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Does European integration bring together a new cleavage in party politics? Visegrád countries’ experiences

Vít Hloušek, Ph.D. (hlousek@fss.muni.cz)

Senior Research Fellow, Comparative Political Research Institute (www.fss.muni.cz/ispo), Faculty of Social Studies,Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

Abstract: The main precondition of Europeanization’s research is that “Europe” matters. In other words, European integration provokes changes in domestic political systems. Sphere of politics could be affected to. To the most intriguing questions of Europeanization of European states’ party politics belongs that of emergence and existence of “European” cleavage. The article aims at theoretical discussion aiming at elaboration of cleavages’ concept in conditions of contemporary “post-Rokkanian” politics of changing patterns of partisan alignments and changing channels of electoral mobilization. The basic concept follows Stefano Bartoloni’s and Peter Mair’s conceptualization of cleavages which reassesses classical Lipset-Rokkan understanding of the concept. Main attention will be paid to theoretical discussion concerning active role of political actors – political parties and movements mainly – within the process of cleavage constituting and changing the patterns of cleavage-based party competition. The theoretical discussion will be followed by analytical part aimed at comparison of Visegrád party systems (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) in comparative perspective. Role of political parties as well as voters’ responses will be discussed in the light of above presented theoretical assumptions. Both positive and negative examples of using of European integration process by political actors in a process of electoral mobilization will be presented. The article concludes with the observation that there is a lack of societal base for the establishment of “European” cleavage in Central European countries despite the fact that European integration issues, or, better to say EU related issues, are politicized successfully by different political parties in analyzed countries.

Keywords: cleavages; European integration; Visegrád countries; electoral mobilization