PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS
forgreen issues than those on the right, environmentalism can pose a partic-
ularly strong threat to ‘Old Left’ parties. The vacillation of the German SPD
between centrist and leftist strategies is just one example of an established
leftist party threatened by the emergence of a green party. The Austrian
and Danish Social Democrats have also attempted to counter the threat
from green or left-libertarian parties by adopting stronger environmental
programmes.
However, the environmental cleavage does not always mirror the left–right
divide. In Britain, environmentalism largely transcends party lines (notwith-
standing the efforts by the centrist Liberal Democrats to seize the green
initiative) with the active environmental lobby remaining non-partisan. The
absence of an effective green party makes the electorate less likely to link
environmental issues with a wider left-libertarian programme. In a political
system still dominated by two broad-church parties, both adept at absorb-
ing factions and dissident opinion, the Labour Party has remained relatively
unresponsive to environmentalism. US party politics is not structured along
clear left–right lines, and there is no equivalent ‘Old Left’ party, although it
is the more liberal and (relatively) left-wing Democratic Party that has taken
amore environmentally progressive position. By contrast, in multiparty Nor-
way and Sweden (Lester and Loftsson 1993 )and Switzerland (Church 1995 ),
social democrat, centrist and liberal parties have all competed equally vigor-
ously for environmental votes; consequently, environmental issues are high
on the agenda, but conflicts do not follow clear left–right lines.
Thus, to summarise, key institutional features of the political opportu-
nity structure (POS) will shape the nature of environmental politics in each
country. In Germany, the openness of the POS contributed to a sharp politi-
cisation of the environment during the 1980s, whereas the relatively closed
POS in Britain has enabled the major parties to get by with slightly greener
rhetoric and actions. The POS in the USA has been sufficiently open for
pressure to be placed on the Democrats to take a more partisan stance on
the environment, but the low salience of the environment has placed firm
limits on the overall response of the two major parties to environmentalism.Critical question 4
How important is it for established political parties to become ‘greener’?◗ Conclusion
Green parties like to claim that they are different from other parties and,
indeed, they do remain distinct, both formally and culturally, from other
parties. For example, most green parties have resisted appointing a single
leader and can boast equal representation of women. However, the ‘nor-
malisation’ of most green parties, as illustrated by Die Grunen, has seen ̈
them moderate the anti-party model in order to achieve electoral success