Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Political Theory

  • Sánchez Should Offer Catalans a Federal Spain

    Sagrada Família Barcelona Spain
    Aerial view of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain (Unsplash/Carles Rabada)

    Pedro Sánchez’ chances of remaining prime minister narrowed on Saturday, when the votes of almost 234,000 Spaniards living abroad were counted. His Socialist Workers’ Party lost one seat in Congress to Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s conservative People’s Party. The left- and right-wing blocs would have 171 seats each, assuming Sánchez can convince the two Basque nationalist parties and the center-left Republicans of Catalonia to support him.

    The center-right Canarian Coalition, with one seat, and the centrist Junts (Together) of Catalonia, with seven seats, would hold the balance of power.

    The Canarians refuse a deal that includes Vox (Voice). Feijóo has no realistic path to a majority without the far-right party, which won 33 seats. But the Canarians are unlikely to vote for Sánchez either. They may abstain.

    Junts‘ demand — an independence referendum in Catalonia — is unacceptable to Sánchez. But the Basque branch of his Socialist Party has a plan that might just win Junts over: a federal Spain. (more…)

  • Spanish Conservatives Are Unlikely to Normalize Vox

    Esteban González Pons
    Esteban González Pons, the group leader of Spain’s conservative People’s Party in the European Parliament, gives a news conference in Madrid, June 13, 2022 (PP)

    Spanish conservatives still hope they can neutralize the far right by cooperating with it.

    Esteban González Pons, the group leader of Spain’s People’s Party in the European Parliament, told The New York Times that bringing Vox (Voice) into the government might “normalize” it:

    Vox will be another party, a conservative party inside of the system.

    Polls predict the People’s Party (PP) will win the election this month with 31 to 37 percent support. It would need Vox’s 12 to 15 percent for a majority.

    To his credit, Pons acknowledged there is a risk: “We can legitimize Vox.” Arguably, it already has by not ruling out a coalition. (more…)

  • The Center Did Not Hold in France

    Paris France
    Skyline of Paris, France at night, February 9, 2019 (Unsplash/Sabina Fratila)

    My hunch was correct after all. Before the French elections, I argued the most likely outcome was Emmanuel Macron winning a second term as president but losing his majority in the National Assembly and being forced into a coalition with the center-right.

    After the presidential election, Macron’s liberals moved up in the polls. They also did reasonably well in the opening round of the legislative elections a week ago. It gave this Macronist hope that the president might defend his majority after all.

    But no. His alliance, Together, is projected to fall to 234 seats, down from the 350 it won in 2017 and 55 short of a majority.

    So what happens next? (more…)

  • What Conservative Spain Has in Common with Putin

    Barcelona Spain
    View of the Palau Nacional from downtown Barcelona, Spain, December 29, 2013 (CucombreLibre)

    There are parallels between Vladimir Putin’s need to dominate Ukraine and right-wing Spain’s intolerance of Catalan nationalism.

    Modern Spain wouldn’t bomb Barcelona. Putin’s aggression is in a league of its own. But the last conservative government of Spain did send riot police into Catalonia when it organized an independence referendum in defiance of Spanish courts. It did depose the regional government, arrest its leaders and sentence them to between nine and thirteen years in prison for inciting “sedition” and participating in a “rebellion”. It did hack the phones of dozens of Catalan separatists, including non-politicians, to read their messages and listen to their conversations.

    Putin uses tanks, conservative Spain the law, but their motivation is the same: neither can accept the independent aspirations of a people they refuse to recognize as separate from themselves. (more…)

  • How Divided Government Works in France

    Emmanuel Macron
    French president Emmanuel Macron chairs a meeting of the Council of Ministers in the Elysée Palace in Paris, April 13 (Elysée/Soazig de la Moissonniere)

    Emmanuel Macron may yet hold on to his majority in the National Assembly. His liberal alliance, renamed Ensemble (Together), won 350 out of 577 seats in 2017. Polls give it between 310 and 378 seats for the elections in June.

    Based on their strong performance in last year’s regional elections, and given that Macron’s party has weak grassroots, I expected the center-right Republicans to do better. They still might. Republican voters, who on average are older than Macron’s, are more likely to turn out. But their disappointing performance in the presidential election — Valérie Pécresse got just 5 percent support — may also have demotivated conservatives.

    The alliance of the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, left-wing Greens and center-left Socialists — who failed to unite in the presidential election and lost — has a third of French voters, but it could struggle in the decisive second voting rounds. Left-wing candidates would do best against a conservative or far-right opponent. Then they could count on the support of centrists. But where a left-wing candidate qualified against a Macronist, the latter would be preferable to Republicans.

    The same dynamic works against the far-right Marine Le Pen. If a candidate of her National Rally makes the runoff, left to moderate-right voters tend to back their opponent.

    The two-round voting system makes it difficult to predict the outcome altogether. Divided government, what the French call cohabitation, in which the presidency and National Assembly are held by different parties, is possible.

    So how does that work in France? (more…)

  • Two Parties May Be Better Than Three

    Louvre Paris France
    The Louvre in Paris, France, February 9, 2020 (Unsplash/Louis Paulin)

    I once hailed the French voting model as an alternative to America’s. Unlike the first-past-the-post system, which encourages voters to sort into two major parties lest their vote go wasted, France’s two-round voting system encourages temporary, not permanent polarization. Multiple parties thrive in the first round. Voters choose between two finalists in the second.

    Until 2017, third parties seldom made the runoffs. But they played an important role by conditioning their support for one of the two major parties on policies or cabinet posts.

    Under François Hollande, several members of the Radical Left and Greens served in a Socialist-led government. Nicolas Sarkozy had ministers from small centrist and center-right parties who backed him in the presidential election.

    But what if the major parties don’t qualify for the runoffs at all? That has now happened in two presidential elections in a row, and it calls the stabilizing effect of the two-round voting system into question. (more…)

  • Three Political Traditions Explain the French Election

    Charles de Gaulle
    French president Charles de Gaulle visits the Netherlands, March 16, 1963 (Anefo/Eric Koch)

    France’s divisions haven’t healed. Like five years ago, Emmanuel Macron, the candidate of the cities, the optimists, the outward-looking and the university-educated, faces Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the small towns, the worried, the inward-looking and the working class, in the second and final voting round of the presidential election.

    The surprise of the first round was Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s strong third-place finish with 22 percent support, behind Le Pen’s 23 percent and Macron’s 28.

    Rather than a country split in two, France turns out to have three political blocs of almost equal size.

    This is a throwback to earlier times. Historian Sudhir Hazareesingh writes that France had three political families until Charles de Gaulle replaced proportional representation with a two-round voting system in 1958 that encouraged the formation of two parties. The center-right united into what is now the Republican party. The Communists were eclipsed by the Socialists on the left. (more…)

  • Democrats Are Losing Touch with Middle America

    Joe Biden
    American president Joe Biden walks away from a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington DC, January 19 (White House/Adam Schultz)

    The easiest way to win an election is to appeal to the voter in the center. Fanatics will come up with all sorts of reasons to deny it, and lose. It’s not a perfect rule. In a tight election, turning out your base matters too. But in a two-party system, the party that puts the most distance between itself and the median voter is the one most likely to end up in opposition.

    Take Britain’s Labour Party. It kept Jeremy Corbyn as leader for five years through six defeats. His supporters insisted his policies (raising the minimum wage, a four-day workweek, universal child care) were popular, and many, polled individually, were. But his approval rating was always under water. Middle England didn’t trust the man who opposed the Falklands War in 1982 and the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999; who called the assassination of Osama bin Laden a “tragedy” and praised Hamas for their commitment to “peace”. Corbyn’s fans mistook his refusal to compromise for principle. It accomplished nothing for Labour voters.

    Democrats in the United States are in the process of making a similar mistake. Many of their policies — the $1.9-trillion coronavirus recovery program, $1 trillion in infrastructure spending, canceling the worst of Donald Trump’s immigration policies, subsidizing child care, rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement — are popular, but the party is not.

    43 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Democrats. 42 percent support Joe Biden and 42 percent plan to vote for a Democrat in the midterm election.

    The only consolation is that Republicans are disliked even more: just one in three have a favorable view of them. Yet 46 percent would vote Republican in November. It seems Republicans don’t need to be loved to win. (more…)

  • Italy Has a Draghi-Sized Problem

    Mario Draghi
    European Central Bank president Mario Draghi walks to a news conference in Frankfurt, October 25, 2018 (ECB/Martin Lamberts)

    Mario Draghi is the best thing to have happened to Italy in many years — and a symptom of its political weakness.

    The former European Central Bank chief, who became prime minister a year ago, has the stature to implement difficult but long-overdue reforms in everything from digitalization to labor law. He has the support of all political parties except the far right. They can hide behind Draghi, and Draghi’s authority, when the reforms inevitably hurt vested interests.

    If Draghi steps down, the whole thing could collapse. Left, right and anti-establishment parties could once again fall out. A next government could cancel or reverse reforms that affect its voters, which in turn would undermine support for countervailing reforms.

    But if Draghi stays as prime minister until the election in 2023, parties need to find someone else to fill Italy’s largely ceremonial presidency, which has a seven-year mandate.

    The eighty year-old Sergio Mattarella is due to step down in February. His successor must be chosen by a conclave of 321 senators, 630 deputies and 58 regional delegates.

    You would think with so many politicians (Italy has the third-largest parliament in the world after China and the UK), it shouldn’t be too hard to find a replacement. But all eyes are on Draghi again. (more…)

  • How to Keep an Empire for a Thousand Years

    The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History

    Keeping a thousand years of European history readable is no small feat, but Peter H. Wilson manages it.

    The Holy Roman Empire touches on everything from high politics to peasant life. Wilson’s central insight: the empire’s perceived weaknesses were its strengths.

    The Holy Roman Empire changed composition through the centuries. Its internal organization was in a constant state of flux. Emperors had to negotiate to come to power and compromise to stay in power. Autonomy given to one city or prince did not necessarily apply to another. For a long time, such agreements were not even written down. The empire refused to lay down one law, one language, one religion. It ended up a patchwork of overlapping competencies and jurisdictions that kept bureaucrats, lawyers and politicians busy for centuries. (more…)

  • Political Fragmentation Hasn’t Weakened Germany

    German parliament Berlin
    Debate in the plenary chamber of the German parliament in Berlin, July 1, 2020 (Pixabay)

    When Germany’s Christian Democrats and Social Democrats — who frequently split up to 90 percent of the votes between them during the Cold War era — fell to a combined 50 percent support in the federal election in September, alarm bells went off across the Atlantic.

    The New York Times saw “messier politics” and “weaker leadership” ahead. The Washington Post feared a period of “limbo” as a result of Germany’s “Dutchification”. Harold James, a professor at Princeton University, lamented that Germany had acquired “the most destructive features of politics in neighboring countries.” The consequences, he argued, would be “complexity,” “endless negotiations” and “inevitably complicated coalition agreements.” Damon Linker, a columnist for The Week, predicted forming a “stable” government would be “challenging” and “decisive action” more difficult.

    Some people never learn. We saw the same reaction after the European elections in 2019, and again when Stefan Löfven lost his parliamentary majority in Sweden this summer. Yet Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and liberals were able to quickly form a working majority in the European Parliament and Löfven remains prime minister.

    Germany’s liberals and Greens — who can help either the Christian Democrats or Social Democrats to a majority — have already done a deal between them, clearing the biggest hurdle to a three-party coalition. Negotiations are now underway. Olaf Scholz, the Social Democratic Party leader, could become chancellor in a few weeks. So much for the “limbo” we were told to expect. (more…)

  • The Return of European Social Democracy

    Olaf Scholz
    German Social Democratic Party leader Olaf Scholz attends a conference in Berlin, June 25 (PES)

    Olaf Scholz has given German social democracy a new lease on life. For the first time in sixteen years, his Social Democratic Party (SPD) — Germany’s oldest — has defeated the center-right Union of Christian Democrats. Support for the SPD went up from 20.5 to 26 percent in the election on Sunday. Still below its pre-reunification heights, when it would routinely win up to 40 percent, but enough to make Scholz the most likely next chancellor.

    His counterparts in Portugal and Spain have been equally successful. António Costa was reelected with 36 percent support in 2019. Pedro Sánchez won two elections that year. Both govern with the support of the far left. Four of the five Nordic countries are led by social democrats. The fifth, Norway, soon will be, after Labor won the election two weeks ago.

    It wasn’t so long ago that commentators ruminated on the “death of European social democracy,” myself included. Now it’s back in swing in the north, south and center. What changed? (more…)

  • Judges Need to Know Their Place

    Supreme Court The Hague Netherlands
    Supreme Court of the Netherlands in The Hague, February 3, 2016 (Rijksvastgoedbedrijf/Bas Kijzers)

    European judges have discovered they can compel politicians to take action against climate change.

    France’s Council of State has given the government of Emmanuel Macron an April 2022 deadline (one month before the election) to ensure the country will meet its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 compared to 1990.

    Germany’s Constitutional Court issued a similar ruling in April and gave the government an end-of-year deadline to update its policy.

    A Dutch court has gone further, ordering Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, to reduce not just its own carbon dioxide emissions by 45 percent but those of its customers and suppliers as well.

    It’s like we’re living in a kritocracy. (more…)

  • Political Fragmentation Isn’t the Problem

    Swedish parliament Stockholm
    Parliament House in Stockholm, Sweden (iStock/Roland Lundgren)

    Another political crisis in Europe, another chance to beat on multiparty democracy.

    It’s not like the two-party systems of America and Britain are crisis-free, yet journalists in those countries have a tendency to find complex causes for their own political problems while reducing continental Europe’s to “fragmentation”.

    Today’s example: Bloomberg, which argues the “turmoil” in Sweden “reflects a shifting political landscape” and this is a “warning to other countries with key elections looming — like Germany and France — where fractured politics have also upended old alliances.” (more…)

  • Trumpification of the Spanish Right in Madrid

    Isabel Díaz Ayuso
    Regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso of Madrid, February 23 (Comunidad de Madrid)

    Spanish conservatives hope the third time will be the charm.

    In 2018, spooked by the return of the far right, they chose the reactionary Pablo Casado as their leader over the center-right Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría. Casado pulled the People’s Party to the right, arguing for a clampdown on Catalan nationalism, lower immigration and tighter abortion laws. Voters didn’t approve. The party fell from 33 to 17 percent support in the election and lost over half its seats in Congress.

    In the next election, seven months later, Casado doubled down. He refused to attack far-right leader Santiago Abascal and proposed to criminalize Catalan separatism. The conservatives did better, going up to 21 percent, but they still failed to defeat the Socialists. Abascal’s Vox also increased its vote share, to 15 percent.

    The lesson from other European countries is that center-right parties can never outbid the far right, which is always willing to go a step further. Moving to the right in order to shrink the distance between mainstream and far right isn’t a winning strategy either. It makes it easier for conservative voters to switch.

    In Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso is nevertheless attempting the same strategy — and she might win. (more…)