Party Development in Comparative Federalism. Insights from and Limits to the European Union

Parties and party systems can play an important stabilizing and integrative role in federations. As Fillipov et al argue (2004), successful vertically integrated parties can strike a balance between a capacity for local responsiveness and loyalty to common interests and goals of the party as a whole. Parties can also serve to coordinate between institutions and mitigate inter-institutional or horizontal conflict in a federation. Federations vary in how parties serve this integrative function – and also in terms of their requirements for and consequences of integrative parties. I first compare the EU and federations and assess the vertical and horizontal integrative capacity of parties in the EU party system. The comparison seeks to identify institutional settings that facilitate forms of vertical and horizontal cooperation. Thereafter, the paper comparatively assesses the dynamics of development or decay of integrative linkages over time, focusing on the locations and mechanisms of these linkages, as well as whether the motivations for change (the underlying problems and evolutionary ends) are similar in the EU as in federations. Attention to the dynamics of party and party system development is important in the EU due to the rapid institutional evolution of its representative democracy as well as the dramatic changes in polity brought on by EU enlargement. Finally, I identify the limits of the federal comparison for the EU party system. To what extent is the federal comparison valid and useful? In what ways does the EU not fit a federal framework for analyzing parties and party systems?