Towards a Theoretical Approach to Europe’s Transnational Party Networks

Rather than being composed of discrete, interactive ‘levels,’ many scholars understand the European Union can be understood as a web of networks interacting with one another through negotiation to develop policies, procedures, and institutions. Despite this complex view of European politics, the study of political parties has often segregated studies of domestic parties and supranational party groups. However, incentivized financially by European Parliament and by perceived reputational benefits, political parties have developed extensive formal and informal and bilateral and multilateral relationships with ‘sister’ parties across Europe. These relationships create European transnational party networks, one of which is the focus of my research: the network of stateless nationalist and regionalist parties (SNRPs). This research seeks to bridge the supranational/domestic divide by asking: do transnational relationships between SNRPs in Europe impact domestic party decisions? I argue that policy learning is the most appropriate lens to answer this question. Policy learning emerges through a review of the multi-level governance, policy networks, and Europeanization literatures. These approaches emphasize the role of communication and information exchange. In policy networks, relationships between actors are understood as channels of communication to coordinate action. In multi-level governance, sub-state actors engage in European governance by coordinating interests, information, and campaigning. In Europeanization, interactions between levels of government in Europe engender adaptational pressures. However, these structural explanations struggle to explain the complex effect of European relationships on specific actor’s or party’s decisions. Policy learning hones in on the effect of multi-level relationships by analyzing the role of information acquisition in specific actor’s or party’s decision-making processes. After making this theoretical argument, the policy learning approach to transnational party networks is tested through application to the Frisian National Party (FNP). The FNP have an extensive history of European cooperation, as founding members of the SNRP’s European party group—the European Free Alliance, in addition to links to other European Frisian groups (such as the German Die Friesen). Furthermore, the FNP has deliberately sought to broaden their policy positions in recent years, due to a strategic move away from language defense goals. The effect of transnational relationships on FNP policy is investigated qualitatively, through 10 interviews with party elites and analysis of party manifestos and policy statement documents. Actor-centered networks will be mapped to display the extent to which respondents are connected to a wider European party web. The analysis of this data will reflect how transnational networks engender learning and how intra-party network dynamics may both enable and hinder learning. Finally, I conclude by highlighting how social network and policy learning approaches can interact to explain the complex domestic effects of Europe’s multi-level politics as well as reflecting on the difficulties of applying these theoretical approaches to political parties.