Crisis and Party System Changes. An international and historical comparison
Klaus Armingeon and Sarah Engler (University of Berne, Switzerland)
During the hundred years three major global crises hit democratic countries: the crises that started in 1929, 1973 and 2007. We analyse the changes of party systems in democracies during these crises. We start from the ideas of crises as major windows of opportunities for party system change which leads to major changes of the political economies (Gourevitch). We confirm that these crises are causally connected to changes in policies: the strengthening of the welfare state (or the break-down of democracies) in the 1930s, the end of the Keynesian steering of the economy in the 1970s and the rise of austerity since 2010. However, the effects of the crises on party systems and governing coalitions are much less clear than suggested in the literature. We argue that the impact of crises on party systems is highly contingent and show trajectories of party system changes and changes of governmental coalitions as compared to political stability amidst major economic crisis.
We base our analysis on a large dataset on electoral outcomes and government composition covering 35 democracies (Comparative Political Data Set I and III, http://www.ipw.unibe.ch/content/team/klaus_armingeon/comparative_political_data_sets/index_ger.html) which we complement with historical data for the inter-war period. Klaus Armingeon is a senior and Sarah Engler is a junior researcher. In case only one participant can be accepted Klaus Armingeon is happy to defer to Sarah Engler.
