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Since the European-wide domination of social democratic governments during the mid- to late-1990s, Right-wing parties have returned to power in the three largest Mediterranean democracies - Italy, France and Spain. This alternation has been symptomatic of growing majoritarianism in Southern Europe, a trend which has gone against much of the rest of the continent, and of a decline in clientelist effectiveness also traditionally seen as the Southern 'norm'. This volume assesses the subsequent periods of incumbency of these three governments, considering the salient features of each in their reac

The period since the signing of Northern Ireland's 'peace deal', the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA), has seen a shift in the votes of many Protestants to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), hitherto seen as a hardline, anti-GFA organisation fusing religion and politics. This article uses a case study of the Orange Order, the largest religious-cultural organisation in Northern Ireland containing almost one-in-four Protestant voters, to examine the basis of the appeal of more militant Protestant Unionism in the DUE. The article suggests that a radical ethnic militancy is apparent amongst younger 'Orange' Protestants in particular. This shift in Protestant-Unionist opinion has been exacerbated in a post-conflict party system, in which electoral competition is based upon intra-ethnic bloc rivalry around the defence of the interests of a particular bloc. [Copyright 2006 Elsevier Ltd.]

Structural reforms of political parties in Western Europe have shifted these actors towards individual member organizations in which sectional interests have diminished in salience. This process has been accompanied by a secularization of parties, as links to religious organizations have declined. Such developments have been facilitated by a matching of the need for structural reform with the electoral imperative of the removal of electorally unpopular associations. Where such alignment is less apparent, however, processes of modernization may be shelved. This is apparent in Northern Ireland, where the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) declined to remove the Orange Order from its structures, relying instead upon the Order to voluntarily sever the link. This article employs Downsian and sociological models to assess the debate over whether to proceed with party modernization amid electoral risk. It finds that, even if the UUP leadership had been able to convince its members to adopt such a modernization strategy, this would not eradicate divisions within the party upon constitutional and policy questions, and indeed would push the party away from popular Protestant opinion. As such, modernization in this 'deviant' case cannot be seen as a rational strategy.