Suchergebnisse

The German Stability Culture is frequently pointed to in the literature as the source of the country's low inflationary policies and, at the European Union (EU) level, the design of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In Germany, the term was regularly wielded by central bankers and Christian Democrat (CDU-CSU) politicians to legitimise the move to EMU in the face of a large majority of public opinion opposed, and subsequent EU-level policy developments, particularly in the context of the eurozone debt crisis that erupted in 2009. An ordered probit analysis is used to demonstrate the depth of the German Stability Culture, showing that support for low inflation cuts across all party and ideological lines. Despite this ubiquity, the term has been wielded with regularity only by the centre-right Christian Democrats and is strongly associated with this party. A strategic constructivist analysis is employed to explain this uneven but persistent usage in German domestic politics.

European radical left parties (RLPs) are gradually receiving greater attention. Yet, to date, what has received insufficient focus is why such parties have maintained residues of electoral support after the collapse of the USSR and why this support varies so widely. This article is the first to subject RLPs to large-n quantitative analysis, focusing on 39 parties in 34 European countries from 1990 to 2008. It uses the 'supply and demand' conceptual framework developed for radical right parties to identify a number of socio-economic, political-cultural and party-system variables in the external environment that might potentially affect RLP support. The article finds the most persuasive variables to include political culture (past party success), the level of unemployment, Euroscepticism and anti-globalization sentiment, the electoral threshold and competition from Green and radical right parties. The findings suggest several avenues for future research and provide a framework that can be adapted to explain the electoral success of other party families.