Less Green and More Left or Right? The Policy Change of Green Parties in Europe as a Reaction to the Financial Crisis

As a consequence of the financial crisis we see a fundamental change in Europe: Inequality rises, welfare regimes are under pressure and populist parties are en vogue. These changes denote a serious external shock for all political parties but pose an even more serious threat to green parties: Is the era of ‘new politics’ over as support for a postmaterialistic agenda decreases? Or did green parties react to the crisis by successfully intertwining pressing economic issues into their ecological portfolio? We analyze if a significant change in green parties policies can be detected and if so, in which direction. Building on party change theory, we address two aspects. First we focus on European green parties in the electorate. Does the crisis systematically disadvantage green parties in elections, or are their results stable, suggesting a persistent demand for a green policy agenda? In a second step, we conduct a longitudinal analysis of policy changes (before and after the crisis) of green parties in Europe. We try to identify specific patterns of green parties’ policy change and match the results with the question of electoral success. In an additional cross-section analysis we connect the policy change dimension with some further aspects (e.g. Eurozone-member, economic growth). Our empirical analysis is based on data from the comparative manifesto project. For the calculation of policy positions we apply a new method proposed by Lowe et al., which implies a differing combination of codings for creating policy dimensions. On the one hand this allows us to look for a shift away from classical green policy positions like environmental protection. On the other hand we are able to check on left-right-scale, if the crisis either led to a reinvigoration of left-wing rhetoric or if green parties adapted more mainstream positions (e.g. budget consolidation and free market enterprise).