Research project: Party Policy Diffusion in the European Multi-Level Space (Daniel Bischof)

Almost since the end of World War II, transnational cooperation among political parties has been a common feature of European politics. The perhaps most well-known example are the transnational alliances of Christian Democratic party elites that played a central role in bringing about today’s European Union. While these historical instances of transnational partisan cooperation have been relatively well-documented, however, its contemporary forms have rarely been studied in a systematic fashion. This project seeks to investigate party policy diffusion in the European multi-level space both theoretically as well as empirically:

• What are the main factors driving party policy diffusion?
• Which role do the European Union institutions plays? Do they reinforce diffusion across parties?
• What are the main outcomes which are affected by party diffusion (e.g. positions, organizations)?

Deliverables:

• Paper: with Roman Senninger & Lawrence Ezrow. “Party Policy Diffusion in the European Multi-Level Space.” Presented at Multi-level Workshop 2017 (Mannheim).
• Paper: with Roman Senninger & Fabio Wolkenstein. “Theorizing Party Policy Diffussion in the European Multi-level Space.” (submitted for a special issue in: Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties)

Publications:

• Paper: with Roman Senninger. 2017. “Working in Unison: Political Parties and Policy Issue Transfer in the Multi-Level Space.” European Union Politics: first view.