EUI - Embracing the Leper: Local collaboration with anti-system parties in Scandinavia

The project is about the effects of local-level government collaboration with challenger parties in two Scandinavian countries: Norway and Sweden. Four parties are examined: Red and the Progress Party i Norway, and the Left Party and Sweden Democrats in Sweden. Challenger parties often participate in local coalitions for years or even decades while they are uncoalitionable at the national level. While such local collaboration is usually not taken as evidence of overall system integration, we know little about whether it might be causing such integration over time. The thesis poses three main research questions, all related to systemic integration: 1. Does local government participation increase ideological proximity between challengers and mainstream parties? 2. Does local government participation reduce polarizing rhetoric between challengers and mainstream parties? 3. Do these local developments effect similar integration at the national level (moderation of rhetoric, ideological proximity and increased coalition potential)? Previous literature defines challenger parties, simply as parties without national executive experience (alone or in coalition). In this thesis it is argued that this definition is at once too broad and too narrow. Instead, the definition emphasizes party behavior: (1) challengers have ideological profiles placing them far away from the closest mainstream party on at least one dimension or issue. (2) they employ a type of polarizing political communication which charges established parties and systems with illegitimacy. An overarching hypothesis for the thesis is that inclusion in local governments leads to a reduction in these characteristics, and that this in turn may cause integration on the national level. The thesis suggests that this happens through a combination of the following mechanisms: Compromises with coalition partners, practical limitations of governing, designs on improving one's reputation as a responsible government party, attracting more moderate voters, attracting more moderate and carreer-oriented members. The thesis also posits a hypothesis of a spill-over effect from the local to the national level. This model is examined by means of a series of quantitative analyses. Here, survey data from local and national politicians is used, as well as data on election results and coalition formation. Beyond this, four qualitative case-studies are performed (using a wide variety of data sources, including interviews, municipal council protocols, local newspapers), which examine in particular the mechanisms expected to mediate government participation and systemic integration. The spill-over effect is examined partly by means of a survey among national political candidates (Comparative candidates survey), where the effect of local government experience (on ideology and democratic attitudes) are examined quantitatively. Among the key findings of the thesis are the following: 1. Both in Norway and Sweden, inclusion of challengers in government at the local level is decided by similar variables as at the national level: election results and ideological proximity to the nearest mainstream party. This violates the assumption that challengers prioritize ideological purity and vote maximization over political office, and therefore refrain from government participation. Local government participation is decided by similar variables for challengers as for mainstream parties. 2. Challengers experience a larger electoral punishment for local government participation than do mainstream parties. This goes against the idea that the reason challengers participate in local governments prior to national participation is because the punishment is not present in local politics. The observed discrepancy between levels of government is rather due to variation in election results and ideology. 3. Partial support for the hypothesis that challengers in position at the local level are more moderate than their copartisans in opposition. Here, the project finds particularly strong effects in the case of the Swedish Left Party. Their politicians in position are more moderate in their policy positions, display less enthusiasm for direct/participatory (as opposed to representative) democracy, higher satisfaction with democracy at several levels of government, and fewer anti-establishment attitudes. 4. Support for the hypothesis of higher democratic satisfaction and less anti-establishment stances among national candidates with previous experience from local government. This as taken as part of the evidence for a spill-over effect from the local to the national level.

- En bedre forståelse av en antatt, men lite undersøkt sammenheng mellom deltagelse i styrende samarbeid på lokalt nivå for partier ytterst til høyre og venstre. Dette skriver seg inn i en bredere debatt blant partiforskere om hvordan slike partier forholder seg til og blir en del av det politiske mainstream. - Denne forståelsen kan være av interesse, ikke bare for forskere på feltet, men også for partiene selv. Politiske partier på høyre- og venstresiden har i lang tid stått overfor dilemma knyttet til hvordan man skal forholde seg til utfordrere i ytterkanten av det politiske landskapet. En bedre innsikt de ideologiske og strategiske virkningene av lokal inkludering er av åpenbar konsekvens for slike vurderinger, særlig hvis disse konsekvensene strekker seg til nasjonalt nivå.

This project is about the causes and consequences of collaboration with anti-system parties at the local level in two Scandinavian countries, Norway and Sweden. Both these countries have far left and far right parties that are, or have been until recently, excluded from national office, yet still accepted as coalition partners in various municipalities. By distinguishing between polarization among elites and among citizens, as well as between polarization at the local and the national level, the project asks the following two questions. First, to what extent is elite collaboration at the local level affected by polarization among elites at the national level and citizens at the local level? Second, how does elite collaboration at the local level affect polarization among elites at the national level and citizens at the local level?