Through the looking glass? Lessons from party Europeanisation in Denmark

ABSTRACT

The Europeanisation of national political parties is often considered a crucial element in the democratisation of the EU. Yet, party Europeanisation has remained limited. The traditional argument explaining this is that the low political relevance of European affairs creates limited incentives for party organisations to Europeanise. But what happens in a context where Europe ìs politically relevant? Denmark, with its high parliamentary and public scrutiny of European affairs, provides us with such a case, allowing a view through the looking glass on whether and how national political parties Europeanise in a Europeanisation-friendly context. This article finds that Danish parties Europeanise rather differently from what has previously been found elsewhere, focusing strongly on internal cohesion, to the detriment of transnational cooperation. As such, empirically scrutinising a long-standing theoretical argument, this article adds much-needed nuance to the debate on party Europeanisation, its causes and relevance.

KEYWORDS:

• Political parties
• Europeanisation
• EU politicisation
• case study
• Denmark

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all respondents for their valuable time spent on providing me with the necessary information to write this article. I would also to thank the Research Foundation Flanders for funding my research stay in Denmark to conduct the interviews. Special thanks also to prof. dr. Christoffer Green-Pedersen, prof. dr. Isabelle Hertner, prof. dr. Magnus Blomgren, dr. Niels Gheyle, dr. Benjamin de Vet, and prof. dr. Bram Wauters for their invaluable feedback on previous drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the research foundation flanders [V425019N].