Many scholars have argued that partisan differences have disappeared since the 1980s due to ever increasing economic globalization and the deepening of European integration. Using a new primary data set on public ownership that contains detailed information on privatizations in 20 countries between 1980 and 2007 we test these claims empirically for the field of state ownership. We pay special attention to the question of whether changes in the international political economy, notably globalization and different aspects of European integration, condition partisan politics. Our empirical findings suggest that political parties have continued to significantly shape national privatization trajectories in line with the classic partisan hypothesis. While partisan differences are somewhat reduced by the liberalizing and market-building efforts of the EU, globalization does not condition partisan effects at all. Moreover, the run-up to EMU even seems to have reinforced partisan differences.
