This book traces the EPP Group’s institutional, organisational and political trajectory in the European Parliament, focusing on the period after the first direct elections in 1979. In doing so, it sheds light on the functioning of parliamentary party groups, while at the same time creating the conditions for a better understanding of their role in the process of European integration and in the EU’s political system.

Based on the conceptual framework of different disciplines—history, political science, European studies and political sociology—this book is the outcome of a research project involving scholars with diverse academic backgrounds and from different EU countries.

The puzzle to be explained in this article is how and why parties experience variation in the degree of moderation in nationalism. The article submits that an important indicator for such variation can be found in the extent to which a party is transnationally embedded, but the central claim of this article is that while external influences may well temper party nationalism they are filtered through predominantly internal factors, notably the cleavage structure and the political culture. The explanatory power of this argument is tested through a comparative case study of relative moderation in nationalism of two Baltic post-communist national conservative parties, Pro Patria Union in Estonia and For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK in Latvia, with particular attention to party preferences and positions on national questions, as well as of engagement in transnational party cooperation. Both started out as national conservative parties, but whereas the former party has turned into a more mainstream conservative party of European stance and a moderate nationalist party the latter has remained radical nationalist and basically held on to (ethno-) nationalism. The article examines the sources of this variation.

While the position of press secretaries to ministers has become routinized, we still know little about their everyday life in the political executive. This article, based on in-depth interviews with press secretaries and an inventory of social media use conducted among ministers and press secretaries in Sweden, explores what press secretaries do and the roles and functions they fill. It addresses the overarching question of what it is really like to be government press secretary. It engages with this question through a combination of methods, mapping, and explaining patterns of behavior across related fields and strategic spaces. We argue that existing research and role typologies, while still useful, must be developed by accounting more for how press secretary work changes through new techniques and digitalization. We conclude that press secretaries fill a mix of roles and these are quite stable, but social media impacts on the daily routine of the press secretary and are a part of the work that is difficult or impossible to control. In addition, this study of Swedish press secretaries helps to redress a geographical imbalance in political communication (system) research where the focus usually is on Anglo-American-based scholarship and systems.

Under mer än hundra år har världens parlament och folkvalda haft en återkommande mötesplats för tankeutbyte och gemensamma aktioner i Interparlamentariska unionen, IPU.

Från början var IPU en del av förra sekelskiftets framväxande rörelse för demokrati och fred i Europa. Samarbete mellan världens parlamentariker skulle demokratisera utrikespolitiken och skapa förutsättningar för en hållbar fred. Inom loppet av ett drygt kvartssekel hedrades hela åtta företrädare för IPU med Nobels fredspris.

Trots två förödande världskrig på 1900-talet och hotet om kärnvapenkrig sedan dess har IPU behållit sin roll som mötesplats och samtalsforum. Arbetet med utvecklings- och biståndsarbete har vuxit kring frågor om hållbar utveckling och mänskliga rättigheter. Att främja kvinnors deltagande i politiken har blivit en profilfråga. Sedan millennieskiftet betonar IPU särskilt sin roll som parlamentarisk partner till FN.

This article breaks new ground in our understanding of the Maastricht outcome by examining the role of the European People’s Party (EPP) and its member parties. Special emphasis is placed on the meetings of Christian Democrat leaders. At the time of the 1991 parallel Intergovernmental Conferences, six out of 12 heads of government met in the EPP. The article argues that the Treaty on European Union was facilitated by the transnational coalition of the Christian Democrats and by the shared ideological identity of this federalist movement. This weakens the intergovernmental approach to European integration

As prime ministers are drawn into international relations and the foreign policy process, they are in need of advisory structures for foreign affairs in their offices. This article examines the system and the role of foreign affairs advisers to the Prime Minister (PM), the chief executive, in Sweden. The article centres on the organization for foreign affairs, in general terms of institutional and staffing arrangements, and on leader—adviser relationships. As the right hand of the PM, inner circle advisers in foreign affairs have a direct role in overseeing foreign policy on the key issues and do more than just serve in an advisory capacity by being operative in diplomacy and in policy coordination. These advisers can therefore wield influence on policy and the government based on their own expertise and position at the centre of power and at the frontier between the chief executive and the outside world.

Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist es, die innerhalb und zwischen den einzelnen Fraktionen ablaufenden dynamischen Prozesse des Europäischen Parlaments (EP) zu beleuchten, insbesondere die Beziehungen innerhalb und zwischen den einzelnen Fraktionen. Die Fraktionen sind von zentraler Bedeutung für das EP. Einerseits übernehmen sie eine wichtige Integrationsfunktion, denn sie bieten ein besonderes soziales Umfeld, und sie dienen den Mitgliedern des EP (MdEP), die innerhalb einer Fraktion dazu ermutigt werden, gemeinsame Positionen zu erarbeiten, als Bezugspunkt. Andererseits bestehen die Fraktionen des EP aus verschiedenen nationalen Delegationen. Das bedeutet, daß den Parteiengruppierungen von seiten nationaler Politik gewisse Grenzen gesetzt sind. Die Frage, inwieweit sich die unterschiedlichen Anforderungen repräsentativer Rollen auf das Verhalten der Abgeordneten auswirken, gibt den roten Faden dieser Studie vor.

This paper outlines and elaborates the role of Europarties – political parties at European level – in the political system of the European Union (EU). It explores the key role and features of these organisations and claims that they are significant actors, particularly through their mobilisation of political parties and leaders. However, the conditions for Europarty influence are demanding. Europarties can be expected to matter when they are in numerical ascendance, relatively cohesive and able to mobilise their networks of political parties and leaders. These leaders remain first and foremost national politicians, responsible to national electorates. Therefore, Europarty influence and relevance overall remain conditioned on the domestic political context of national parties and leaders. Yet, functional pressures for transnational engagement serve to further institutionalise Europarties.

This article explores the conditions for Europarty influence. Europarties can be expected to matter when they are in numerical ascendance, relatively cohesive and able to mobilize their networks of political parties and leaders. The explanatory power of this argument is tested empirically through an in-depth case study: the role of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) in the negotiations leading to the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997. The article submits and documents that there is a transnational dimension to such treaty reform, that there is Europarty influence but clear limits to such influence. The case demonstrates how factors pertaining to domestic politics, especially in Germany where chancellor Kohl was severely constrained in the search for a compromise over the new treaty, limited the scope for the EPP to more significantly shape the outcome of the treaty negotiations. Accordingly, domestic political context condition Europarty influence.

This article analyses the Europeanisation of Sweden and combines theoretical and empirical aims by seeking to draw out wider implications from this particular case with regard to the impact and limits of Europeanisation. An analytical framework is established in which the terms of Europeanisation and the domestic politics approach are defined and analysed. A distinction is made between dimensions of Europeanisation. The article also calls for a multidisciplinary approach to the study of Europeanisation to understand its multifaceted nature. It is shown that Sweden has in many ways been affected by processes of Europeanisation, but also that there are certain limits to this development. Public opinion and intra-party factionalism, endogenous factors, impose constraints on the freedom of action of policymakers. In conclusion, it is suggested that a cognitive and spatial separation and cultural differences are the most important limits to the further Europeanisation of Sweden.

This article argues that transnational engagement offers political parties legitimacy and reinforces tendencies towards standardization. EU accession brought many parties in post-communist Europe into Euro-parties and political groups. In this context, national parties are expected to adhere and keep to certain standards. The case in point is the Estonian Social Democratic Party, which took back this name shortly before Estonia joined the EU. The article shows how this party has been seeking to develop into a modern European social democratic party by engagement in a range of transnational networks and activities and by embracing the organizational and programmatic ideals of its partner parties

This report explores the question of how populist parties organize and towhat extent they have intrinsic characteristics and are alike in their organization. As this problematique is under-researched there is an important gapin our understanding and knowledge concerning populism and its parties. Largely a synthetic work, the report seeks to fill this void in existing researchthrough an overview of the secondary literature and an inventory ofscattered evidence covering a set of political parties broadly labelled populist. The evidence reveals that these parties in a range of European countrieshave experienced remarkably similar organizational attributes andstyle. A clear pattern has emerged. In a broad comparative perspective,three identifiable patterns are particularly notable as regards the organizationof these parties. The first pattern is centralized organizational structures. The second pattern, and linked to the former, is personalized leadership,which is often but not always based on charismatic authority. Thethird pattern is factionalism or intra-party division.

Dieser Aufsatz ist zum Zeitpunkt eines entscheidenden Einschnitts in der nordischen Geschichte entstanden: Während Finnland und Schweden zum Januar 1995 der Europäischen Union (EU) als Vollmitglieder beitraten, verblieben Island und Norwegen im Europäischen Wirtschaftsraum (EWR). Zur gleichen Zeit wurde eine Arbeitsgruppe eingerichtet, welche die Form der nordischen Zusammenarbeit im allgemeinen und die zukünftige Rolle des Nordischen Rates im besonderen erörtern sollte. Nach Norwegens „Nein“ im Referendum über die EU-Mitgliedschaft ist die nordische Einheit gefährdet; umgekehrt aber ist Dänemark nicht mehr länger der alleinige nordische Brückenkopf zur EU. Von den autonomen Gebieten treten die Aland Inseln der EU bei, wohingegen die Faröer-Inseln und Grönland Nichtmitglieder bleiben. Der Nordische Rat, mit dem sich der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt, umfaßt die genannten fünf nordischen Staaten und drei autonomen Gebiete; seine transnationale parlamentarische Versammlung wurde 1952 als Forum für die Kooperation zwischen den Parlamenten und Regierungen eingerichtet.

This article addresses the role of party elites in the setting of European multilevel governance and transnationalization. Emphasis is placed on informal networks, elite socialization and policy coordination. The analysis focuses on the 1985 Intergovernmental Conference, which led to the Single European Act (SEA), and the political family of Christian Democrats, most notably party leaders' meetings. The research material consists of interviews and archival sources. It can be shown that the SEA was to a large extent shaped through transnational party elite socialization. Challenging previous analyses, there is sufficient documentary evidence to claim that political parties, or rather party elites, were centrally involved in the making of this historic treaty. Such involvement of elected political representatives could further the democratic legitimacy of the European Union, but reinforces problems of intra-party democracy

This chapter examines prime ministerial media advisers (PMMAs), everything from the institutional setting to the core of their work. The chapter revolves around the phenomenon of everyday routine among political professionals, elucidating what keeps these political staffers preoccupied. What do they do? This chapter explores this question empirically through Swedish evidence, drawing on interviews and uncovering patterns in the data. The chapter offers a practice-oriented analysis of PMMAs that emphasizes the ordinary, the habitual and regular. Through their work they matter, indeed are indispensable, and their scope for influence is extensive. They are set to remain a key group of political staffers in government. The chapter holds lessons both for academic research and practice, in the context of political management, and carries wider implications for the study of national executives, advisory systems and processes of governing.