Green partiestheLiberal Democrats became established and traditional material issues,
such as the poll tax and the deepening recession, crowded out the environ-
ment, so that this window of opportunity closed again. Generally, however,
theclosed POS has meant that the focus of environmental politics in the
UK has been on the established parties (see Chapter5)andthelarge envi-
ronmental lobby (see Chapter6), rather than the Green Party. The pressure
groups make a virtue of their non-partisan status, believing they will exer-
cise most influence by lobbying politicians from all three major parties. They
see little to gain from working with a weak Green Party; indeed, any parti-
sanship might close the doors to government and risk alienating its mem-
bership. This vicious circle of exclusion has further weakened the Green
Party.
Yet, in recent years, as a result of the Labour government’s programme of
constitutional reform the political opportunity structure has opened up a
little to the advantage of the Green Party. The introduction of proportional
representation in second-order elections enabled the Greens to secure elec-
tion to the European Parliament and the new Scottish Parliament in 1999,
and to the new Greater London Assembly in 2000. These successes were
repeated during 2003/4, with the notable feat of gaining seven seats in the
Scottish Parliament. These achievements seem to have had some positive
impact on the party’s performance in national elections. In 2005 the Greens
wonarecord 283,486 votes, averaging 3.37 per cent in the seats contested
and saving twenty-four deposits (Carter and Rootes 2006 :476), although the
election of a Green MP still seems some way off.
◗ Explaining green electoral performance
The German, French and British examples illustrate how the institutional
and political context influences the openness of a national political oppor-
tunity structure to green parties. In this section, drawing on the three case
studies and green party experiences elsewhere, the critical institutional and
political factors are identified.
The most striking institutional difference between the three countries
appears to be theelectoral system. The German experience suggests that
green parties do better in electoral systems based on some form of pro-
portional representation (PR). This hypothesis is supported by the relative
success of green parties in Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and
Switzerland, which all have PR systems, and their failure in the UK and
North America, where non-proportional systems are used. The experience of
theNewZealand Green Party before and after the introduction of PR illus-
trates the significance of the electoral system in shaping Green fortunes (see
Box4.3).
Yetinseveral countries with PR systems, including Norway, Denmark,
Spain and Greece, green parties have had little or no success. The weakness
of green parties in Southern Europe may reflect lower levels of economic