contributed to a ing of resources (see above) and to additional citizen dissatisfaction, byconsequently magnifying the impact of the crisis itself over several years.The key point is that when a democracy becomes part of a larger commu-

community and, on the other, commits itself to obligations or

the best interests of the citizens of that democracy

also becomes an economic crisis which is mostly of an international origin(independent variable); later on, under the pressures of the sovereign debtcrisis, the southern European governments take a few autonomous initia-

package of austerity measures On the whole, looking at the unfolding

of this process of economic crisis and responses to it between 2008 and

2012, we realize that there was an objective reduction in state capacity toprovide collective goods because of expenditure cuts, as Streeck and Mertens

It is also well known that there were structural factors in the

different dimensions (technological, economic, sociocultural), by a ing interdependence of markets, by a transformation of capitalism into

grow-‘finance-capitalism’ (Gallino2011), by a change in the world order withthe growth of international anarchism, and the new economic roles ofother large economies such as China and India But this is not whatprimarily interests us From our perspective, it is more relevant to avoidglossing over several other organizational and institutional backgroundfactors that lie between contextual macro-variables and the micro-choices

of political actors, that is, parties and party systems

During the twentieth century, various economic crises took place indemocracies that were characterized by parties belonging to different partyfamilies and different party systems, with obvious consequences for theway the crisis was politically managed Thus, there were mass parties orsocial integration parties of both democratic and authoritarian kinds (see

World War Two, catch-all parties during the 1960s and 1970s, andprofessional electoral or personal parties in the 1990s At the end of the

the next chapter) affected the capacity to achieve effective coordinationbetween citizen-electors and political institutions, and also within theseinstitutions One of the end results was an additional growth in politicaluncertainty Moreover, during these years effective crisis management was

Reagan in the USA and Thatcher in the UK as respectively president and

weak-ening of intermediary institutions, like parties, and a rethinking andrecalibration of welfare state policies increased political and social vulner-ability in coping with the crisis We will come back to the background

in a simpler way, we must focus on our dependent variables

2.2 WHICHDEMOCRATICDIMENSIONS

TO LOOKAT AND WHYWith this in mind, for a better understanding of the impact, we shouldlook for an alternative theoretical framework that is not only focused

on voting and elections, but on the political consequences for citizens

Focusing specifically on Greece and Portugal a group of scholarsfocuses on ideological and issue representation and the responsiveness

support in both countries In particular, the external intervention hasincreased the distance between voters and their elected representatives,particularly with respect to European integration and austerity policies.Yet this growing lack of congruence has not led to adaptation or

Here we adopt a different approach through a systematic assessment ofthe quality of a democracy and its possible changes From our perspective,the more some of the key dimensions of a democracy are affected themore it is relevant for our analysis It is, therefore, useful to recall whatquality of democracy is, what its salient dimensions are, and which onescan be most touched by an economic crisis

this aspect further, we can see three meanings of quality: (1) quality is

characteristics of a product, be it the design, materials, or functioning

from the satisfaction expressed by the customers, by their repeatedrequests for the same product or service, regardless of either how it isproduced or what the actual contents are, or how the consumer goes

liberty and equality of citizens through the legitimate and correct

citizens, associations and communities of which it is composed enjoyliberty and equality (quality as content); and one in which thecitizens themselves have the power to check and evaluate whether the

government pursues the objectives of liberty and equality according tothe rule of law (quality as procedure).

or specific qualities in terms of which democracies might vary, and which

dimen-sions Although they are also relevant to the content, these dimensions

theoretical status (see below) The sixth and seventh are substantive innature: full respect for rights, which are expanded through the achieve-

citizens, and civil society in general Here, we are not going to analysethe different dimensions regarding the quality of democracy (see

dimensions that are very relevant for every democracy, that is, tion and competition The other dimensions will remain in the back-ground and we refer to them only when strictly necessary

participa-Participation and competition are qualities that can affect all the other

legality, that allow women and men, as individuals or as a group, to create,

recruit-ment of, and decisions by, (representative and/or governrecruit-mental) politicalauthorities in order to maintain or change the allocation of existingvalues The two basic goals of participation are to establish or strengthen

a group of a different sort (identity participation) and trying to achievesome goal (instrumental participation) A third aspect of participation alsohas to be taken into account: the simple act of participating transformscitizens into more informed and involved people by developing their civicattitudes, and by making communication and social relationships easier.Citizens become more aware of their rights and duties and develop morestructured conscious political opinions In other words, participation isself-strengthening

From an empirical perspective, there are various forms of conventionalparticipation, including, for example, involvement in election campaigns,involvement in partisan and other associational activities, personal con-tact with politicians, and collective forms of action There are also severalforms of non-conventional participation, such as strikes, demonstrations,riots and others, some of which involve violence In this overall picture,political parties, interest groups and movements are at the core of demo-cratic action in many countries, with a range of consequences that cannot

be analysed here

exists if more than one political actor is involved in political making processes The notion of competition has different facets: there

decision-is competition within the party system, within parties, and within differentinterest groups in different inter-communicating arenas Regarding thisquality, it is worth recalling that if there is relatively unconstrained, that

is, peaceful and fair, political competition there is also democracy, butthe opposite is not necessarily so: in some cases, there can be democracywithout full party competition Let us consider, for example, the so-called

basic notion of competition is that of peaceful non-threatening interactionamong individuals and groups with the purpose of allocating a recognized

competition and the legally unconstrained choice of accommodation andconsensus show how competition can be set aside and democracy main-tained At the same time, some recent empirical developments in certaincountries show how more or less constrained ways of political competition

The main salient empirical sub-dimensions are on the input side,where the relevant competition is among political actors and is charac-terized by freedom for all political parties to compete with each othercomplemented by the fairness of political competition On the outputside of the political process, there are alternative patterns in the for-mation of governments and different potential choices among policyalternatives In parliamentary institutional arrangements, the competi-tion to form the cabinet, and even competition within the cabinet if it

is a coalitional one, is a key aspect of the democratic process Thisinvolves paying due attention to the (partial or total) alternation of

semi-presidential regimes, despite all the differences, the composition ofthe cabinet and the parties and political groups represented is stillimportant When analysing competition, however, we should also takeinto account what takes place within societal organizations, particularlyinterest groups, and between political and societal actors This is a very

chan-nels of representation: electoral, functional, and even plebiscitary Therelationships between the organizations active within these channels arealso relevant, especially those between unions and parties, entrepreneur-ial organizations and parties, and other organizations and parties

2.3 DIMENSIONSMOSTAFFECTED

BY THE ECONOMICCRISIS

On the basis of our previous work, having described the key dimensions andsub-dimensions to take into account regarding the quality of democracy,which dimensions or qualities were most affected by the economic crisis?

far as the previous context is concerned, it is fairly obvious that not everyempirical dimension or quality is relevant In fact, some dimensions andsub-dimensions show no variation, as they would only be expected to be

analyse freedom in terms of its most relevant three sub-dimensions nal dignity, civil rights and political rights) We expect no variation, and

law, the situation is partially different Individual security and civil ordercould change, but only marginally, and the independence of the judiciary

judiciary system, where the resources allocated to it are a relevant ponent of the actual working of the system, may be more deeply affected

com-by the crisis A similar line of reasoning may be applied to institutionaland administrative capacity, which is not likely to be seriously altered,

impaired by a shrinking of resources invested and should be considered

If the decisions made in Greece and Spain to cut bureaucratic

mind Of course, a relevant sub-dimension of this quality concerns the

possible growth of corruption accompanying the economic crisis Whenthe index of perceived corruption is considered (see Transparency

for example, for Greece, Italy and Spain, which lost between 18 (Italy)

we can consider that the economic crisis and its related economic straints and deprivations may have brought about a stronger reactivity

con-of citizens to cases con-of both corruption and maladministration This islikely to be one of the most relevant components of the phenomenon

com-pounded by a growing dissatisfaction of citizens with elite behaviourand the poor performance of democratic institutions

As for electoral accountability, the only dimension to be explored is thestability of political alternatives: the economic crisis may have broughtabout such uncertainty that the elector was not in a condition to assessthe actions and positions of the incumbent political parties At the sametime, when the economic crisis hits, all the sub-dimensions of inter-institutional accountability are relevant: from a worsening of relationshipsbetween government and opposition to the intervention of the supremecourt on politically sensitive issues, the centralization thrust brought about

by the shrinking of resources, and the watchdog role of the independentmedia Most of the tensions that recur when there is a sharp dip in theeconomy are unleashed within this dimension, and are mirrored by con-flictive relationships between institutional actors

Participation and competition are the two other procedural dimensionswhere the impact of the crisis is expected to have become more evident.There has already been some research on voting and parties (see above) Interms of participation, a decline in electoral turnout and other forms ofconventional or institutionalized participation are expected In fact, asthe case of Portugal suggests, electors may have adopted attitudes ofalienation or simply indifference and apathy, but the cases of Greece andSpain suggest that they may have preferred non-conventional participationthrough different forms of protest With the passing of time, non-conventional participation may have become more or less institutiona-

(Spain), or protest can even have immediately led to a party channellingwithout almost any non-conventional participation, as happened in Italywith the Five Star Movement, which was able to gather the protest

support In a context of delegitimation of traditional parties, citizensfollow different channels, be they through movements or parties Wheneither immediately or after some time, parties are built, they assume anti-party positions The ironic result is anti-party parties with strong anti-establishment positions, but often a strong role of their leaders Here, wecan clearly see the catalyst effect of the crisis: the previous crisis of tradi-tional parties was accelerated by the crisis, which deepened the delegitima-tion of existing actors and paved the way for new political actors.

Modes of competition can also be expected to become radicalized.However, such radicalization can take new and original paths In fact, onthe one hand, it can be seen in a strong anti-establishment position, asmentioned above; on the other hand, behind a high radicalized discourse

and long-lasting consequences for the party system with the tion of bipolar systems into tripolar ones In fact, such transformationsinto a tripolar party system are taking place in Italy and Greece, and also

transforma-in Spatransforma-in as a consequence of the December 2015 elections Of course, itremains to be seen how long this format will last, as it is opposed by thestrong bipolar drives embedded in all three electoral systems

Other two dimensions, equality and responsiveness, are of course alsoexpected to be heavily affected by the crisis Although incumbent leadersmay strive not to erode social rights, the pressure from the EuropeanUnion has been strong and in those countries, such as Cyprus, Greece,

the so-called Troika (European Commission, European Central Bank,International Monetary Fund), the governments were almost bound tointroduce new retirement laws and different labour laws on employmentand dismissal in order to cope with budget-balancing requirements.However, they partially resisted constraining all expenditures on healthcare This said, when considering the change in the Gini index there is aconstant worsening of two points in all the southern European countriesexcept Portugal, which is stable

old and new democracies, economic and social inequality have not beenovercome or limited In general, following on from globalization and thefall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 there has been a noteworthy growth ininequality among individuals and social groups alike, especially with regard

to working conditions, age and gender In this context, the economic

crisis has brought the problem of poverty to the fore in some of the

European economic crisis published by the International Red Cross on

have enough food for their needs; the number of those who received helpfrom local units of the organization increased by 75% from 2008 to 2012,not only because of unemployment, but also because of the growing

12) Moreover, the economic crisis became a sort of powerful selectionand reverse allocation of wealth mechanism among social groups, so that

In terms of responsiveness, a classic indicator is the dissatisfaction of

included, is another obviously expected consequence of the crisis The

have already been researched (see above)

2.4 BACKGROUNDCONDITIONS AND THECATALYSING

MECHANISMWere the seeds of the political crisis already germinating in earlier years?

To address this question, we need to explain how the pre-existing context,already characterized by change and uncertainty, paved the way for thepolitical impact We need to look for the possible background conditionsthat helped to either magnify the impact of the crisis or facilitate its

we can immediately see that, as far as the rule of law is concerned, therewere a number of earlier scandals and episodes of corruption in whichparty leaders and parties were deeply embroiled Thus, there is little causefor wonder if the economic crisis created a better context for other similarepisodes In Spain, a background that helps to explain the expected impact

is provided by the already-declining levels of electoral participation, by thelow conventional participation in parties and other political groups sincethe beginning of Spanish democracy in the mid-1970s, and by a partial

tradition of dissatisfaction with democracy and political mistrust pounded by widespread alienation and cynicism, again since the beginning

com-of Spanish democracy

consequent decentralization in Spain and Italy When the Spanish

variable in connection with the different traditions which are stronger

in some regions and much weaker in others, this constitutional ment was received very positively as an ingenious solution to an impossible

declined, and the Supreme Court was kept busy for years settling the

Madrid and the regional governments, with the help of European fundsand the allocation of other resources Moreover, despite its strong manip-ulative characteristics, Spanish electoral law still gave a representative space

to regional parties, and consequently, demands Thus, it is no surprise thatthe economic crisis affected the compromise and put an end to it

sight In fact, given the background just described, what is expected tohappen is a much stronger thrust towards centralization for the weaker

stronger peripheries, such as Cataluña, where the compromise is also over

In Italy, because of the weak cultural and social bases of the cleavage, theimmediate result of the cut in resources was a similar thrust towardscentralization to that which took place in other Spanish regions Again,the key hypothesis that the context accounts for the result, and the crisis

Of course, more in-depth and detailed empirical research will clarify theeffective impact of the crisis and the connections with the background

background conditions and examine the expected impact in relation tothose conditions, we can better understand what the effective mechanism

at play is Such a mechanism is a sort of catalyst, where the existing

economic crisis paved the way for the emergence of forms of

assuming in Catalonia In other words, new political phenomena are alsoexplained by the existence of previous conditions and how they interactedwith the austerity measures, the cutting of resources and the other phe-nomena by giving rise to the new actors mentioned above A similar form

of reasoning can be adopted for Italy, with an important basic difference:

in Italy, the protest became almost immediately institutionalized in theFive Star Movement, and there was almost no preliminary non-conven-

To come to our key hypothesis, we see the impact of the economic

Shumpeterian hypothesis in economics that crises bring about innovative

and accelerates latent or less latent trends and factors already presentwithin the political system Like all other mechanisms, the catalysing effect

case among previously existing background conditions that are presentwithin the political system

were already present within the party systems and in the patterns ofrelationships between citizens and institutions, while at the same time, itaffected the capacity of crisis management and the gap between respon-

historical and contemporary reasons, southern European democracieshave their own weaknesses (see especially the next chapters) and theoverload created by public budget constraints and the pressures comingfrom international organizations having slackened those clientelistic and

countries that we analyse here, there was an in-depth de-structuring of thesocial roots of the main traditional parties and at the same time a success

2.5 THE ANALYSIS TO CARRYOUT

Once we consider the analyses published on the impact of the 2008economic crisis, we realize that there is, on the one hand, a dominantattention to voting behaviour and parties, and on the other hand, an

under-estimation of the impact of the crisis One reason could be that the

2014 period and so cannot adequately detect the entire effect However,another reason could be that we should scrutinize other aspects whichhave been overlooked until now Thus, to reply to the question of howbest to analyse the impact of the economic crisis, the best solution wouldseem to be to adopt an analytical framework that is both relatively moresystematic and more focused on the consequences of the crisis for the lives

of citizens

In this chapter, we have done this by adapting an analytical work which was developed to assess the quality of a democracy.However, in this study, we will only focus on two dimensions (parti-cipation and competition) of the three channels of expression men-

example, about participation,

1 strong decline of electoral participation and of other forms of ventional participation;

con-2 strong decline of interest groups activism; and

3 strong growth of non-conventional participation;

and regarding competition,

1 strong radicalization and formation of new protest parties;

3 crisis of intermediation interests and end of concertation

Here, we will not consider a number other important aspects, such as allthose related to the rule of law, inter-institutional accountability, equality

dimen-sions will unavoidably emerge and will be analysed They may become theobjects of other studies

1 There is much debate on all the problems and flaws of this measure On the whole, however, for us, it is still helpful as we analyse it in terms of the trend and not by itself The classic de finition of GDP is ‘annual percentages of

constant price GDP year-on-year changes; the base year is country-speci fic.’ Expenditure-based GDP is total final expenditures at purchasers’ prices (including the f.o.b value of exports of goods and services), less the f.o.b value of imports of goods and services.

2 Additional background conditions include the state of governance and the efficiency of the public institutions of the countries that are coping with the crisis (see also Sotiropoulos 2004 ; Zamora-Kapoor and Coller 2014 ; Di Mascio and Natalini 2015 ).

What Innovative Destruction? Changes

in Parties and Party Systems

Abstract The radical transformation of the party system in the fourcases of South European democracies in the light of institutionalizedparticipation and of competition are analysed starting since the early1990s The attention is directed to the analysis of the decline in voterturnout and party memberships, the electoral volatility and party fragmen-tation, the electoral radicalization, the re-shaping of cleavages, the left/right cleavage included The changes in all these dimensions are concep-tualized as outcomes of a process of the format and mechanics of partysystems of South Europe The analysis of the pattern of change singlesout three main paths: alienation and partisan continuity, movement mobi-lization and stabilization, immediate party stabilization In these patterns,

we also see the success of new protest or neo-populist parties, which isclosely associated with the recessive economic situation and the growingdissatisfaction of the national public opinion

Pattern of mobilization

or the fading away of some features complemented by the innovativeemergence of new ones as the main consequences of the economic crisis

© The Author(s) 2017

L Morlino, F Raniolo, The Impact of the Economic Crisis on South

European Democracies, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52371-2_3

25

to our analysis here? In other words, what has been destroyed by theeconomic crisis and what is new in terms of the conventional participation

involvement, and when considering the different features of political petition, such as party volatility, radicalization, polarization, re-shaping ofcleavages, and other issues? This chapter deals with these topics beforemaking a general assessment of changes in or the persistence of the key

attempt to explain the changes that took place in those domains inSouthern Europe

3.1 INSTITUTIONALIZED PARTICIPATION

recurrent distinction is between the ways of participating that take place

institutionalized and non-institutionalized participation The latter is acterized by social movements and other forms of non-conventional par-ticipation such as demonstrations, sit-ins, riots, and similar forms whichare often at the edge of the law, and we will come back to discuss them inChapter 4 Here, we only consider conventional or institutionalized parti-cipation Recalling again the classic literature (see, e.g., Dalton and

the electoral process (electoral participation or turnout), the forms ofparticipation that are channelled through parties, which can be expressedthrough party membership and participation at partisan events, and otherforms of participation in political associations that show interest andinvolvement in traditional political activity, again usually within partylines

basically, consistent If we gloss over the well-known declining trend ofthe recent decades (see below) and consider the possible impact of thecrisis, we can focus on two questions: (1) Are there relevant differencesbetween turnout before 2008 and immediately afterwards? (2) What are

a consistent decline in participation in all four cases: in Portugal we gofrom 64.3% (2005) to 59.7% (2009) and 58.0% (2011); in Spain from73.8% (2008) to 69.8% (2016); in Italy 83.6% (2006) to 80.5% (2008)

and 75.2% (2013); in Greece 74.1% (2007) to 70.9% (2009) and 62.5%

disap-pointment and alienation of voters, which slightly accelerates an alreadyexisting trend

the countries that were much less hit by the crisis, such as Sweden and

traditional symptom of higher competition among parties because of aperceived malaise and uncertainty Second, the electors in the two coun-tries, Portugal and Greece, that were more heavily hit by the crisis react indifferent ways that are strongly consistent with their voting traditions.Portugal shows a basic, substantial decline in turnout by alienated electorswho do not continue supporting their traditional parties: from 64.5%(2005) to 55.8% (2015), which is a difference of almost nine points in adecade By stopping to participate, alienated Portuguese electors ironically

Gre Ita Port Spa Ger Swe

Fig 3.1 Trends in electoral turnout: Southern Europe plus Germany and Sweden (1993 –2016)

Legend: GRE: 1993, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2012a, 2012b, 2015a, 2015b; ITA:

1994, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2008, 2013; POR: 1995, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2009, 2011, 2015; SPA: 1993, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2015, 2016; GER: 1994, 1998, 2002, 2005,

2009, 2013; SWE: 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014

Source: Of ficial data

give a stronger role to the moderate electors who participate and quently strengthen the traditional parties that they despise The results of

average turnout in the entire EU is 47.4%, with the lowest turnout in thelast 2014 elections, 42.4% More precisely, during the two decades, there

is a decline of electoral participation of about 10% in Greece, 16.4% inItaly and 13.3% in Spain, whereas the decline is much more limited, lessthan 1%, in Portugal The simple explanation is found when looking atthe levels of turnout for the entire period The Portuguese averageduring the two decades is 37%, that is, almost 10% less than the EUaverage, which can be compared to 68.4% and 67.5% averages in Greeceand Italy, respectively, and to the Spanish 51.9% average These databecome even more salient if also compared with those of our two bench-mark countries In fact, the German average is 48% and the Swedishone 43%

At the same time, as for Portugal, the very low turnout does not giveprotest parties any chance to grow and become more central in this criticalsituation (see the next chapter) In Greece, which is characterized by a

and later new hopes because of the appearance of new parties, and astabilization in participation with a large vote cast for the protest parties,

disappointment and new alienation, with electoral turnout falling by sevenpoints between January 2015 (63.6%) and September 2015 (56.6%).However, the Greek turnout is still characterized by a division amongvoters: those who support protest parties; those who are too disappointed

and seriously support the attempt at a split by Varoufakis, the minister offinance for six months during the crucial phase of crisis management and

that is, abstain

In Spain and Italy there are two other trends The basic stabilization inSpanish turnout (68.9% in 2011 and 69.8% in 2016) hides the hopes and

Ciudadanos, which received a large electorate betting on them against thetraditional parties The sharp decline in Italian turnout (80.5% in 2008and 75.2% in 2013) (see above) despite the opposite tradition, reveals adeep division of the electorate between moderate voters turning againsttheir party but not ready to embrace protest and more radical voters open

to supporting the recently created anti-establishment protest party, theFive Star Movement (see the next chapter).

It is well known that explanations of electoral turnout are more plex than may appear from the analysis above, but we are here drawing alarger picture with an additional scrutiny of other forms of participation,

or else falsifying it Therefore, let us now consider party membership Wecan immediately see a strong declining trend First, in the very early 1990s,party membership was generally about 15% of the European electorate

in membership of both parties and their ancillary organizations to reach a

This happened after one of the worst moments of the economic crisis in2009

information possible for the period after the second key moment of the

Nevertheless, a few qualitative considerations can integrate the emerging

Fig 3.2 Trend in party membership (Southern Europe)

Notes: Gre: 1990, 1998, 2008; Ita: 1989, 1998, 2007; Port: 1991, 2000, 2008; Spa: 1990,

2000, 2008; Ger: 1989 (West), 1999, 2007; Swe: 1989, 1998, 2008

Source: van Biezen et al 2012 , Appendix (from Table 3.1 )

picture With the exception of Portugal, the declining trend in Southern

Fig 3.3 The result is that an explicit apparent decline in confidence

in parties emerges in Southern Europe and even in Sweden, but not in

protest parties give hope to citizens Of course, the decline is constant inthe case of Portugal, where the new parties are not successful for thereasons mentioned above However, the decline of parties can also be

and other forms of non-institutionalized participation; or through classicinterest-group pressures, especially by interest associations such as unions,associations of entrepreneurs, shopkeepers and others We will address this

The likely acceleration of the fading away of partisan participation can

in the perspective considered here shows an undermining of party roots

Greece Italy Portugal Spain Germany Sweden

Fig 3.3 Con fidence in Parties: Southern Europe plus Germany and Sweden (1997 –2015)

Source: Eurobarometer, various years

organizations and the distancing of citizens from parties that is pounded by a retrenchment of the partisan elite in their power positions

com-by exploiting the resources of incumbency to try to keep the loyalty ofcitizens However, it can immediately be added that an obvious keycharacteristic of an economic crisis is precisely a shrinking of theresources that incumbent politicians can allocate This is even more so

if the crisis is deep and protracted and the political authorities are obliged

directly imposed by the European Union and indirectly by the tional markets Consequently, the sort of retrenchment Mair referred tocan only worsen the situation by accelerating the destruction of partisanroots and laying the base for the success of anti-establishment protestparties

interna-Greece Italy Portugal Spain Germany Sweden

Fig 3.4 Trends in electoral volatility: Southern Europe (1993 –2016)

Notes: Legend: GRE: 1993, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2012a, 2012b, 2015a, 2015b; ITA: 1994, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2008, 2013; POR: 1995, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2009, 2011, 2015; SPA: 1993, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2015, 2016; GER: 1994, 1998, 2002,

2005, 2009, 2013; SWE: 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014

Source: in-western-europe-1945-2015