United in diversity? Europarties and their individual members’ rights

Hertner, Isabelle

doi:10.1080/07036337.2018.1513500

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 31 publications

(13 reference statements)

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“…Europarties are easily perceived as being part of the 'Brussels bubble' that should do more to reach out to civil society and citizens (Van Hecke et al, 2018). Europarties have introduced membership for individuals, but in her pioneering study, Hertner (2019) showed that Europarties had only very small numbers of individual members, with national member parties often against giving individual members stronger participation rights. Europarties face the challenge of scale: even democratic innovations such as deliberative panels or various online platforms cannot bring all citizens or party members across Europe together.…”

Section: Eu Constitutional Reforms Party Politics and Accumulated Exp...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Shaping the EU’s Future? Europarties, European Parliament’s Political Groups and the Conference on the Future of Europe

Johansson

Raunio

2022

Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics

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Europarties and the European Parliament (EP) political groups have decades of experience from constitutional reform processes. These partisan actors have influenced EU Treaty amendments while also proving inventive in designing new practices that have over time found their way into the Treaties. Drawing on interviews and parliamentary and party documents, this chapter explores the different avenues and strategies the three largest Europarties—European People’s Party, Party of European Socialists, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe—and their EP groups utilised for shaping the agenda of the Conference on the Future of Europe. It examines the distribution of power between Europarties and the EP groups and pays particular attention to dynamics inside the EP political groups, arguing that the agenda-setting stage of the Conference was strongly influenced by group leaders and other more senior, individual MEPs, many of whom are seasoned veterans of inter-institutional bargaining and EU constitutional development.

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Section: Eu Constitutional Reforms Party Politics and Accumulated Exp...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Shaping the EU’s Future? Europarties, European Parliament’s Political Groups and the Conference on the Future of Europe

Johansson

Raunio

2022

Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics

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“…It is thus not reasonable to expect that these parties will strengthen the participatory links with their members without any formal demands tied to authorization or funding. The main exception among the existing parties is the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE), which ‐ because of ideological reasons ‐ has actively worked to build a membership base of individual citizens, also granting members rights in the party's internal decision‐making process (Hertner, 2019; Wolfs and Van Hecke, 2019, p. 273).…”

Section: European Party System Governance and Eu Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The EU regulatory framework contains detailed provisions on the required administrative and financial organization, and the responsibilities of the governing bodies. However, with regard to individual members and their rights, the rules are far more ambiguous (see also Hertner, 2019, pp. 4–5) and contain no minimum standards relating to involvement of members in the internal decision‐making procedures.…”

Section: European Party System Governance and Eu Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We acknowledge that the EU's transnational party system differs from national ones and that insights derived from national experiences cannot be transposed to an EU setting without qualification. Here we join an existing literature that have drawn insights from research on national party systems to analyse the European system (seeBressanelli, 2014;Johansson, 2015;Hertner, 2019;Külahci and Lightfoot, 2014;Lord, 2010).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Is the Governance of Europe's Transnational Party System Contributing to EU Democracy?*

Norman

Wolfs

2021

J of Common Market Studies

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Does Europe's transnational party system contribute to EU democracy? Existing debates on this issue have conventionally revolved around conflicting assumptions on the feasibility of supranational democracy in general, rather than examining the party system's structure as it is set up and regulated. In this paper we evaluate to what extent the transnational party system contributes to the democratic qualities of the EU by studying the regulatory framework for European political parties. We establish an analytical framework based on studies of party system governance, and focus on two specific characteristics: the contestability of the Europarty system and the extent to which it promotes citizen participation in European political parties. Our analysis demonstrates that the governance structure impedes rather than bolsters the democratic potential of Europarties, since the rules work to prevent new parties from entering the party system, and fail to provide incentives for a more active political participation of European citizens.

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“…Given that even the biggest Europarties have far fewer resources than even their smallest member-parties and they also lack a mass direct membership (although see Hertner, 2018), they can be understood first and foremost as agents of national political parties (Bardi and Calossi, 2009). Thus, their standing hinges primarily on them delivering coordinating and informationsharing services to their membership.…”

Section: Europarties In Eu Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Europarties in the neighbourhood: how transnational party politics bind Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans to the EU

Chryssogelos

2020

Comp Eur Polit

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Transnational European party federations -'Europarties' -are an overlooked actor of EU external relations despite their strong footprint outside the EU. This article discusses the activities of Europarties as networks of EU external relations closely aligned with the interests and values of EU foreign policy, but conditioned by their character as transnational partisan actors with distinct priorities defined by ideological affinity and political commitments to partner parties. Empirically, the article investigates the activities of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) in Georgia and North Macedonia, demonstrating how Europarties can act as amplifiers of EU influence in Eastern Europe and Western Balkans, but also how their partisan interests often come into tension with EU priorities. The findings carry implications for the theory and practice of EU relations with its neighbourhood at a time when prospects for further enlargement appear significantly weakened.

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United in diversity? Europarties and their individual members’ rights

Cited by 11 publications

References 31 publications

Shaping the EU’s Future? Europarties, European Parliament’s Political Groups and the Conference on the Future of Europe

Shaping the EU’s Future? Europarties, European Parliament’s Political Groups and the Conference on the Future of Europe

Is the Governance of Europe's Transnational Party System Contributing to EU Democracy?*

Europarties in the neighbourhood: how transnational party politics bind Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans to the EU

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