In continental Europe, of course, the moderate centre-right position
held by the Conservatives in Britain is occupied in many countries by
the Christian democrat parties whose enthusiasm for capitalism is
balanced by electoral links to the countryside and by the Church’s
belief in co-operation and compassion in social affairs. In a number of
countries links with the trade union movement reinforce Christian
democrat claims to a centrist rather than conservative/right-wing
classification (Michael Smart in Smith, 1989: 380). Modern Catholic
encyclicals on social matters have, for instance, stressed the moral
dignity of labour and the legitimacy of involving the representatives
of labour in decision making in the workplace. They also endorse the
idea of democratic decentralisation or ‘subsidiarity’ (see Chapter 6).
The strongest Christian democratic parties seem to be in those
Catholic countries where the Church has adopted something of a
self-denying ordinance, allowing practical politicians room for
manoeuvre. For simplicity Protestant democratic parties are not
considered here in detail – but they are important in the Netherlands,
and of influence in Switzerland and the Nordic countries. The CDU in
Germany does include Protestants but attracts more support from
Catholics (Dalton, 1988: Ch. 8). Christian democracy has been
defined asa movement of those who aim to solve – with the aid of Christian
principles and ‘democratic’ techniques – that range of temporal
problems which the Church has repeatedly and solemnly declared to lie
within the ‘supreme’ competence of lay society, and outside direct
ecclesiastical control. (Fogarty, 1957: 6).More specifically, Irving (1979: xvii) discerns three basic principles
in contemporary European Christian democracy:‘Christian Principles’ (in the sense of a broad commitment to basic
human rights, particularly those of the individual); ‘democracy’ (in the
sense of a clear cut commitment to liberal democracy) and ‘integration’
(in the dual sense of a commitment to class reconciliation through the
concept of the broad-based Volkspartei(people’s party) and to trans-
national reconciliation through the strong Christian Democratic
commitment to European integration).96 IDEOLOGIES