PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS
Green parties have become a familiar feature of the political landscape, par-
ticularly in Europe. The first green parties were formed in Tasmania and
NewZealand in 1972, and the Swiss elected the first green to a national
assembly in 1979. By the late 1990s, green parties were sufficiently estab-
lished to have joined national coalition governments in Belgium, Finland,
France, Germany and Italy, to have deputies in several other national parlia-
ments, and to be represented in sub-national chambers in many countries. In
2004, thirty-four Green MEPs from eleven countries were elected to the Euro-
pean Parliament. Several individual Green politicians have held high office,
notably Joschka Fischer as German Foreign Minister and Michele Schreyer as
thefirst Green European Commissioner between 1999 and 2004. The Greens
have clearly arrived, and their message seems to have sufficient coherence
and resonance to exert an electoral appeal that transcends national borders.
How do we account for the rise of green parties? Do they simply reflect a spe-
cific public concern about the state of the environment, or are they part of
ageneral shift towards a postmaterialist ‘new politics’? To whom does the
green message appeal? Why have green parties performed better in some
countries than in others? Can green parties extend their appeal beyond a
handful of rich industrialised nations? What is the impact of government
participation on green electoral support? Are green parties here to stay or
are they simply a ‘flash party’ that will soon disappear?
The chapter begins with a brief survey of green party electoral perfor-
mance, identifying those countries where green parties have secured elec-
toralsuccess and those where they have not. Thenext sectionassesses three
broad macro-level new politics explanations of green party development:Political opportunity structure:The
dimensions of the political environment that
either encourage people to use collective
action or discourage them from doing so,
and which shape the development of
movements and parties.new social movements, new class accounts and
postmaterialism. These macro-level theories help
explain the rise of green parties, but they can-
not account for variations in green party suc-
cess between countries. In the next section,
the ‘political opportunity structure’ (POS) frame-
work, which combines these broad structural and
cultural explanations with institutional factors such as the electoral system
and party competition in individual countries, is applied to green party per-
formance in Germany, France and the UK. Finally, although the POS frame-
work does provide a more comprehensive and sensitive account, it can be
criticised for underestimating the influence of ecological concerns in public
support for green parties.◗ Green party electoral performance: an overview
Green parties have achieved their main electoral successes in Northern
and Western Europe (see Table4.1). In four countries – West Germany,
Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg – green parties averaged at least
5per cent of the vote during the 1980s and regularly won seats in national