9.30-10.30, October 8
Participants: Fernando Casal Bertoa (University of Nottingham), Zsolt Enyedi (CEU/DI), Petra Guasti (Charles University, Prague), Juan Rodriguez Teruel (Universidad de Valencia), Cees van der Eijk (University of Nottingham)
Moderator: Erin K. Jenne (DI)
The event will introduce and discuss the book Party System Closure - Party Alliances, Government Alternatives, and Democracy in Europe (2021, Oxford University Press), co-authored by Zsolt Enyedi and Fernando Casal Bertoa.
The book maps trends in interparty relations in Europe from 1848 until 2019. It investigates how the length of democratic experience, the institutionalization of individual parties, the fragmentation of parliaments, and the support for anti-establishment parties, shape the degree of institutionalization of party systems.
The analyses presented answer the questions of whether predictability in partisan interactions is necessary for the survival of democratic regimes and whether it improves or undermines the quality of democracy. The developments of party politics at the elite level are contrasted with the dynamics of voting behavior. The comparisons of distinct historical periods and of macro-regions provide a comprehensive picture of the European history of party competition and cooperation.
The empirical overview presented in the book is based on a novel conceptual framework and features party composition data of more than a thousand European governments. Party systems are analyzed in terms of poles and blocs, and the degree of closure and of polarization is related to a new party system typology. The book demonstrates that information collected from partisan interactions at the time of government formation can reveal changes that characterize the party system as a whole.
About the speakers:
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Fernando Casal Bértoa is an Associate Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom). He is co-director of REPRESENT: Research Centre for the Study of Parties and Democracy as well as member of the OSCE/ODIHR “Core Group of Political Party Experts”, International IDEA collaborator and Venice Commission expert. His work has been published in Journal of Politics, European Journal of Political Research, Sociological Methods and Research, Journal of Democracy, Electoral Studies, West European Politics, Party Politics, European Political Science Review, Democratization, European Constitutional Law Review, Political Studies Review, European Political Science, Government and Opposition, International Political Science Review, Representation, European Politics and Society, South European Society and Politics, East European Politics and Societies, East European Politics or Frontiers in Political Science. He was awarded the 2017 Gordon Smith and Vincent Wright Memorial Prize, the 2017 AECPA Prize for the Best Article and the 2018 Vice-Chancellor Medal of the University of Nottingham for “exceptional achievements”. |
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Zsolt Enyedi is lead researcher of the De-/Re-Democratization Workgroup at the CEU Democracy Institute and Professor at the CEU Political Science Department. The focus of his research interests is on party politics, comparative government, church and state relations, and political psychology. His articles appeared in journals such as Political Psychology, European Journal of Political Research, Political Studies, West European Politics, Party Politics, Political Studies, Europe-Asia Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, Journal of Ideologies or European Review. He was the 2003 recipient of the Rudolf Wildenmann Prize and the 2004 winner of the Bibó Award. |
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Petra Guasti is Associate Professor of Democratic Theory at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences (on leave). Between 2016 and 2021 served as a senior researcher, an Interim Professor and adjunct lecturer at the Goethe University Frankfurt. In 2021 she completed her (cumulative) habilitation Democracy Disrupted at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Petra received her PhD in political science from the University of Bremen. She previously earned a doctoral degree in political sociology from the Charles University. Her research focuses on the reconfiguration of the political landscape revolves around three themes – representation, democratization, and populism. She published 16 articles in peer-reviewed journals, 19 book chapters, one monograph, and five edited volumes. She serves as an expert for Bertelsmann Transformation Index, Sustainable Governance Indicators, V-Dem, and the Nation in Transit. |
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Juan Rodríguez Teruel is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Valencia, Spain. He is the founding editor of "Agenda Pública," a global political analysis website available in Spanish and is the author of the Spanish column 'State of the Left' for Policy Network. He received his PhD in Political Science and Administration by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2006. Additionally, he is Secretary General of the Spanish Political Science Association. His research focuses on ministers, political elites, party politics, and decentralization. |
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Cees van der Eijk is Professor of Social Science Research Methods at the University of Nottingham. Previously he was Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on social science research methods and substantive social research. His methodological research involves particularly measurement and measurement models, research design, the analysis of large and complex (multi-dimensional) data structures, and the development of knowledge graphs. His substantive research interests are in the fields of comparative political behaviour and the ways in which citizens/voters, parties/political entrepreneurs, and media influence each other. He has been involved as PI or CoI in election studies for the Netherlands, the UK, and the EU, and in a variety of other research projects. He is (co)author of 20+ academic books and monographs, and of 100+ book chapters and articles in academic journals. He is a Corresponding Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and a Honorary Fellow of the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR). |
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Erin K. Jenne is Research Affiliate at the CEU Democracy Institute, and Professor at the International Relations Department at CEU in Vienna, Austria, where she teaches MA and PhD courses on qualitative and quantitative methods, ethnic conflict management, international relations theory, nationalism and populism, foreign policy analysis and international security. She received her PhD in political science with concentrations in comparative politics, international relations and organizational theory. She has received numerous grants and fellowships, including a MacArthur fellowship at Stanford University, a Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA) fellowship at Harvard University, a Carnegie Corporation scholarship, a Senior Fernand Braudel fellowship at European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, and was co-principal investigator for a Minerva Grant from the US Office of Naval Research to conduct research on the subject of soft power. She is the author of Ethnic Bargaining: The Paradox of Minority Empowerment (Cornell University Press, 2007), and Nested Security: Lessons in Conflict Management from the League of Nations and the European Union (Cornell University Press, 2015), and has published numerous book chapters and articles. |