Party politics and the environmentconcern seems to be strongest in Scandinavia, where polls have suggested
that at least a third of citizens believe environmental problems should get
ahigher priority than (and not just be equal with) economic growth (Aardal
1990 ; Eurobarometer 1995 ; Sairinen 1996 ). This finding may reflect higher
numbers of postmaterialists amongst those populations, or a specific sensi-
tivity to environmental issues. Either way, this deeper concern helps explain
why all established parties in Scandinavia have generally developed greener
platforms than elsewhere (Lester and Loftsson 1993 ).
Secondly, nevertheless, the environment has only rarely been an issue
of genuine electoral salience. Typically, significantly fewer than 10 per cent
of voters – around5percentintheUSAandBritain – regard it as one of
themost important issues in national elections. Politicians are more likely
totalk about the environment between elections – in party documents, or
in the US president’s ‘State of the Union’ speech (Tatalovich and Wattier
1999 )–than in election campaigns, where it tends to disappear. This low
saliency undoubtedly sets limits on the commitment of established parties
to environmentalism (Guber 2003 ;Carter 2006 ).
Thirdly, the presence of a successful green party in Germany certainly
acted as a catalyst for a broader politicisation of the environment, whereas
the absence of one in Britain and the USA helps explain the lower inten-
sity of environmental politics in these countries. Nevertheless, a flourishing
green party does not guarantee a positive response from established par-
ties. In Belgium, despite the presence of two electorally successful green
parties, the main parties remained locked in a left–right materialist dis-
course and made few concessions to environmentalism (Kitschelt 1994 :190).
The breakdown of these frozen party cleavages in the late 1990s, which
allowed the Greens to join the government coalition, did not initiate a wider
politicisation of environmental issues in Belgium. In Switzerland, Austria
and Sweden, intense political competition in multiparty systems prompted
established parties to develop comprehensive environment programmes
before green parties gained electoral success, thereby preventing them
from assuming a monopoly over environmental concern. The foundation
of the Dutch Green Left in 1990 postdated the wider greening of estab-
lished parties, which had stymied the progress of the small green party, De
Groenen (Lucardie 1997 :187–8). Similarly, established parties in Norway and
Denmark adopted progressive environmental platforms without any prompt-
ing from a green party, nipping in the bud the prospects of the nascent
green parties (Lester and Loftsson 1993 ). It seems that the significance of
green parties will be closely linked to the state of political competition in a
particular country.
Fourthly, Rohrschneider ( 1993 )argues that the policy responses of the
major ‘Old Left’ parties, mediated by electoral laws, are particularly criti-
cal in shaping the way environmental orientations affect the partisanship
of voters in each country. Where environmental cleavages mirror the tradi-
tional left–right dimension so that left-wing voters display stronger support