Abstrakt: |
‘Nationalization’ theories have been used to explain the integration of electorates and party systems in democratizing and newly formed national polities. This article extends these theories to the ‘Europeanization’ of politics and to the European Union as an emerging supra-national democratic space. Analysing electoral data for national elections in 30 countries from 1970 to 2008, the article looks at the convergence of party systems in Europe. Results attest to increasingly homogeneous voting distributions for parties of a same family across national electorates, indicating an incipient party system institutionalization at the European level. The article shows that homogeneous patterns are stronger for parties belonging to the left–right dimension and less so for parties stemming from cultural cleavages. In the light of the debate on democratic deficit, the structuring of electoral alignments is interpreted as enhancing the democratic linkage between voters and representatives, and seen as a prerequisite for responsive and accountable politics in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] |