Party politics and the environmenttheparty remains structurally and temperamentally distinct from other par-
ties, suggesting that thelogic of constituency representationretains some influ-
ence. For example, the pre-election party congress in March 1998 saw the
reaffirmation of several radical policies, including higher fuel taxes and
drastic restrictions on personal air travel, that had little appeal to the wider
electorate. In short, no single oligarchical elite of professional politicians
dominates the party, although it is too early to declare Michels redundant.
The experiences of other green parties have much in common with Die
Grunen. Most initially adopted elements of the APP organisational model, ̈
notably the principle of collective leadership and rotation (Burchell 2002 ;
Doherty 2002 ;Rihoux 2006 ). The Swedish Greens, for example, elect two
spokespersons (one man, one woman) who are regularly rotated; office-
holders are discouraged from holding more than one post at a time and
are expected to relinquish it after two parliamentary terms; and the cen-
tral powers of the party are devolved to four functional party committees
(Bennulf 1995 :132). However, green parties elsewhere have also found it
difficult to square the radical principles of the APP with the demands of
electoral politics. Sometimes a particularly sharp electoral setback, such as
the disappointment of the French greenententeat not winning any seats in
the1993 National Assembly election or the removal of all Swedish Greens
from parliament after failing to reach the minimum electoral threshold
in 1991 (see Chapter4), has acted as a catalyst for internal party reform.
Most green parties have become increasingly centralised and professional.
One very visible example of change is the general shift away from collective
leadership. Some green parties, whilst diluting the principle of collective
leadership, have stopped short of electing a single leader, preferring to have
two co-leaders or co-spokespersons, as in New Zealand, Sweden and Britain.
The Finnish Green League and the Belgian Groen! elect, respectively, a party
chair and a president, who acts as a single figurehead, but without the full
range of powers of a typical party leader. A handful of green parties, includ-
ing the Italian and Irish, have replaced collective structures with a single,
elected leader. In Austria, the popular Alexander van der Bellen is both
party spokesperson and chair of the parliamentary group, and is ade facto
party leader. There has also been a general reduction in the power of party
activists, particularly in those parties that have entered government where
there are obvious practical obstacles to the involvement of party members in
decision-making (Doherty 2002 :116–17; Poguntke 2002 :136–7; Rihoux 2006 ).
The prospect of power has also seen the lingering opposition to coalitions
dissolve elsewhere, as Greens have entered national and sub-national gov-
ernment right across Europe and beyond. At national level, there has been
considerable variety in the political make-up of these coalitions and pacts.
Most have been dominated by the traditional party of the ‘old left’, notably
theformal coalition with the Socialists in France, and the pacts that have
seen green parties promise support in parliament that enabled the Swedish
Social Democrats (1998–2006) and the New Zealand Labor Party (1999–2002)