17 research outputs found
‘Enter parliament but never become part of it’:How have the Greens in the United Kingdom approached opposition?
No full textThe Greens in the United Kingdom have benefitted from the fragmentation of the party system and the creation of devolved institutions, achieving consistent representation at multiple levels of British politics in recent years. However, we know little about what they have done in these positions. This study uses interviews with Green legislators to investigate how they have interpreted the task of opposition at Westminster, Holyrood and Stormont. We show that Green legislators’ approaches to opposition have been influenced by their party identity, and that differences in approach between the institutions have largely been determined by contrasting political opportunity structures, rather than parliamentary rules. These findings highlight the importance of party as a factor shaping opposition strategy and the varied roles which opposition parties can play within the UK political system
Back to the stone age : Europe's mainstream right and climate change
Full text linkWhile populist radical right parties’ stances on climate change are well‐researched, accounts of Europe's mainstream right parties’ actions in this policy area are less common. This article provides a survey of the approach of four European centre‐right parties—the Christian Democratic Union in Germany, the Moderate Party in Sweden, the People's Party in Spain and the Austrian People's Party—to climate change in recent years. It examines some of the key strategic challenges that mainstream right parties are facing and their implications for climate policy, finding evidence of common approaches among this party family to climate policy
Sticklebacks and Gandalf’s garden : an oral history of 1970s British environmental activism
No full textLabour and the environment : an historical perspective
No full textNavigating the politics of the environment will be an unavoidable central challenge for the Labour Party in the coming decades. Examining the history of interactions between socialists and environmentalists suggests that the alliance has often been fraught, but this agenda offers opportunities for the party as well
Exploring party change : the professionalisation of the UK’s three Green parties crossing the representation threshold
No full textStudies of political parties have evidenced a clear impetus for organisational change and professionalisation when a party crosses the representation threshold, though the process by which this change occurs remains under-researched. We use a case study of the UK’s three Green parties to provide a focused examination of the professionalisation-through-representation process. Our study finds clear evidence that all three parties have professionalised to an extent as a result of securing representation. By evaluating the empirical findings in relation to key debates within the party organisational change literature, we show that professionalisation-through-representation does not necessarily require deliberate decisions by actors across a party, it can be largely uni-directional (though in this case the Greens have maintained a relatively consistent presence in legislatures) and is shaped by institutional rules on the public provision of funding and staff as well as parties’ own origins
The Greens in the 2019 European elections
Full text linkGreen parties were particularly successful in the May 2019 elections to the European Parliament (EP). 55 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) representing the European Green Party (EGP) were elected, a major advance on the 37 elected in 2014 and surpassing the previous high of 47 MEPs in 2009. This success helped to boost The Greens / European Free Alliance (EFA) parliamentary group to 75 , up from 50 in 2014. With the main centre-left and centre-right groups together failing to command a majority in the Parliament for the first time, the Greens have reason to expect that their influence will increase substantially. Many Green parties will also hope that success in the European elections will have a positive effect on their standing at national level
