This chapter analyses the various radical left international initiatives prior to the birth of the EL in 2004. We discuss how deep divisions between ‘sovereigntists’ (who looked to the nation-state as a defence of the welfare state and of redistributive social justice) and ‘Left Europeanists’ (who believed that the crisis of socialism required a pan-European and ultimately a global strategic response by the radical left and that ‘national roads to socialism’ were no longer either adequate or even viable in the face of capitalist globalisation) hampered and delayed the emergence of the EL. From the ashes of ‘traditional’ communist forms of multi-party ‘co-operation’ – the various Internationals and attempts at Moscow- or Beijing-dominated meetings of communist parties – a kaleidoscope of differing initiatives eventually emerged. We discuss some of the most important. We show how dissatisfaction with these initiatives lay behind the determination of some of the most significant European radical left parties to take the initiative that resulted in the creation of the EL in 2004. We discuss the differing motivations of some of the parties that joined the EL at the outset and the initial steps that the EL took.

This chapter traces the institutional and legal context in which transnational parties (TNPs) first emerged and developed. We show that TNP development expanded after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty but remained rudimentary until the 2000s. We aim to explain why the EL, founded in 2004, was a relative latecomer to the field of TNPs and we consider debates between sceptics, idealists and realists as to the potential of TNPs to develop into fully-fledged pan-European political parties. We examine the different functions of TNPs – co-ordination and information exchange, socialisation, legitimacy, policy-making – and discuss where we think the EL has developed to date and where it has stalled. We conclude with some remarks concerning the future of TNPs.

This chapter focuses on programmatic and policy development within the EL. We examine the elaboration of policy at the various conferences and Congresses the EL has held since 2004 as well as in the common manifestos for the European Parliament elections. We discuss the impact of the Tsipras candidacy for the post of European Commission in 2014. Both this, and the subsequent election of a Syriza-led government in Greece, were landmark events for the EL. The retreat of that government in the face of pressure and blackmail by the Troika of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund were experienced by the EL as a bitter shared defeat. The experience of Syriza and the previous disappointments associated with the government participation of a full EL member party in Italy and an observer party in Cyprus suggest distinct limits to the EL’s ability to exert decisive policy influence upon its components – or to help them ‘govern’ in any more radical a fashion than the social democratic rivals of the radical left. Nevertheless, the EL has achieved a considerable degree of policy coherence and has sharpened its critique of the European Union since 2015.

This chapter traces the history of radical left party (RLP) policies and orientation towards European integration, taking further issue with the usefulness of the concept of 'Euroscepticism' as a way of encapsulating the rich variety of views and strategies that emerge from our survey. We consider how a wide range of factors has influenced RLPs' attitudes towards European integration. We aim to show how parties that saw the nation-state as an embodiment of revolutionary and socially egalitarian values (as in the French Jacobin tradition) are likely to differ markedly from parties whose experience of nationalism is bitter and whose historical patrimony makes any recourse to 'defence of the nation-state' problematic at best – such as the German, Italian and Spanish parties. We analyse the legacy of RLPs' co-operation inside the European Parliament from their first appearance there in the 1960s until the post-1989 break-up of the Italian Communist Party, the launch of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) in the European Parliament in 1994 and, eventually, the birth of the EL in 2004.

This chapter compares the EL with the two other TNPs of the broad left-of-centre – the Party of European Socialists (PES) and the European Green Party (EGP). It shows how the social democrats have far surpassed the EL in terms of influence, even if the PES still has its limits as a TNP. The Greens, on the other hand, have perhaps advanced most down the road of 'Europeanisation' and the EGP now punches well above its weight – while the EL continues to punch below its weight. We argue that this is, in part, due to the fact that the EGP has adapted its structures most. The EL, by contrast, sticks consciously to the model of consensual decision-making, seeking unanimity where possible even if this means slowing down policy-making. In the second part of the chapter we compare the policies towards the European crisis of the three main left-of-centre TNPs. We argue that, on paper at least, there now seems to be much overlap and convergence between the three. However, the EL remains alone in seeking to truly transcend capitalism, rather than merely manage it. The EL's radicalism – its insistence on its nature as a transformative party (in the sense of standing for a transformation and transcendence of capitalism) – marks it out as a singular case.

Since the emergence of Christian Democracy as a significant political movement in many western European countries after 1945, Christian Democrats have been to the fore of the movement for European unity. Britain's first two applications to join the European Community (EC)—the first by Macmillan's Conservative Government in 1961 and the second by Wilson's Labour Government in 1967—both fell foul of a French veto. The principal EC Christian Democratic parties—the German, the Italian and the Belgian—all voiced support for British membership. Christian Democrats have tended to emphasise the importance of a strong civil society, guided by "Christian principles," as a counter to the power of the state. Although the family is extolled as the most important unit—which inclines Christian Democracy towards a highly conservative position on family policy and sexual politics—recognition is also given to the multiplicity of citizens' organisations which comprise civil society.

that a political party “is in equilibrium when it can offer its candidates something approximating an even chance of election” (p. 33). This seems to make party competition part of the concept of equilibrium, not a separate factor that is affected by equilibrium. The theoretical argument of the book might be presented just as well without the concept of equilibrium: the hypothesis would simply be that the existence of two developed political parties that are oriented toward winning office leads to competitive elections which then results in more effective democracy. In elaborating the mechanism behind these relationships, the authors argue that ambitious politicians, running under party labels, make this system work through their desire to win office, retain office, and move to a higher office. After laying out their theoretical argument, the authors describe the party system in the South for different time periods. In the antebellum period, a competitive party system was developing in the South in the 1840s, and the region was catching up to the North in this regard, but the collapse of the Whig Party in the 1850s and the subsequent Civil War ended that brief period of competitive party politics. In the late 19th century, a competitive party system never became established in the South, and the domination of the Democratic Party continued throughout the first half of the 20th century. Movement toward party competition began in the mid-20th century, but it was not until the 1980s that a real two-party system existed in the South. In recent decades, political parties in the South have been as developed and as competitive as those in the North. Following the description of party politics in the South and the North at different points in time, the authors analyze the effects of differences in party development and party competition. They present a great deal of analysis, too much to be able to summarize all of the findings in this review. One important analysis investigates the effect of party development on electoral competition, using data on the states at different points in time from 1948 to 2012. This analysis finds that states have a higher level of competition in presidential elections when there are sharper differences between the parties (measured by the difference in roll call voting between the Democratic and Republican congressmen from the state) and when more voters perceive party differences. Another important analysis finds that competitive party systems lead to greater government responsiveness: using data for various time periods, they show that there is a stronger relationship between the roll call votes of US Representatives and Senators and the ideological orientation of voters in their districts or states when there is a more competitive party system. In the past, Southern members of Congress were much less responsive to the ideological character of their district or state, but in the more competitive environment of recent decades, Southern members of Congress are just as responsive as those from the North. Aldrich and Griffin also show that greater party competition leads to more democratic attitudes on the part of citizens: as the South has become more competitive, it has become more similar to the North in support for democratic values, such as free speech. This book is a valuable addition to the literature on political parties. It tackles big questions, attempts to answer them with a wealth of data analysis, and produces theoretically important findings. Furthermore, the approach and methods used in this study are likely to be a guide to other scholars who want to examine the role that political parties play in a democracy. In their attempt to present a large amount of analysis in a relatively short book, the authors sometimes fail to provide some of the methodological details that would interest some scholars. For example, near the end of Chapter 7, there are the results of what I believe is a Granger causality analysis, but it is not identified as such, and the details of the analysis, including the coefficients, are not included. It would have been nice to see more methodological information in some places, even if it were relegated to an appendix. However, this is a minor criticism of what is overall a very fine book.

This chapter discusses the EL’s developing relations with both the social movements against austerity and the broader European left. It focuses upon the ways in which the EL has sought to build links, partly through its working groups, with trade unionists, environmentalists, feminists and other sections of the ‘movement left’, as well as participating in the World and European Social Forums and organising gatherings of broad left activists. The second part of the chapter examines some of the reasons why the EL has failed to date to attract a number of significant RLPs. We also consider the objections raised to the EL by more hard-line and traditionalist communist or Trotskyist parties. Finally, we conclude with a detailed discussion of the role of the GUE/NGL confederal group in the European Parliament and the EL’s relations with that group.

In this chapter we discuss the range of factors – procedural, institutional and path-dependent divergences in European orientation – which weigh heavily upon policy-making efficacy within the EL. There is a critical interrogation of the development of the organisation and structures of the EL. We consider what might on the surface appear to be one of the EL’s most exciting and innovative features – the admission of individual members who can join the EL directly, without belonging to a national political party. This might seem to mark a turning-point in the evolution of ‘Europeanisation’. However, the category of individual membership has, until now, been largely stymied. We examine issues of leadership, hierarchy and policy-making within the EL, the role of the various party bodies and the question of internal party democracy. We reflect critically upon the self-effacing stand of the EL within the European Parliament. Finally, we consider the EL’s nature as a networking organisation.

The European financial crisis has inspired a wave of social activism, challenging established party politics. In Ireland, a large social protest movement produced a Right2Change political campaign in 2015 that confronted the right-wing consensus in Irish politics. Some activists sought to emulate and learn from the example of new parties like Spain's Podemos. Yet, to date, the traditional party structure remains intact, and hopes of emulating the success of activists elsewhere remain muted. At the same time, anti-austerity activism in Ireland has seen a conscious attempt to engage in intense dialogue with the pan-European experience. Irish activists have looked to Europe before for inspiration and a sharing of experiences; but the most recent attempt to create a Europeanised public space in response to the perceived 'blockage' in the Irish party system is something fairly innovative. This article, based in part on ten semi-structured interviews with politicians and social movement activists, considers the achievements and failings of the Irish anti-austerity movement to date.

It's an apposite moment to analyze the European Left Party (EL), one of the newest transnational parties (TNPs) founded in 2004, which gathers a large number of radical left parties situating themselves to the left of social democracy. Despite the ostensibly beneficial crisis environment across the EU, radical left parties as a whole have so far failed to make significant gains. The EL's third congress in Paris in 2010 recognized significant future challenges in order to react to the adoption of the Lisbon treaty and to ‘build a Europe of social change’. In this paper we examine this relatively under-analyzed TNP's organizational development and cohesiveness by focussing on the interaction between national parties, the party at European level and the GUE/NGL (European United Left/Nordic Green Left) European parliamentary group. The EL's 2010 EL (2010) Agenda for a Social Europe. Joint Action Platform for Resistance and Alternatives in Europe; European Left Third Congress, Paris, 3–5 December 2010 (Brussels: Party of the European Left). [Google Scholar] congress showed it struggling to combine the ‘deepening’ of its organizational cohesion with the ‘widening’ of its political representation. Although the EL's development to date marks a significant intensification of radical left European co-operation in historical terms, it remains ill-equipped to become an organizationally and strategically effective organization.