The Electoral Effects of Green Government Participation A Comparative Analysis
By Wolfgang Rüdig, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland
April 2001
Prepared for "Greens in Power: Government Formation, Policy Impact, and the Future of Green Parties" workshop, European Consortium for Political Research April 5th-11th, 2001
Introduction
Is government participation good for green parties? Those following
recent coverage of the electoral decline of the German Greens may come
to the conclusion that, once Greens have entered national government,
their future electoral prospects look extremely bleak.
Green participation in government has now become a fairly ‘normal’
phenomenon. In Western Europe, the cases of Finland (1995), Italy
(1996), France (1997), Germany (1998) and Belgium (1999) where greens
are currently part of coalition governments provides ample opportunity to
study the electoral effect of green incumbency. We can also venture
further afield to consider the effect of green ‘toleration’ of a minority
government, this applies to the current situation in Sweden (1999) and
New Zealand (2000).
The involvement of seven green parties in national government raises a
series of new research questions. In this paper, I am trying to address one
of these questions: what impact does government participation have on
green electoral support? There are number of theories, drawn from
electoral sociology, that make rather contradictory predictions.
Governmental incumbency can have beneficial effects, it can also destroy
a party’s electoral standing. In the next part, I will look a little more
closely at possible hypotheses. I am restricted, however, in terms of the
type of hypotheses we can actually test. Therefore, this paper has
predominantly an exploratory character, raising questions rather than
answering them. What we need is some initial understanding of the type of
relationship that needs to be explored. Where there are data, however, I
will look at them to see what conclusions can be drawn. There are
essentially three types of data that we have available to illuminate the
impact of governmental participation on electoral performance.
First, there are actual election results: how are green parties that take part
in national government faring at the ballot box? At the level of national
parliamentary elections, the data available are rather sparse, for the simple
reason that only one green party had to face parliamentary elections after a
term in office, namely in Finland in 1999. However, all other green parties
had to face European elections (except Belgium were they coincided with
the national elections) after taking office which could be seen as a type of
test of their electoral popularity. Ideally, also regional and local election
results could be analysed, but often national voting figures are not
available for comparative purposes.
Second, there are national opinion polls that track the electoral standing of
all parties, in some countries on a monthly basis. These data provide a
good indication of the development of the standing of the parties before
and after entering government.
And thirdly, there is the possibility of tracing the effects of government
with the help of cross-sectional data. In a previous paper on this topic coauthored
with Mark N Franklin (Rüdig and Franklin 2000), some first
results of the third European Election Study (EES) that was conducted at
the time of the 1999 European elections in June, were reported.1 With the
increasing length of the green governmental experience, more crosssectional
data suitable for an analysis of green incumbency effects should
become available in the coming years. This paper does not report any
analyses of any cross-sectional data, but the potential use of this approach
for further research strategies will be discussed below.
Theory
In a classical article published almost 20 years ago, Richard Rose and
Thomas T. Mackie posed the question of whether governmental
participation was an asset or a liability in electoral competition (Rose and
Mackie 1983). In a sweeping empirical survey covering all Western
democracies, Rose and Mackie analysed the post-incumbency electoral
performance and governmental fate of parties from 1948 to 1979. Overall,
they found that government parties are more likely to lose votes than to
win votes after a period in office. Despite this, most government parties
losing votes still remain in government. In coalition governments, it was
not common for all government parties to lose, more frequent was a
mixture of success and failure. In a follow up study covering the years
1980 to 1993 restricted to Western Europe, Mackie (1996, p. 174) found
that the negative electoral impact of incumbency was increasing: 81% (as
opposed to 61% in the 1948-79 period) of government parties lost votes,
the average loss increased from –1.0% to –4.1%.
A later comparative analysis of the electoral effect of incumbency was
undertaken by Wolfgang Müller and Kaare Strøm (1997). Evaluating the
results of 13 case studies of the birth, development, and impact of
coalitions, Müller and Strøm briefly look at the electoral impact of
incumbency. They come to very similar conclusions as Rose and Mackie.
There is no clear-cut electoral effect of incumbency. The majority of
government parties lose votes, but some also win additional support.
1 For detailed information on the 1999 European election study, see
http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mfrankli/EES.html.
Incumbency itself is obviously not a decisive variable for the electoral and
governmental fortunes of individual parties. While the balance of
international experience tends to suggest that incumbency is more likely to
be a liability than an asset, there must be intervening variables that
determine the actual impact on incumbency for particular parties. Are
particular types of parties more likely to be negatively or positively
affected by incumbency? To what extent does the effect of incumbency
depend on the ups and downs of economic cycles? And are particular
institutional features, for example electoral systems, associated with the
effects of incumbency?
Reviewing past comparative and national studies of incumbency, which
factors would expect us to predict a negative or a positive incumbency
effect for green parties?
Predictions of a positive effect of incumbency focus particularly on the
resources that governmental parties can command. Continuous media
presence, the use of governmental information services, the authority of
holding public office, of representing the State, of speaking and acting for
‘
the country’ can bestow benefits on government parties their opponents
may find difficult to counteract. Particularly where governmental
respectability and ‘statesmanship’ are personalised, the incumbency
advantage appears to be particularly strong: the ‘chancellor bonus’ in
Germany is one obvious example. Another case where all the emphasis is
on incumbency advantage are Congressional elections in the United States
(cf. Mondak 1995; Cox and Katz 1996).
For challenger parties like the Greens, the process of entering government
could be expected to involve a substantial improvement of their political
resources. In terms of conventional politics, government participation
gives Greens the opportunity to acquire a degree of political respectability
and authority that was impossible to acquire as ‘outsider’ opposition
parties representing a small majority of the population.
Furthermore, government participation potentially provides the
opportunity for green parties as ‘institutionalised social movements’ to put
into practice ideas that they have advocated for a very long time without a
realistic chance of seeing them implemented. Supporters of green party
aims that might have wavered in decisions to support the party in
opposition on the grounds of the low probability of their political
effectiveness can now vote green conscious of their ability to have a real
political impact.
The question of the evaluation of the political impact of government
parties opens up another line of argument: incumbency could be expected
to be beneficial to government parties if their reign was associated with
actual or perceived economic gains (cf. Sanders 1996; Johnston and
Pattie 1999). The potential ability of government to manipulate the
economic cycle to make boom periods coincide with elections is one
additional resource to be considered. Governments, of course, are not
beyond claiming credit for economic success during boom periods and
blaming external factors outside their control during recession.
But to what extent can an economic theory of voting be expected to apply
to green parties? While green party ideology could be expected to be
more concerned with ‘post-materialist’ issues, it could be argued that
Green parties also cannot afford to preside over economic decline and
crisis. Greens, perhaps more than other parties, need a favourable
economic climate to be in a position to find majorities for environmental
policies that are often not universally popular, such as ecological taxation.
Furthermore, the idea that Greens are exclusively concerned with
environmental issues is as inappropriate now as it was before: Greens not
only have policies on all other issues, but they also have managed to
extend their identity to some of these areas, in particular civil rights, the
rights of minorities, and the advocacy of a racially tolerant, multi-cultural
society. Also social issues, such as unemployment and welfare state
reform, have been put at the centre of green election campaigning in the
1990s. The German Greens, at the beginning of their term of national
office, declared that they mainly wanted to be judged after four years by
the contribution they have made to combating unemployment.
A ‘respectable’, policy effective green party participating in a government
successfully riding the economic cycle might thus be expected to benefit
from its incumbency position. But how likely will Green parties be able to
achieve such a position?
Green parties started their life as challengers to the establishment, as
parties that wanted to affect important social and political changes, parties
that put certain issues such as nuclear energy or nuclear weapons beyond
the usual realm of compromise. The entry of such a new generation of
challenger parties is thus potentially less ‘normal’ than other processes of
coalition formation. Are green parties capable of accepting compromise
politics, even in areas of their identity politics? If not, the stability of such
coalitions is likely to be low, a factor that has continuously been aired by
the Greens’ political competitors. The demands of being good and reliable
coalition partners, of demonstrating ‘governmentability’, are likely to
conflict with the policy aims of the party, however.
The evaluation of green party performance in government could be
expected to differ, perhaps rather substantially, from the evaluation of
other parties. The evaluation of green government performance by green
voters could be expected to focus on a range of ‘green’ issues, such as
nuclear power, climate policy, transport policy, genetic engineering,
sustainable development, and the like. German surveys continue to show
that the Greens only have a substantial policy credibility in environmental
policy.2
The 1990s have seen the salience of environmental issues decline
fairly steadily which provides a rather hostile social environment for some
green policy ideas. This potentially puts the Greens into a very difficult
position. Greens might be able to claim credit for some environmental
‘
gratis effects’, such as environmental benefits of structural economic
changes and economic policies not primarily motivated by environmental
considerations. But in many target areas of green policies, there are strong
vested interests to overcome. Compromises in these areas may be
necessary to maintain governmental office but may have severe electoral
costs as green core constituencies become alienated from green
government parties.
The Greens are especially vulnerable as their direct responsibility is mainly
limited to the Environment Departments whose administrative
responsibilities involve dealing with environmental problems but without
having any control over the production of these environmental problems.
In all five cases, Greens have, at least initially, been kept out of key
portfolios such as economic and industrial policy, fiscal policy,
agricultural policy, and, except in Belgium, transport policy. Events that,
before entering government, might have helped green parties to mobilise
more support might now backfire: environmental disasters and accidents
could now expose green environment minister and challenge their
competency claims. However, the appointment of Greens as ministers
responsible for agriculture in both Germany and Italy raises interesting
possibilities, particularly at the time when concern about food safety and
reform of agricultural practices is high on national agendas. It will be
interesting to note whether the Greens can use the widespread public
concerns in these areas to their electoral advantages.
The Greens’ participation in government also threatens to alienate the
‘
anti-establishment’ protest vote that Greens have been benefiting from in
many countries. To combine a ‘realistic’ role in government with a
‘
challenger’ position might conflict with the desire to dispel the notion of
instability that potentially is associated with the Greens.
2 See, for example, the various Landtag Elections reports for 1999 and 2000 at
http://www.infratest.de.
Pragmatic compromise politics also imposes limits to the extent the Greens could
continue to portray themselves as essentially out of tune with ‘the system’.
The Greens could thus be hard pressed to hang on to the antiestablishment
vote, particularly amongst the young, as they begin to be
perceived and to act as an integral party of ‘the establishment’.
Finally, we also have to consider the role of Greens as small coalition
parties. Factors that apply to incumbent candidates or to one-party
government, conditions that have dominated US and UK politics, are not
necessarily applicable to coalition government. As Rose and Mackie
(1983) pointed out, in coalition governments it is more common for some
government parties to lose votes and for others to win votes. This means
that the distribution of credit and blame amongst the government parties is
likely to be an extremely influential factor in determining the electoral effect
of incumbency.
Some of these hypotheses could be tested on a national basis, analysing
the fortunes of green parties over time. Analytically more exciting,
however, is the cross-national (or the cross-regional) approach,
particularly if there are clear cross-national variances in the outcomes of
green incumbency.
There are potentially two types of factors that a comparative analysis of
green party incumbency effects would need to take into account, in
addition to the factors already mentioned: institutional factors of party and
electoral politics outside the influence of green parties; and the internal
factors of party politics that may make Green parties more or less
effective developing strategies and in reacting to opportunities and be
relevant.
First, there are variances in the institutional design of individual countries
which may make it easier or more difficult for Greens to do well in postincumbency
elections. Different electoral systems open up different
opportunities and challenges. As far as national parliamentary elections are
concerned, the five countries under study can be divided into two
separate groups: on the one hand, there are in France and Italy where
majority voting systems dominate; and Belgium, Finland and Germany
where different types of proportional representation systems are in
operation.
In the case of France and Italy, small parties like the Greens can only hope
to win any representation if they are part of ‘pre-election’ coalitions with
larger parties. In both cases, the Greens entered such pre-election
coalitions. In terms of their post-incumbency elections, the key factor for
continued success is to remain in this pre-election coalition as the Greens
will be unable to gain parliamentary representation on their own. The
Italian Greens are too small to have a realistic chance of winning seats in
the proportional part of the elections. With their current poll standing, the
French Greens are unlikely to win any seats in the National Assembly on
their own. In this situation, the Greens are presented to the electorate not
as a separate party to vote for, but only in the form of green candidates
representing a broader electoral alliance. The voter will thus be confronted
not primarily with a with a green candidate but with a candidate
representing the ‘majorité plurielle’ or the Ulivo alliance. This will ensure
continued parliamentary representation, but also means that the Greens are
very closely tied to the overall performance of the government and its
evaluation by the electorate.
If the key to post-incumbency success in these cases is staying in the pre-election coalition, then this strategic position may impose a rather different set of conditions on their operation in government. On the one hand, the Greens’ bargaining power may not be very great if their coalition partners, through their unilateral action,
could condemn the Greens to an uncertain fate as an extra-parliamentary
force. On the other hand, these coalition partners will only have an interest
in continuing the arrangement if they believe that they will derive some
benefit from it. The smaller the Greens are or are becoming, the less
attractive it will be to enter costly compromises to keep them in
government. Here, other elections, in particular European and
regional/local elections, where the Greens are able to prove their strength
independently, can become important factors.
In the other three countries, the strategic conditions of the Greens are
rather different. They have entered parliament, and government, on their
own steam, and they have to fight subsequent elections on their own. This
could mean a higher bargaining strength, but also, perhaps, higher
expectations from their voters about what they could achieve. There are
some differences in the detailed electoral conditions that also could have
important effects on the Greens’ post-incumbency electoral performance.
In Additional Member Systems (AMS) with a 5% threshold as the one
employed in Germany, the electoral performance of the smaller coalition
partner can depend very heavily on Leihstimmen (‘borrowed votes’) from
the supporters of the large coalition partner. As none of the two major
parties is likely to win an outright majority, it is often far more important
for the large coalition partner to ensure the electoral survival of its smaller
partner than to maximise its own vote. This provides an incentive to split
the two votes: some supporters of the larger coalition partner will only
cast the first vote (for the constituency party candidate) for ‘their’ party
candidate, and give the second (decisive) vote to the party of the small
coalition partner to ensure that it surpasses the 5% hurdle. In particular the
FDP has benefited from split voting in the past. Whether or not the
Greens can benefit from it very much depends on the alternative coalition
options of the larger coalition partner. In the case of Germany, the
(re)emergence of the FDP as a potential coalition partner of the SPD is
playing an important role in political strategy. Where the Greens are the
only coalition partner available, they can benefit from ‘borrowed’ second
votes of the SPD: in the case of Schleswig-Holstein, the February 2000
regional elections have illustrated that point: without the borrowed SDP
votes cast to ensure a continuation of the SPD-led coalition, the Greens
would not have been able to gain representation.
These examples underline an important point: coalitions are not just made
in governnment. The typology developed by Vernon Bogdanor (1983, p.
4), distinguishing between various types of electoral, parliamentary and
governmental coalitions, is particularly relevant here. A strong linkage
between all three types of coalition, as in Italy and France, can protect the
Greens in some circumstances, but might also expose them if the political
climate turns against the coalition or if the major coalition partners see
more costs than benefits in maintaining the coalition.
Another feature that might be important is the personalised nature of PR
voting in Belgium and Finland. In Belgium, voters can, in Finland, voters
must choose between different candidates of the same party. In a postincumbency
‘
blame game’ there may be strong incentives for the Greens
to distance themselves from their role in government, voting for particular
candidates may thus allow ‘Greens’ to vote ‘green’ but at the same time
express criticism or approval of its governmental performance by voting
or not voting for particular candidates.
The second type of factor that might affect post-incumbency performance
concerns the internal life of green parties. To what extent do Greens
develop strategic capabilities to make the best use of their opportunities?
To what extent are they able to communicate effectively, and thus win the
‘
blame game’? The communicative challenge for Greens is quite difficult.
They have to demonstrate that they can achieve something in government,
but at the same time they have to defend and justify their compromises;
they have to demonstrate political credibility while at the same time
maintain public support on core green issues and mobilise that support in
elections.
The choice of issues as key bargaining topics during coalition negotiations
is likely to be crucial; the Greens need a combination of ‘winning issues’
to demonstrate that they are making a difference, and long-term core
issues to motivate continuing support in government and beyond. In
government, green parties also are likely to be more under the spot-light of
public attention on economic issues. The type of issues green parties
select to fight on might thus be an important element in assessing the
electoral performance of greens after government.
Another important internal factor is internal party organisation. As
advocates of ‘grass roots democracy’, green parties started life with rather
unconventional, decentralised organisational structures. Many elements of
these structures already came under pressure before entering government
in efforts to improve the electoral competitiveness of Greens. As
incumbent government members, the communicative challenge is perhaps
even stronger, and a series of attempts have been made to change aspects
of green party organisation to make them fit for government. To what
extent post-incumbency success of Greens is related to the success or
failure of internal party reform is an interesting empirical question that has
not been systematically researched (but see Rihoux 2000).
I have raised a large number of questions and formulated potential
hypotheses to be pursued. The empirical evidence we have available only
allows us to shed some light on a small number of them. In this paper, I
concentrate on establishing first the effects of green incumbency. On the
basis of the evidence available, one may speculate on the likely plausibility
of particular explanations. I will now first look at the electoral performance
of green parties, and then go to discuss polling evidence.
Post-Incumbency Electoral Performance
How well have green parties done at the ballot box after they entered
government? In Table 1, I have compiled the results of green parties since
1987 in the five countries which currently have Greens in government.
The first impression is that there is no uniform development in the
fortunes of green parties over the last ten years. It appears that national
factors play an important role in determining the ups and downs of green
fortunes at particular times. Admittedly, the inclusion of European
elections in which green parties do generally rather better than in national
elections may artificially increase the degree of volatility displayed, but the
differences in national fortunes are clear to see.
Overall, the Italian Greens appear to have the smallest degree of public
support. Their best result at the European elections of 1989 was the
combined result of two lists. Their subsequent merger did not succeed in
maintaining their combined electoral strength, and electoral support for
new united green federation could not break out of a narrow 2-3% band.
The Italian Greens thus appeared to be decline well before their role in
government began. The change in electoral system that was brought about
by the collapse of the Italian party system produced a major challenge to
their survival. The system adopted first for the 1994 elections combined a
first-past-the-post system electing 75% of Italian deputies with a
proportional element elected the remaining 25%. But as the threshold for
obtaining seats in the proportional part of the elections was set at 4%, this
represented a formidable challenge for a party that had never obtained this
level of support before. It was thus absolutely vital for the Greens to be
able to join an alliance with other parties, making green candidates the
representative of the main left-wing alliance in enough constituencies to
ensure representation in parliament. In 1994 and 1996, the Greens were
successful with this strategy, in both cases failing by quite a wide margin
to attain the 4% needed to obtain seats in their own right in the
proportional representation part of the election (Mény and Knapp 1998, p.
53). Since entering government in 1996 as part of the Ulivo alliance, the
only national test they faced were the European elections of 1999. Here,
they obtained their worst result ever in a national election, 1.8%, which
indicates that their long-term decline since the late 1980s appears to have
continued. In 1999, the Greens clearly were not helped by a strong
showing of their old rival, Pannella’s Radical Party which benefited from
its European list being headed by the high-profile Emma Bonino (Natale
1999).
The other main loser of the 1999 European elections were the German
Greens who were quite content just to make it again into the European
Parliament by scoring above 5%. Their result of 6.4% was marginally
down on their 1998 General Election result, although it was achieved on a
much lower turnout. In the German case, we can detect a fairly steady
downward spiral that set in just before the 1998 elections and has
continued unabated after the Greens entered federal government with the
SPD. This is also demonstrated by regional election results since early
1998. In every regional election, the Greens have been losing votes (see
Figure 1).
The link between incumbency and electoral performance is, however,
rather tenuous. At the time of the 1998 General Election, the Greens were
coalition partners of the SPD in four German Länder: Hesse, Schleswig-
Holstein, Hamburg, and Northrhine-Westfalia. The Greens spectacularly
lost the Hesse elections in February 1999 which resulted not only in the
Red-Green coalition being replaced by a CDU/FDP government but also
to the loss of the SPD/Green majority in the German Upper House, the
Bundesrat. The Greens lost quite heavily in all other remaining regional
elections of 1999 where they had either been in opposition or not been
represented in the parliament at all: Bremen, Brandenburg, Saarland,
Thuringia, Saxony, and Berlin.
Also in Schleswig-Holstein, in February 2000 at the height of the CDU party finance scandal, the Greens could not avoid losing almost 2%, despite a massive mobilisaton of resources from the national party in an effort to stem the tide against the Greens.
Fortunately for the Greens, these losses were light enough for them to reenter
the parliament and continue their coalition with the SPD. One
important factors that helped them was the introduction of a two-vote
AMS system, allowing vote splitting that worked in favour of both the
SPD and the Greens as the reelection of the sitting government was high
on the agenda of voters.3
Also in Northrhine-Westphalian elections, in May 2000, the Greens
managed to hang on in government despite losing votes in the elections.
Here, the problem was more a personality conflict between SPD-Premier
Clement and Green agriculture and environment minister Bärbel Höhn who
barely remained on speaking terms after a prolonged conflict over the
future of the Garzweiler II lignite mining project. Clement won that fight,
but seemed frustrating at constant backbiting and conflictuous behaviour
from the Green coalition partner. After the election, Clement theoretically
had the possibility to form a government with the Free Democrats who,
under their media star Jürgen W. Möllemann, had re-entered the Landtag
in force. While Clement might have preferred a coalition with the FDP, the
SPD nationally was unwilling to send such a strong signal of an intention
to change coalition partner. Presumably under pressure from Schröder,
Clement reluctantly entered a rather grim negotiation process in which the
Greens seemed willing to accept almost any compromise to stay in power.
The result was a renewal of the SPD-Green coalition. Compared with the
turmoil of the first coalition period, the second has been rather uneventful.
Apart form the tricky Garzweiler issue which poisoned the atmosphere in
the coalition, the 1995 election had brought a number of ‘fundamentalists’
or ‘left’ greens into the regional parliament who had strongly attacked
many of the compromises the party leadership had made. None of these
internal critics has been re-elected, essentially because they had been
frozen out of promising list positions by the party activists, and thus the constant criticism from within the green coalition partner has effectively disapeared.
3 See the Infratest-Dimap election report, at
http://www.infratest.de/indi/politik/sh2000/default.htm).
Looking at the post-incumbency vote at regional level in Germany, the
picture is quite mixed also before 1998. Table 2 shows the fate of the
Greens in all post-incumbency regional elections. In only three cases,
Hesse in 1995, Schleswig-Holstein in 2000 and Northrhine-Westfalia in
2000, the Greens continued in government after a period of incumbency.
But the loss of government is not necessarily linked to a loss of votes;
instead, we can observe a very mixed picture.
While the German Greens appear to be suffering quite a serious electoral
crisis at present, the data tell a rather different story for both France and
Finland. In France, the party and its electorate appears to have seen the
1997 entry into parliament and government at one stroke as a major
success. The Greens have not suffered at the polls and have been able to
benefit from the generally favourable evaluation that the French public has
made of the Jospin government. Since entering government in 1997, the
Greens have faced two major electoral tests. One were the regional
elections of 1998. The Greens had done extremely well in the previous
regional elections in 1992: Les Verts had achieved 7.19%, its electoral rival
Generation Ecologie 7.09%, with a total green vote (including various
independent ecologist candidates) of 14.7% nationally and 212 regional
councillors elected under the Proportional Representation system
employed for these elections. (Boy et al. 1995). One Green (Les Verts),
Marie-Christine Blandin, was elected President of the Region of Nord-
Pas-de-Calais. Since then, the green scene had changed markedly. The
1992 success led to the two major green parties, Les Verts and Generation
Ecologie (GE), to present a joint list in the 1993 National Assembly
elections.
After failing to achieve a breakthrough with no green representatives elected
in 1993, this alliance fell apart. And within Les Verts, those advocating a political alliance with the Left joined enough strength to change the party’s main electoral strategy, with those disagreeing with this change around Antoine Waechter leaving the party to form another group, the Mouvement Ecologistes Independants (MEI).
The new alliance with the Socialists was put into practice in the National
Assembly elections of 1997 when the PS did not contest 29
constituencies in exchange for the Greens fielding no candidates in 106.
As a result, eight green repesentatives were elected (Boy 1997).
The Greens in 1998 had to contest the regional elections against GE, MEI
and a range of other independent groups and parties claiming to be the
true representative of the green movement. The independent ecologists
only scored 2.8% nationally, just winning 7 seats (GE 3 seats, MEI 2
seats, others 2 seats). Les Verts did somewhat better, claiming 5.7%
nationally and 70 regional council seats. In the cantonal elections taking
place at the same time, the green score was 7.6% (1992: 11.1%, 1994:
7.8).4 Compared with 1992, these results were quite creditable, but they
again indicated that the levels of support in the late 1990s cannot match
the green record of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The second major electoral test were the European elections of June 1999.
Here, the Greens faced competition from a list headed by Antoine
Waechter of MEI. As their head of list, the Greens had recruited Daniel
Cohn-Bendit, who had come to prominence in the 1968 student
movement and who had played a leading role in the German Greens,
associated with the Realo wing of the party whose leading light is his close
friend Joschka Fischer. Cohn-Bendit fought a very visible campaign, for
example openly challenging the French nuclear industry. While some of
his actions may have been seen with concern by the party leadership
anxious not to alienate their coalition partners, they appeared to provide a
platform to secure a good European result. The Greens’ result, a very
good 10.8%, could be seen a personal triumph for Cohn-Bendit rather
than a judgement on the achievements of the Greens in the Jospin
government. On the other hand, surveys have generally shown that the
Green environment minister, Dominique Voynet, still has a substantially
more positive standing amongst voters, including green voters. Daniel Boy
has argued that the Greens did so well in 1999 because of their loyalty in
government, making them an acceptable choice for many former Socialist
voters (Boy 1999).
Finally, in 2001, the Greens did very well in the municipal elections in
France. There are no national share of the votes reported for these
elections, but overall, the Greens did extremely well in supporting the lists
of the ‘gauche plurielle’, becoming more vital then ever for the Socialists
as an ally to help them win elections. In terms of outright wins, the Greens
did not score any sensational successes. They had one mayor and now
have two. Dominique Voynet was head of a ‘gauche plurielle’ list, and
thus effectively candidate for mayor, in Dole but lost quite decisively.
Most successful as Greens in government in electoral terms have been the
Finnish Greens. After four years of government participation, the Greens
managed to increase their share of the vote in the national elections of 1999,
and re-entered the government again for a further four year period.
4 These results are taken from the website of the French Greens,
http://www.verts.imaginet.fr/regionales.html.
Also the 1999 European election brought a very good result for the
Greens. The relatively poor showing of their presidential candidate in 2000
does not appear to be indicative of any loss of the support for the party
as its poll standing remains stable. In addition, the Green also polled very
well in local elections in 2000: the national share of the vote was 7.7%. In
1996, shortly after entering national government, the result had 6.3%
which had been marginally down on the 1992 result of 6.9%. 5
One aspects of the Finnish electoral system is that it employs open lists,
i.e. voters vote not only for a party but they vote for individual candidates
on a party list, and the share of a party’s overall vote going to individual
candidate determines who of which party list is actually elected to
parliament. This system provides for the opportunity to express a
personal choice which also party leaders and government ministers have
to submit themselves to. In the case of the Greens, it is not unusual for
their ‘leaders’ to fail at the ballot box. In 1999, the Green Environment
Minister in office since 1995 failed to be elected to parliament. The green
voter in Finland thus had the opportunity to express his/her dissatisfaction
with individual party members in a very individual way, without necessarily
voting against the green party as a whole. This particular device could help
the Greens in Finland. In terms of the ‘blame game’, it can be left to the
voters to decide whether the green government performance is approved
of. That is not an option in closed-list PR systems such as the one
employed in Germany.
The Belgian Greens are the most recent arrival in federal government.
After national elections coinciding with the European elections, the Greens
entered government in June 1999. They have not had to face any national
electoral test since, apart from local elections, but the opinion poll rating
since taking office suggests continuingly high public support. The Belgian
Greens certainly benefited from the general confidence crisis in Belgian
government that had arisen over the 1990s, particularly since the Dutroux
affair of 1996. In particular ECOLO developed a strong profile in this
context. The 1999 elections saw a general shift away from the two big
blocs that had dominated government, and the Greens benefited from this.
In the immediate context of the European elections, a scandal over food
safety also raised a specific environmental issue. Hooghe and Rihoux
(2000) furthermore point to the more professional campaigning style that
the Green parties adoped for the 1999 campaign.
5 Figures according to official figures, http://statfin.stat.fi/statweb [accessed 5 April 2001].
Polling Evidence 6
If one looks at the development of the poll standing of green parties over
the years, the evidence generally supports the electoral record of green
parties. But the poll evidence allows us in some cases to evaluate more
closely how popular or unpopular the Greens have become after recent
elections.
The green party most troubled by its governmental experience appear to
be the German Greens (see Figure 2). Their poll rating has declined quite
sharply since early in 1998. While the Greens enjoyed steady support in
the 10-12% range in the mid-1990s, in 1998 they dropped to the level of a
5-7% party, perilously close to the 5% hurdle. And the Greens have not
been able to break out of that band, not even in the wake of the CDU
party finance scandal or Renate Künast’s ministerial. While the Greens in
March 2001 had two of the three most popular politicians in Germany in
their ranks, the Politbarometer survey found a slighly more positive public
mood towards the Greens but no evidence of a higher green vote.7
At the other end of the spectrum, we can observe the cases of Finland
(Figure 3) and Belgium (Figure 4). The Finnish case is perhaps the most
remarkable. After a first high point at the time of the rise of European
issues in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Greens had entered something
of a decline in the mid-1990s, and their 1995 result of 6.4% came right the
end of this downturn. However, their subsequent entry into government
appears to have boosted their popularity. After the initial burst of
enthusiasm, the poll rating declined somewhat, but continued to be stable
and ensure an even better result in the 1999 parliamentary election,
confirming their role in government. Since then, the Greens have gone
from strength to strength, with marked increases in their poll standing in
late 2000 which appear to be continuing into 2001.
The development of the Belgian Greens follows a somewhat similar
pattern. In the mid-1990s, their fortunes appeared to be in decline as
environmental issues receded from the agenda; but they picked up
support starting in 1996 in the specific circumstances of the crisis of the Belgian state that came to dominate Belgian politics at that time.
6 We are grateful to several people for helping us to acquire opinion poll data; they include Benoît Rihoux, Mario Diani, Hannu Ilkas, Renato Mannheimer, Patrick Dumont and Tim Bale.
7 For results of Politbarometer surveys, see http://www.zdf.msnbc.de
The boost of support peaked before the 1999 elections when support for
Greens appeared to be receding. The 1999 election result, however, lifted
green support again to a higher level. Since then, the polls available
suggests the Greens are stabilising around the election figures. There are
some important differences between the regions: while AGALEV is
holding its position fairly steadily at the level of the election result,
ECOLO could achieve further growth in its poll rating. This is particuarly
pronounced in Brussels where its rise is continuing into 2001, while in
Wallonia the initial rise has now stopped, and recent polls show a light
decline, returning ECOLO here to its 1999 election result level.
France is another green success story, a remarkable turnout after the
disappointments of previous years. On the basis of the BVA surveys
published in Paris Match, it is difficult to judge the exact level of support
for Les Verts before the 1997 elections because only figures for all
ecologist candidates are reported. For about a year after the 1997
elections, no legislative polling results are reported either. But starting in
1998, there is good time series of data available with monthly figures for
both Les Verts, as part of the government coalition, and for other
ecologist candidates that are not allied with the Jospin government.
The Les Verts figures since 1998 are quite respectable. The Greens
peaked in 1999 around the European elections, but since then have kept a
fairly steady level of support between 6 and 8%. With that type of popular
support, the Greens will be in a good position to reach a good deal with
the Socialists and improve their representation in the National Assembly in
2002.
Turning to Italy, this is a case where the polling evidence holds little
comfort the the Greens. The ISPO poll data reported in Figure 6 show a
remarkable level of volatility over a ten year period. While the Greens
occasionally manage to reach heights of five to six percent ratings, their
standing has declined markedly since 1998. Consulting figures produced
by other polling organisations for 2000 and the beginning of 2001, this
decline appears to be continuing. Polling data for the Greens by the CIRM
agency from October 2000 to February 2001 shows them hovering
between 2.5 and 1.5%, the later figure being reached in both January and
February 2001.
In February 2001, the Greens formed an electoral alliance with the Social
Democrats, another mini-party who support level, according to CIRM,
stood at 0.5% in February 2001. Another polling organisation,
DATAMEDIA, published some first polling result for the new
Green/Social Democrat alliance called ‘Il Girasole’, the sunflower. The
figures for 12 March 2001 are 2.5%,for 19 March 2001 2.0%, so at
present there is little indication of a bonus effect as a result of the new
alliance.8
Comparison ‘Coalition’ vs Toleration
One potential way of assessing the impact of involvement in coalitions is
to compare the poll ratings of green parties that are part of coalition
governments with green parties that are only supporting minority
governments. The main argument against coalitions is that green parties
have to take responsibility for the programme of the entire government.
Where Greens lose out in negotiations with their coaliton partners, they
usually still are expected to defend the results of the negotiations. This is
one possible source of electoral support as traditional green supporters
turn away in disappointment.
For parties ‘tolerating’ a government, this problem should not arise. Their
support for a government is more limited, tied to particular policy for
example, and the Greens would have some considerable leeway to take
their stance on key policy issues, even if that clashes witht the approach
taken by the government. The ‘toleration’ model thus might offer the best
of two worlds: all the benefits of being ‘relevant’ and having an impact,
and having to take no responsibility for the unpopular goernment policies.
Looking at the case of Sweden (Figure 7), we have a fairly long time series
for the poll standing of the Swedish Greens going back to the 1980s. But
the result is rather disappointing. The Greens are just going along fairly
steady in 2000 and early 2001, normally about the 4% mark which, of
course, is crucial because that is the threshold to be taken to secure
representation. So there is no evidence from the Swedish case to suggest
that ‘toleration’ necessarily leads to greater support.
8 All CIRM and DATAMEDIA results are reported at
http://www.sondaggipoliticoelettorali.it
Also the case of New Zealand is by no means conclusive (see Figure 8).
Here, the data available are much poorer than in the Swedish case, with
only two time points immedidately before the General Election. During
2000, polling levels remained stable between 4% and 5%. This is not
disastrous, but indicates that the ‘toleration’ agreement certainly has not
led to a major boost of support for the Greens.
Future Research
The analysis I have been able to present is really very basic. What else
could be done? First, it would be interesting to compare the development
of poll ratings of all green parties in- and out of government. Some green
parties out of government are doing extremely well at the moment. So, for
example the Austrian Greens, currently have a rating of 13%, well up on
their latest election results and potentially the source of a Red-Green
majority in Austria.9
Simple comparisons of poll ratings, however, are probably of little value.
To compare like with like, one would need to compare the development
of a green party under similar background conditions, as defined, for
example, by economic variables and indications of issue salience. This implies the construction a basic model of green electoral support and its variation over time. Time series analysis would certainly offer several opportunities for the analysis of both national and cross-national variation over time. This might be a first step to isolate
the impact of ‘incumbency’.
A second possibility would be to use cross-sectional data on voting
intentions to analyse the impact of incumbency. In Rüdig and Franklin
(2000), some first results using the European election study data from
1999 were reported. One interesting variable to look at here was the
potential voting variable pioneered by the European election study (see
Van der Eijk and Franklin 1996). Comparing ‘potential’ green voting in
1999 with 1994, .in Germany, Belgium and Finland, the data provide
strong evidence that the German Greens are suffering most under their
role as government parties. Two Fifth of all German voters in 1999 could
not imagine ever voting for the Greens in national elections. The contrast
to the Finnish Greens is particularly stark: the Finns enjoy much stronger
potential support and are only completely rejected by 20% of the voters.
Another variable analysed was the between green party support and
evaluation of government policy. 9 See http://www.news.at
Both the French and the Finnish potential green vote was found to be essentially independent of any particular evaluation of governmental performance. That is not the case for the German Greens: their potential voters are supportive of the
government’s immigration policy, for example, but remain critical of
environmental policy.
There are many other possibilities to use cross-sectional data to shed
more light on changes in green voting. The Eurobarometer data may in
future be used to track changes in green voting patterns and allow us
pinpoint the sources of green voting loss (or increase) more precisely.
Conclusions
The main result of our study of the electoral impact of government
incumbency of green parties is that there is substantial variation in national
experiences, and that German case of uniform decline is not typical for
green parties in government.
In line with previous general studies of the role of incumbency for
coalition governments (Rose and Mackie 1983; Müller and Strøm 1997),
there is no clear-cut effect of incumbency one way or the other in the case
of the greens. Also in the green case, incumbency itself is thus not likely
to be sufficient to predict green electoral fortunes: green governments
have been ‘re-elected’ in Finland, and in two German Länder. Government
participation clearly thus not pose an insurmountable challenge.
The challenge remains to explain these substantial differences in green
government experience. One can speculate about the influence of many
different variables. In most cases, we do not as yet have the data to test
potential hypotheses. The results we have available suggest that the type
of green involvement in government does not appear to be crucial. Greens
in pre-electoral coalitions can be very popular (France) or unpopular
(Italy). Even keeping a distance from government by only tolerating a
minority government does not guarantee rising voting support (Sweden,
Finland).
There are many possible hypotheses of how to explain the stark contrasts
between Finland and Belgium, where the Greens have been rising in the
polls, and Germany which provides a picture of almost complete doom
and gloom. Is it expectations, personalities, policies, internal structure, the
type of green voter or external factors like economic conditions or issue
salience? Is there a set formula to combine governmental participation and
electoral success? That seems unlikely, but the explanation of these
variations of green fortunes in government remain a fascinating challenge
for future green research.
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FIGURES
Table 1: Green Electoral Performance 1987-2000*
Year Election Country
Type1) Italy Germany France Finland Belgium2)
1987 PARL 2.8 8.3 4.0 7.1
1988 PRES 3.8
1988 PARL 2.8
1989 EE 6.23) 8.4 10.6 - 13.9
1990 PARL 5.04)
1991 PARL 6.8 10.0
1992 PARL 2.8
1993 PARL 7.05)
1994 EE 3.2 10.1 4.95) - 11.5
1994 PARL 2.7 7.3
1995 PRES 3.3
1995 PARL 6.4 8.4
1996 PARL 2.5
1996 EE 7.6
1997 PARL 3.66)
1998 PARL 6.7
1999 PARL 7.3 14.4
1999 EE 1.8 6.4 9.87) 13.4
2000 PRES 3.3
*Bold underlined election results signify the beginning of national government participation.
1) EE European Elections, PARL National Parliamentary Elections, PRES Presidential Elections.
2) Combined national results of ECOLO and AGALEV.
3) Combined result of two competing lists, Federazione dei Verdi 3.8%, Verdi Arcobaleno (Rainbow Greens) 2.4%
4) Combined result of Die Grünen in West and East Germany and Bündnis ’90 in East Germany 1987 and 1989 results for West Germany only.
5) Combined result of Les Verts and Generation Ecologie; in 1993, both parties formed an alliance with only one green candidate in most constituencies; in 1994, both parties competed against each other: Les Verts 2.9%; Generation Ecologie 2.0%.
6) Result for Les Verts as part of the Socialist Bloc; other independent ecologist candidates obtained 2.7%.
7) Result for the list Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Les Verts). A rival ecological list, headed by Antoine Waechter (Mouvement des écologistes indépendants MEI) polled 1.5%.
Sources: Green Party websites.
Table 2: Electoral Impact of Green Land Government Incumbency
1985-2001 Land Coalition Period Election Post-Partner(s) Result Election
Status (Change)
Hesse SPD 1985-871) +3.5% Opposition
Berlin SPD 1989-902) -2.4(-2.6)3) Opposition
Lower Saxony SPD 1990-94 +1.9% Opposition
Brandenburg SPD, FDP 1990-94 -6.4%4) No representation
Hesse SPD 1991-95 +2.4% Government
Bremen SPD, FDP 1991-95 +1.7% Opposition
Saxony-Anhalt SPD3) 1994-98 -1.9% No representation
Hesse SPD 1995-99 - 4.0% Opposition
Schleswig-Holstein SPD 1996-2000 -1.9% Government
Northrhine- SPD 1995-2000 -2.9% Government
Westphalia
Notes:
1) The SPD formed a minority government in 1983, ‘tolerated’ by the Greens. In 1985, the Greens entered a formal coalition.
2) New elections necessary to elect a new parliament for a unified Berlin.
3) First figure compares 1990 combined result of the Greens and Alliance ’90 for the unified Berlin with the 1989 result of the Greens for West Berlin; the second figure compares the votes of the Greens of West Berlin in 1989 with the Greens/Alliance ’90 vote in West Berlin only.
4) In 1990, Bündnis ’90 and the Greens were separate parties that competed in the Brandenburg elections against each other, with Bündnis ’90 (Alliance ’90) entering parliament with 6.42% of the vote and forming a coalition with the SPD. The Greens scored only 2.84% and were not represented. In 1993, Alliance ’90 and the Greens joined together at federal level to form a new party, Alliance ‘90/The Greens, also competed in Brandenburg as one party in 1994. The figure given is the change between the 1994 result and the combination of both parties’ results from
1990.
5) Minority government, tolerated by the PDS (Ex-Communists).
Data sources: Kropp and Sturm 1998; http://www.wahlrecht.de; for Berlin:
http://www.statistik-berlin.de/wahlen.
Figure 1: Change of Share of the Vote for German Greens in
National and Regional Elections, 1998-2001
Source: Focus, No. 10, 4 March 2000, p. 21; Der Spiegel, 12 March 2001; http://www.wahlrecht.de
1 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5
Saxony-Anhalt 4/98
Mecklenburg-W.Pomerania 9/98
Bavaria 9/98
Federal Elections 9/98
Hesse 02/99
Bremen 6/99
European Elections 6/99
Brandenburg 9/99
Saarland 9/99
Thuringia 9/99
Saxony 9/99
Berlin 10/99
Schleswig-Holstein 02/00
NRW 5/00
Baden-Württemberg 3/01
Rhineland-Palatinate 03/01
% Change to Previous Election
Figure 2: German Greens Poll Standing 1996-2001
Source: Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, Politbarometer [as complied in
http://www.wahlrecht.de]
2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994
4
6
8
10
12
14
Greens
Year
Opposition
Figure 3: Finnish Green Poll Standing, 1987-2001
Sources: Taloustutkimus Oy (Finnish opinion poll institute); 1987-1996
data provided by Hannu Ilkas, Taloustutkimus Oy; data from 1996 to
February 2000 as compiled in http://www.verkkouutiset.fi.
Data from March 2000 to March 2001 are Taloustutkimus poll results,
supplied by Rusto Kankaanpää of Vihrea Liitto by email, 5 April 2001.
2002 2000 1998 1996 1994 1992 1990 1988 1986
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Vihreä Liitto
Year
%
Opposition Government
Figure 4: Belgian Greens Poll Standing 1991-2001
1) Figures were compiled separately for Belgium’s three federal regions.
In Wallonia, the data represent the figures for the party ECOLO and in
Flanders for AGALEV.
For Brussels, only figures for ECOLO are available; in Flemish speaking
parts, AGALEV would be the ecological representative but their votes are
only available as part of aggregated figure for other parties. [Brussels is
about 90% French speaking].
The data given for May 1995 and June 1999 are the actual parliamentary
election results.
Source: Data compiled from La Libre Belgique (Walloon daily newspaper)
by Patrick Dumont and Pierre Baudewyns, Université Catholique de
Louvain (Unité de Science Politique et de Relations Internationales; Point
d’appui Interuniversitaire sur l’Opinion publique et la Politique (PIOP)).
2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994
0
5
10
15
20
25
Wallonie
Flanders
Bruxelles/Brussel
Year
Opposition
Government
Figure 5: French Greens Poll Standing, 1994-2001
Source: BVA surveys; as reported in Paris Match, 1994-1998;
http://www.politique-opinion.com and http://www.bva.fr.
10 In the period from December 1994 to March 1996, the BVA results as reported in Paris Match report results separately for Génération Écologie and Les Verts. From April 1996 onwards to the May 1997 elections, the BVA survey only reports results for a category ‘ecologistes’, thus making it impossible to distinguish between the support for Les Verts, allied with the Socialists, and other, independent ecological candidates. Between May 1997 and October 1998, Paris Match does not report any voting intention data. From November 1998 to May 1999, the data reported refers to voting intention for the 1999 European elections. Since June 1999, the data reported refer to voting intentions in legislative (National Assembly) elections. Since October 1998, BVA reports separate voting intention results for Les Verts, as part of the ‘majorité plurielle’ government coalition, and for ‘other ecological candidates’.
The ‘all green’ results plotted are the sum of both figures to allow comparison to the pre-1997 period.
2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Verts 94-96
GE 94-96
All Green
Verts 98-01
Other Ecologist 98-01
Year
%
Opposition
Government
Figure 6: Italian Greens Poll Standing, 1994- 2000
Source: Data compiled by Instituto per gli Studi sulla Pubblica Opinione (IPSO), supplied by Professor
Roberto Mannheimer, IPSO, Milan.
2002 2000 1998 1996 1994 1992
1
2
3
4
5
6
Verdi
Year
%
Opposition
"
L'Ulivo" governments
Figure 7: Poll Standing Miljöpartiet, 1987-2001
Source: SIFO; Data from 1987 to June 1998 from SIFOs Väljarbarometer,
http://www.pol.gue.se/sve/forsk/vod/sifo.htm; data from 1998 to March 2001 from http://www.sifo.se
[accessed 24 March 2001].
2000 1995 1990 1985
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Year
% Toleration
- 33 -
Figure 8: New Zealand Green Party, Poll Standing November 1999-
December 2000
Data Sources: CM Insights Political Poll, http://www.nfocm.co.nz/political/poll; the third data point for November 1999 is the election result of 27 November 1999,
http://www.agora.it/elections/election/newzealand.htm
2001 2000 1999
2
3
4
5
6
7
Green Party
Year
% Toleration
