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Free keywords:
Centre of gravity; Council; integration theory; party politics.
Abstract:
Europe’s ‘political space’, its dimensionality and its impact on
European policies have received increased academic attention lately. Yet, one very
basic element of this political space, the party composition of EU member states’
governments, has never been studied in a systematic way in the rich literature on
European integration. In this paper we explain why the EU literature should pay
more attention to the analysis of Europe’s party-political ‘centre of gravity’.
We give a systematic overview of the party composition of member governments
from 1957 to 2003. This includes analyses of how the support for integration, the
left/right political conviction, and the ideological homogeneity or heterogeneity
of the member states affected the Council over the course of time. We draw on
expert surveys, the data of the Comparative Manifesto Project, and data about
government composition.
