Why Do Green Parties Emerge?

The British and German Greens in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

The emergence of Green parties has long been explained by the development of post-materialist values in advanced democracies. This article takes a somewhat different perspective, by reassessing the importance of institutional and strategic variables. The comparison between the British and the German cases reinforces the notion that post-materialist values might be considered as characteristics of the Green electorate more than independent variables of the emergence of Green parties. The paper shows that party systems financial and electoral characteristics can strongly influence the emergence of new parties. Similarly, the institutional features of a given system can multiply or reduce the possibilities of entry and of coalition-building of a new party. In the end, from a strategic viewpoint, the internal organisation of a given Green party and its position toward the questions of intra-party democracy, institutionalisation, and incorporation into the parliamentary game are determinant. Therefore, important institutional factors and strategic choices can explain the weaknesses of the Green party as well as the emergence and the conversion of the German Greens to classical political liberalism.