Party Transformations in European Democracies by Krouwel André;Krouwel André;

Author:Krouwel, André;Krouwel, André; [Krouwel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3408678
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2012-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

MINISTERIAL CONTROL: WHO PROVIDES THE PRIME MINISTER?

This dominance of the traditional parties becomes even clearer when examining patterns of occupancy of the helm of the executive, the prime minister. Since overall percentages of time that a party family commands the prime ministerial office hides important cross-national differences, Figure 5.15 first shows the pattern of prime ministerial control by country.

Basically, there are three parties dominant in controlling the office of prime minister: the social democrats, the Christian democrats, and the conservatives. A clear geographical pattern emerges: in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Italy, Christian democratic parties most often provide the prime minister, in Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland) and the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) the social democrats dominate or alternate at the helm of government, while in the peripheral countries (Ireland, United Kingdom, Greece) and in France conservative party leaders become prime minister most frequently. Liberal parties have provided prime ministers in nine countries, but only in Finland is their proportion significant. Social democrats have provided prime ministers in all countries except Ireland. Social democratic leaders have especially long tenure in office in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Austria. In Sweden, a social democrat led the government for more than 80 percent of the time and in Norway close to 70 percent of the postwar period, closely followed by Denmark and Spain. Conservative prime ministers ruled for long spells of time in Ireland, the UK, Portugal, France, and Greece. Figure 5.15 also confirms that Christian democracy and conservatism are basically functional equivalents; only in four countries have both party families held prime ministerial responsibility. And again we see that the center-Right parties dominate in Europe, competing only with center-Left social democrats.

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