Party Responses to Social Movements: Challenges and Opportunities 9781789201543

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Party Responses to Social Movements

Protest, Culture and Society General editors: Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Institute for Media and Communication, University of Hamburg Martin Klimke, New York University Abu Dhabi Joachim Scharloth, Waseda University

Protest movements have been recognized as significant contributors to processes of political participation and transformations of culture and value systems, as well as to the development of both a national and transnational civil society. This series brings together the various innovative approaches to phenomena of social change, protest and dissent which have emerged in recent years, from an interdisciplinary perspective. It contextualizes social protest and cultures of dissent in larger political processes and socio-cultural transformations by examining the influence of historical trajectories and the response of various segments of society, political and legal institutions on a national and international level. In doing so, the series offers a more comprehensive and multi-dimensional view of historical and cultural change in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Recent volumes: Volume 26 Party Responses to Social Movements: Challenges and Opportunities Daniela R. Piccio

Volume 21 Hairy Hippies and Bloody Butchers: The Greenpeace Anti-Whaling Campaign in Norway Juliane Riese

Volume 25 The Politics of Authenticity: Countercultures and Radical Movements across the Iron Curtain, 1968–1989 Edited by Joachim C. Häberlen, Mark Keck-Szajbel and Kate Mahoney

Volume 20 A Fragmented Landscape: Abortion Governance and Protest Logics in Europe Edited by Silvia De Zordo, Joanna Mishtal and Lorena Anton

Volume 24 Taking on Technocracy: Nuclear Power in Germany, 1945 to the Present Dolores L. Augustine Volume 23 The Virago Story: Assessing the Impact of a Feminist Publishing Phenomenon Catherine Riley Volume 22 The Women’s Liberation Movement: Impacts and Outcomes Edited by Kristina Schulz

Volume 19 The Nuclear Crisis: The Arms Race, Cold War Anxiety, and the German Peace Movement of the 1980s Edited by Christoph Becker-Schaum, Philipp Gassert, Wilfried Mausbach, Martin Klimke and Marianne Zepp Volume 18 The Revolution before the Revolution: Late Authoritarianism and Student Protest in Portugal Guya Accornero Volume 17 Protest Cultures: A Companion Edited by Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Martin Klimke and Joachim Scharloth

For a full volume listing, please see the series page on our website: http://berghahnbooks.com/series/protest-culture-and-society

Party Responses to Social Movements Challenges and Opportunities

Daniela R. Piccio

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2019 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2019 Daniela R. Piccio All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Piccio, Daniela R., author. Title: Party Responses to Social Movements: Challenges and Opportunities / Daniela Piccio. Description: First Edition. | New York: Berghahn Books, 2019 | Series: Protest, Culture and Society; 26 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018054906 (print) | LCCN 2018060211 (ebook) | ISBN 9781789201543 (ebook) | ISBN 9781789201536 (hardback: alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Social movements—Political aspects. | Political parties. | Political participation. Classification: LCC HM881 (ebook) | LCC HM881 .P53 2019 (print) | DDC 303.48/4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018054906 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78920-153-6 hardback ISBN 978-1-78920-154-3 ebook

to Irene

Contents List of Tables and Figures

viii

Acknowledgements

x

List of Abbreviations

xi

Introduction

1

Chapter . Politics beyond Parties

23

Chapter . Social Movements and the Traditional Left: A Cautious Reception

67

Chapter . ‘And Yes, It Moves!’: The Unexpected Response of Centrist Parties to Social Movements

115

Conclusion. It Was Worth the Effort

158

Appendix . Election Outcomes and Government Coalitions

176

Appendix . Social Movements’ Themes in Party Manifestos

178

Bibliography

187

Index

202

Tables and Figures Table 2.1

Women’s representation in the PCI party group, 1946–1987

77

Table 2.2

PCI female candidates and PCI female MPs

77

Table 2.3

Biographical backgrounds of PCI female MPs, 1972–1992

79

Table 2.4

The PvdA’s participation in environmental groups

101

Table 2.5

The PvdA’s participation in peace groups

105

Table 3.1

Women’s representation in the DC party group, 1946–1987

124

Table 3.2

DC female candidates and DC female MPs

125

Table 3.3

Speeches of female delegates to DC Congresses, 1973–1986

127

Table A.1

Election outcomes in the Netherlands, 1963–1989

176

Table A.2

Government coalitions in the Netherlands, 1967–1989

176

Table A.3

Election outcomes in Italy, 1963–1989

177

Figure 1.1 The cultural dimension of the feminist movement

40

Figure 2.1 Coverage of women’s issues in the PCI manifestos, 1968–1987

74

Figure 2.2 Women’s representation in the PCI Direction and Central Committee, 1948–1986

78

Figure 2.3 The PCI co-optation strategy from the feminists’ perspective

80

Figure 2.4 Coverage of environmental issues in the PCI manifestos, 1968–1987

85

Figure 2.5 Coverage of environmental issues in the PvdA manifestos, 1971–1986

94

Tables and Figures

Figure 2.6 Ecology activists against the PvdA leader in Dodewaard

|

ix

98

Figure 2.7 Coverage of peace issues in the PvdA manifestos, 1971–1986

105

Figure 3.1 Coverage of women’s issues in the DC election manifestos, 1968–1987

122

Figure 3.2 Coverage of environmental issues in the DC manifestos, 1968–1987

133

Figure 3.3 Coverage of environmental issues in the CDA election manifestos, 1971–1986

141

Figure 3.4 Coverage of peace issues in the CDA election manifestos, 1971–1986

146

Figure 4.1 Party responses trajectories

166

Figure 4.2 The disjunction between parties and movements

172

Figure A.1 Government coalitions in Italy, 1968–1989

177

Acknowledgements I first had the pleasure of exploring the intricacies of the relationship between parties and social movements while conducting research at the European University Institute. I am especially indebted to Peter Mair for stimulating my interest in political parties and political representation, and for his encouragement throughout this work. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to Donatella Della Porta for her insightful comments and friendly support. Many people have helped with advice and useful criticisms during various stages of the composition of the book. Much appreciation goes in particular to Rudy Andeweg, Ingrid van Biezen, Lorenzo Bosi, Massimo Caciagli, Jan Willem Duyvendak, Paul Lucardie, Alice Mattoni, Huib Pellikaan, Thomas Poguntke and Sidney Tarrow. Not least, many thanks to Chris Chappell, Despina Christodoulou, Soyolmaa Lkhagvadorj, Elizabeth Martinez and Sveva Tedeschi for helping me through the final stages of writing this book. Many archives and research institutions made this research possible: the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (Amsterdam); the Nationaal Archief (Den Haag); the Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Partijen (Groningen); Landelijk (Anti-)Kernenergie Beweging (Amsterdam); the Istituto Sturzo (Rome); the Fondazione Antonio Gramsci (Rome); the Legambiente (Rome); and the Casa Internazionale della Donna (Rome). Not only was it a fascinating experience to be able to dig into this large amount of material, but the importance of the documents collected by these archives cannot be underestimated. They are a fundamental source for analysis, one that is too often neglected in the social sciences. Warm thanks are due to my colleagues at the Università degli Studi di Torino for their collegiality and for stimulating my research interests and curiosity beyond the boundaries of academic disciplines – in particular, Marinella Belluati, Giuliano Bobba, Irene Bono, Massimo Cuono, Vittorio Martone, Stefania Ravazzi, Franca Roncarolo, Rocco Sciarrone, Alessandro Sciullo and Luca Storti. A special mention goes to Alfio Mastropaolo. I owe him my deepest gratitude for his encouragement, inspiration and valuable comments. Finally, I would like to thank my dear friends and my wonderful parents, Alberto and Jeannette, for their unconditional support. My most particular thanks go to Irene, for the time we shared together, her support and her love. This book is dedicated to her.

Abbreviations ARCI ARP CCSE CDA CHU CIF KPN D’66 DC DNPP DP FWME IKV KKN KVP LAKA LEK MSI NATO PCI PdUP PPR PR PSP PvdA UDI UN VVD

Associazione Ricreativa Culturale Italiana Anti-Revolutionaire Partij Comitato Nazionale di Controllo sulle Scelte Energetiche Christen Democratisch Appél ChristenUnie Centro Italiano Femminile Kommunistische Partij Nederland Democraten ’66 Democrazia Cristiana Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Partijen Democrazia Proletaria Functionele Werkgroep Milieu en Energie Inter Kerkelijk Vredesberaad Komité Kruisraketten Nee Katolieke Volkspartij Landelijk (Anti) Kernenergie Archief Landelijk Energie Komité Movimento Sociale Italiano North Atlantic Treaty Organization Partito Comunista Italiano Partito di Unità Proletaria Politieke Partij Radicalen Partito Radicale Pacifistisch Socialistisch Partij Partij van de Arbeid Unione Donne Italiane United Nations Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie

Introduction Establishing a linkage between citizens and governments is considered the most important function of political parties. It is the fulfilment of representative functions, Sartori argued, that is the premise, the ‘justification’ of the centrality of political parties in modern political systems. We do not need parties just ‘for the sake of providing a government’. We need parties because ‘we are interested in a mechanism of recruitment that fulfils the expressive function’.1 Why would we need political parties otherwise? There may be, as Schmitter provocatively suggested, a multiplicity of alternative agents that could function far better as channels of political representation.2 This book looks back in time, to the turn of the 1970s, when new social movements were just emerging in West European societies. In many countries, the year 1968 signalled the beginning of a new era in the relationship between civil society and political parties, marking a fundamental watershed in the history of political representation. Since the ‘participatory revolution’, unconventional forms of political participation – defined as such because they go beyond the realm of conventional, institutional politics3 – have spread in different cycles and levels of intensity through various Western countries. These types of participation can be understood as ‘making a political contribution in other forms’, including strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations, squatting, boycotting, petitioning, and similar actions addressed towards some status quo.4 If nowadays the presence of bottom-up political mobilizations independent of partisan organizations is taken for granted, when they emerged in the late 1960s they were a new phenomenon in terms of their size, visibility, permanence and action repertoires. New channels of political participation and political involvement thus began forming, as ‘the political’ extended to other spheres of civil society outside the party channels. The ‘church-party’ – as Duverger defined the mass parties that developed in Europe after the Second World War5 – started to lose its potential to attract new followers. A process of ‘political de-confessionalization’ and ‘ongoing secularization’ started taking place,6 as political parties were suddenly confronted with the emergence and multiplication of new ‘places’ and new ‘subjects’ of politics, and no longer constituted the only channels for the political socialization and mobilization of the citizens. This book traces what happened in the perception of political parties at the moment when these new political collective

2 | Party Responses to Social Movements

actors emerged, taking away their monopoly over political representation. What happens when, as the Italian Communist party journal Rinascita put it in 1976, ‘the party is no longer everything’.7 The emergence and proliferation of autonomous and critical mobilizations from the late 1960s constituted a point of no return in the history of political parties as representative agents, as it challenged established parties in their traditional role as mediators between citizens and political systems, and marked the loss of their previously monopolistic position.8 Social movements introduced specific innovations that were reflected in particular challenges to established parties. How did political parties handle these challenges? Do we find evidence of party change as a response to the emergence of social movements? Did political parties try to link to social movement groups, and what factors explain the possible variation in the parties’ responses?

The Objectives of the Book Most party scholars would agree on the importance of political parties for democracy, just as most social movement scholars would agree on the importance of social movements for democracy. In both cases, their importance for democracy is justified in terms of the functions that both of these political actors perform as channels of political mobilization, symbolic representation, and political expression of the citizens’ interests. However, despite the fact that both political parties and social movements act as vehicles of ‘voice’ and as networks of political linkage, the two fields of research, on parties and on social movements, have remained separate overall. Party scholars have largely neglected social movements. Even though their emergence at the turn of the 1970s has been observed as a symptom of the inability of party organizations to maintain linkages with society, research on the actual implications of the emergence of social movements and the ways in which political parties responded to their demands is scarce. Kitschelt’s observation that ‘too little attention has been given to the adapting strategies of the political parties in responding to the challenges and proliferations of those [social movements] organizations’9 still appears valid over twenty-five years later. The literature on social movements, in turn, is very movement-centric,10 even though social movement scholars have long stressed the importance of mediation by political institutions. It is through the responses they received from political institutions that William Gamson defined social movements as successful, in his seminal 1975 book.11 Moreover, the presence of institutional allies that supported social movements was considered as one of the key independent variables that constituted the so-

Introduction

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3

cial movements’ political opportunity structure for the ‘political process’ approach.12 Nonetheless, little attention has thus far been devoted to the actual mechanisms that connect movements to political parties and party change. Overall, a division of labour exists between scholars of political parties and scholars of social movements, which seems to reflect the typical division between political scientists and political sociologists: the former focusing on political institutions, the latter on societal and extra-institutional phenomena.13 Such a compartmentalization of research fields does little justice, however, to the complexity of social reality. Here, not only are the boundaries between institutionalized and non-institutionalized politics ‘fuzzy and permeable’,14 but political parties and social movements unavoidably – and perhaps most often inadvertently – interact with one another, establishing dynamics of reactions and counter-reactions.15 As Tarrow has noted, ‘the study of social movements will remain fatally incomplete unless scholars become more sensitive to the relations between protest and politics’.16 The same applies, I believe, for the study of political parties. As Goldstone argued, just as analysts of social movements have come to realize that they cannot study movements independently of their political context, including the operations of normal political institutions, we maintain that the reverse is also true. . . . [W]e believe that one cannot understand the normal, institutionalized workings of courts, legislatures, executives, or parties without understanding their intimate and ongoing shaping by social movements.17 As a consequence of this regrettable lack of mutual engagement between party and social movement research, and despite the growing calls to bridge the boundaries between institutional and non-institutional politics,18 the adaptation processes that parties have undertaken in responding to the challenges made by social movements remain empirically and theoretically unexplored. This book takes an interdisciplinary approach that connects the literature on political parties with the literature on social movements, thus aiming to avoid the social movement centrism of the latter and the social movement denial of the former. The objectives are to fill this gap in the literature by providing empirical evidence of the way in which political parties have adapted to the emergence of social movements and to open new theoretical perspectives on the underlying connections between politics within and outside institutions. In doing so, this book also addresses normative and more contemporary concerns. In a recent study, Rosanvallon referred to social movements as

4 | Party Responses to Social Movements

‘counter-powers’ that help to reinforce electoral democracy.19 By addressing protest and mistrust through ‘the power of surveillance’, they play an important role in political systems. However, the mere presence of critical counter-powers is not likely to improve the quality of political systems without a corresponding process of adaptation by the political institutions.20 Observing the dynamics by which political parties have responded to the emergence of social movements, therefore, the book also allows for a better understanding of the representative potential of political parties, discussing the actual capacity of political parties to listen, interpret, absorb and possibly anchor political conflict.

The Research Context This book focuses on party responses to movements in Italy and the Netherlands, two countries with political systems whose prevailing strategies in dealing with challengers have been considered as being in opposition to each other. Social movement scholars have underlined that these strategies rest upon an ‘auto-dynamic reproduction across centuries’,21 and may be either exclusive or inclusive according to the different countries’ political traditions. In general terms, ‘the more egalitarian, liberal, inclusive, and individualistic the political culture, the less the opposition should be antagonistic and confrontational’.22 Exclusive strategies are considered to apply in the Italian political culture, whereas inclusive strategies are considered to apply in the Netherlands. Dutch political culture, in particular because of its tradition of ‘accommodation politics’, based on the search for consensus and the integration of challenging minorities,23 means that the Netherlands are considered among those countries with the most open opportunity structures for social movements in Western Europe. Consequently, the very character of the challengers also differed considerably in the two national contexts, especially with regard to their relationship with state authorities. The exclusive strategies adopted by the Italian state facing a society in protest, and its repression, favoured not only the increasing detachment of political activism from the institutional structures most closely connected to the state (political parties, first of all), but also their increasing radicalization over the course of the 1970s. Political protest and political violence became for many activists an ‘existential condition’ legitimized by an unfair, and in turn violent, state.24 Revelli discusses the emergence of a number of ‘anti-systemic movements’ from the late 1960s, which were ‘constituted around a logic of absolute distance from the state’.25 Such a pronounced distance from institutional politics did not take place

Introduction

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5

in the Netherlands, where movements were rather more inclined to search for alliances with institutional actors.26 Overall, in contrast with the Italian social movements, the Dutch movements maintained a far less ideological character overall, their repertoires of action were mostly of a more moderate type, and they were considerably more policy-oriented, with important implications in terms of the potential political negotiability of their goals. Despite the significant differences, until the end of the 1960s the two countries had experienced decades of exceptional stability, both at the level of individual parties and at the level of party systems. Indeed, both were referred to as model cases of Lipset and Rokkan’s ‘freezing hypothesis’,27 due to the low levels of electoral volatility and the loyal constituencies that political parties managed to maintain over the decades after the Second World War. In Italy, the two main political forces that had emerged after the war, the Christian Democratic party (DC) and the Italian Communist party (PCI), won more than 60 per cent of the popular vote combined for over forty years.28 Besides channelling the great majority of the Italian electorate, both the Communist and the Christian Democratic parties managed to create strong partisan affiliation and identity in Italian society in the tradition of the mass parties, maintaining a web of collateral organizations within society, which functioned as further channels for political communication, membership recruitment, political influence and socialization.29 In the Netherlands, the party system was ‘frozen’ around five main political parties: the Catholic party (KVP), the Dutch Reformed party (CHU), the Calvinists party (ARP), the Socialist party (PvdA) and the Liberal party (VVD) – the so-called ‘Big Five’ of Dutch politics30 – which together held about 90 per cent of the seats in the parliament.31 Whereas in the Italian case what characterized voting was determined mainly by ideological and political attachment to either one of the two main political streams in the country (the Catholic or the Communist), what determined electoral choices in the Netherlands mainly derived from the very social structure of society. Indeed, the ‘Big Five’, formed at the end of the nineteenth century, reflected the internal division of the country into five extremely cohesive subcultures (or ‘pillars’),32 constituting their political manifestations and promoting their specific group interests. The voting behaviour of the Dutch electorate was therefore defined as ‘structured voting’, and political elections as ‘hardly competitions at all’.33 Under these conditions, in both countries, political parties maintained agendas that society mostly followed. Parties were accustomed to the fact that politics took place in parliaments, by and through party channels. The late 1960s marked a fundamental watershed. Indeed, along with the changes in the electoral sentiments of the Dutch and Italian voters, political involve-

6 | Party Responses to Social Movements

ment through the independent channels confronted political parties with new and unexpected challenges. In order achieve a thorough understanding of how the established parties perceived and adapted to the ‘participatory revolution’ of the new social movements, the book focuses on the responses of the two largest traditional parties of the Italian and the Dutch party systems: the Communist party (PCI) and the Christian Democratic party (DC) in Italy, and the Socialist party (PvdA) and the Christian Democratic party (CDA) in the Netherlands.34 As party responses do not take place in a vacuum, in the following sections I will discuss in more detail some of the characteristics of the Italian and the Dutch party systems, including patterns of government coalitions and the presence of smaller political parties on the far left of the two-party systems. Both are expected to play a role in the parties’ thinking vis-à vis social movements.

Centre-Dominant Coalition Governments In Italy and the Netherlands, centre parties played a pivotal role in government coalitions throughout the whole period under investigation, and beyond. In both countries, all governing majorities that formed from the end of the Second World War until the early 1990s always contained the centre. For the case of Italy, the perception of the PCI as an anti-system party prevented the Communists from taking part in any of the governments of the Republic. The reason why the PCI was excluded from the governmental arena despite the high level of consensus it held resides in the party’s economic and international positions, and in particular in its ideological and financial links with the Soviet Union. Overall, as neither of the parties located at the two extremes of the party system spectrums (i.e. the PCI and the post-fascist MSI) were considered as possible coalition partners for the government, the political market available to the DC was restricted to the moderate and minor parties to its left and right, despite the high number of parties present in the Italian parliament.35 Interestingly, however, it was during the 1970s, precisely when the Italian party system had reached its maximum level of polarization (the PCI obtained only 4.4 per cent less than the DC in the national political elections of 1976), that a small opening seemed to appear in the dynamics of the Italian ‘blocked democracy’.36 This occurred as the consequence of a reciprocal politics of attention by two key leaders of the PCI and the DC: Enrico Berlinguer, secretary of the PCI from 1972 to 1984; and Aldo Moro, DC secretary from 1959 to 1964 and highly influential in the party during the

Introduction

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7

1970s. This strategy of mutual consideration did not lead to any political outcomes. The only significant attempt by the PCI to come closer to the sphere of government came in its external support (by abstaining in a vote on the government’s formation) for the government from 1976 to 1979. The ‘national solidarity governments’, thus labelled in response to the economic crisis and the severe social conflicts the country was undergoing, had few of the characteristics of the politics of attention that Moro and Berlinguer had formulated.37 The kidnapping and subsequent murder of Moro by the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) ended the possibility of this formula forever. The DC now sought to open up towards the Socialist party instead. In the 1980s the Italian ‘blocked democracy’ seemed to be even more blocked, and for two main reasons. On the one hand, the premises for the PCI’s exclusion from the government sphere seemed to garner less support than previously, following the experience of the ‘national solidarity government’, the Communists’ split from the Soviet Union in 1976, Eurocommunism, and not least, the thaw in relations between the two power blocs that began in the 1980s. On the other hand, the government coalitions that followed one another during the 1980s respected an almost fixed formula where the same five parties (DC, PSI, PLI, PRI, PSDI) held governmental responsibilities. It seemed, as Craveri argued, that the Italian party system was unable to provide further formulas or perspectives.38 What kept the confessional parties playing a pivotal role in the Netherlands was instead a reciprocal veto on government participation by the Socialist PvdA and the Liberal VVD parties – a veto that remained in place up until the 1994 political elections. Yet, a fundamental difference from the government composition in Italy was the participation in the governments of the main left-wing party. The PvdA took part in the governing coalitions regularly: between 1945 and 1958, the PvdA participated in six governments successively, along with the KVP, four of them under the Socialist prime minister Willem Drees. After fifteen years in opposition, with the exception of a short-lived government in 1965, the PvdA once again entered government in 1973 with two new left-wing parties, PPR and D’66, and the support of the religious KVP and ARP, forming what remained known as ‘the most progressive government the Netherlands ever had’. During the 1980s, the PvdA re-entered the government in 1981, this time with the CDA and D’66, but only for a short time due to coalition disagreements on economic policies and the labour sector. Overall, if the confessional parties held government responsibilities throughout the whole period under consideration, the two parties on the left had to maintain a difficult equilibrium between promoting themselves

8 | Party Responses to Social Movements

as open to a changing and more demanding society whilst at the same time appearing as a reliable (potential, for the PCI) government ally.

Smaller Parties of the Left An additional challenge to the left-wing parties at the turn of the 1970s was the emergence of a number of new political parties, which were situated at the very left of their party systems. In Italy, these may not have been ‘relevant’ when counting the number of effective parties; however, they were important as they challenged the supremacy of the PCI on the left, and, most importantly for the purpose of this book, they were the parties that most closely connected to the wave of protest in the 1970s. Indeed, the New Left wave was manifested not only in extra-parliamentary groups but also within factional shifts in the old institutional parties. An early precursor of this trend was the PSIUP, a split-off from the Socialist party (PSI), which formed in 1964 in opposition to Socialist participation in a government with the Christian Democrats. As Tarrow has argued, ‘well before a new extra parliamentary left was dreamt of the PSIUP extended the boundaries of the parliamentary left to new themes and forms of action’.39 In the 1970s, the PSIUP became a bridge-party, linking the new movements that had emerged with the institutional political arena. Apart from the PSIUP, the two other parties that emerged in the early 1970s that were most closely associated with the political families of the social movements were the Partito Radicale (PR) and Democrazia Proletaria (DP), which both participated for the first time in the national parliamentary elections of 1976. The PR had existed since 1963 and functioned, especially in the first half of the 1970s, as a conglomerate of single-issue movements focusing on civil liberties: divorce, state secularism, abortion, liberalization of drugs, and feminism.40 The DP instead emerged from the institutionalization processes of the main extra-parliamentary groups in the country (primarily the Lotta Continua and Avanguardia Operaia), the group around the newspaper Il Manifesto, and the Partito di Unità Proletaria (PdUP). In the 1980s, with the process of the internal structuration and institutionalization of the ecology movement, the Green party also emerged, taking part in local elections first and, from 1987, in national ones. As mentioned above, the electoral success of these parties remained limited, as they never managed to overcome the 2.5 per cent threshold. That said, their presence in the electoral arena, if not individually, did cumulatively challenge the PCI at its very left wing, and also constituted a challenge at the very level of political representation, as they actually managed to give voice to those sectors of mobilized society that the PCI did not seem willing or able to provide with adequate responses.

Introduction

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9

Compared to Italy, small parties had a greater tradition of political representation within the Dutch party system. The Pacifistisch Socialistische Partij (PSP), for example, the party that most strongly supported the social movements and their actions throughout the 1970s and 1980s, emerged after a split from the Socialist party in 1957. A second small party supporting the social movements in the Netherlands was the Politieke Partij Radikalen (PPR), which emerged as a split-off from the Catholic party in 1968, and which shared with the PSP the recognition of the importance of extraparliamentary actions and the willingness to maintain a close relationship with the social movements. The main themes that this party focused on in the 1970s were democratization, peace, and environmental awareness. Like the PSP, the PPR participated actively in movement initiatives and established independent ‘action centres’ in various cities to promote and encourage participation from below. A third small party that supported social movements in the 1970s was the Dutch Communist party. This opening to social movements took place after 1977, according to Voerman, Brinkman and Freriks,41 as a consequence of its electoral defeat in the parliamentary elections of the same year. From a traditional ‘old left’ party that centred its political actions predominantly on old ‘materialist’ themes, the CPN gradually opened up to the movements and their social actions. These parties obtained higher levels of electoral support compared to the Italian ones, in particular until the mid-1970s. Hence, the challenge from the left for the Dutch Socialists was higher than that faced by the Italian Communists. Yet, from the political elections of 1977 onwards, their electoral strength diminished, as a possible consequence of the fact that the PvdA, as I will show in Chapter 3, had then taken on board many of the movements’ demands.

The Added Value of Comparative Research As previously mentioned, the emergence of social movements removed the monopoly over political representation from political parties, challenging them in their traditional role as mediators between citizens and political systems. However, the extent and the nature of any challenge varies considerably, depending on the individual party in question. The differences across the four selected parties are expected to shape their responses to movements to a significant degree. Strategic considerations as well as considerations based on the cultural identity of the individual party are likely to influence the way in which social movement claims are dealt with (see Chapter 1). The case selection reflects the choice for opposite cases following a paired comparison research strategy, which allows for in-depth analysis and main-

10 | Party Responses to Social Movements

taining the added value of comparison while at the same time providing analytical leverage for identifying factors that both facilitate and constrain party adaptation trajectories.42 Indeed, the selected parties, the two main political parties of the left (PCI and PvdA) and the centre (DC and CDA) of the two party systems under examination, are at opposite poles with regard to their affinity to the social movement family. The former have been recognized as the ‘natural allies’ of the new social movements,43 while the latter, because of their greater ideological distance from social movements, are (implicitly) considered as their natural adversaries. Demonstrating a bias towards ‘positive’ social movements’ outcomes, social movement scholars have tended to concentrate on left-wing political parties,44 while very little research has been undertaken on the way in which more distant party families have adapted and interpreted social movements. Extending the analysis to the centre parties not only broadens the empirical scope of the analysis, but it also provides analytical leverage for a more thoughtful understanding of the causal dynamics that link social movements to party change.

Political Parties, Social Movements and Political Change: A Parsimonious Approach According to Sartori’s classic definition of political parties, a party is ‘any political group that presents at elections, and is capable of placing through elections, candidates for public office’.45 Contesting elections is the key feature that distinguishes parties from other organizations. This is a first major difference from social movements, which engage in oppositional interactions with power holders, expressing political or cultural conflict outside of political institutions. Social movements emerge and fundamentally operate within the extra-institutional sphere (‘outside of the polity as such, and beyond the boundaries of action defined by European mass parties’, in the words of Goodwin and Jasper).46 Indeed, movements rarely access the institutional domain if not as spokespersons for a given set of interests in consultation bodies,47 or as movement representatives that are co-opted in turn by parties. Parties, instead, operate in both the extra-institutional and institutional spheres. According to Bartolini and Mair, parties perform a dual set of functions: the ‘representative functions’, including the functions of articulation, interest aggregation and formulation of public policies; and the ‘institutional functions’, including election campaigning, the recruitment of leaders and candidates, and the organization of parliament and government.48 The two actors’ different positions vis-à-vis the institutional environment is likely to have a significant impact on the way in which they behave and interact with

Introduction

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one another. As March and Olsen remind us,49 there are several ways in which institutions shape and constrain political action: through rules, norms, the repertoire of practices, routines, and expectations. Operating within the institutional environment, political parties need to manage a whole plethora of complex problems that social movements do not need to address from their external position. At the same time, parties and social movements may well share relevant similarities. First, they are both actors in the process of democratic representation.50 Parties are, again in Sartori’s words, ‘the institutional channel through which and by which the citizens are represented in modern democracies’.51 Social movements can be seen as their non-institutional counterpart. They voice interests and identities, formulate new demands that remain unanswered by institutional actors and promote them in the public sphere, contributing to a redefinition of the cultural and political setting in which their mobilization takes place.52 The fact that movements and parties are actors in the broader processes of citizen representation implies that despite being distinct realities they coexist, albeit under different constraints, in the same social environment. Indeed, not only has research underlined the frequent occurrence of patterns of ‘cumulative involvement’, that is activists taking part in both partisan and social movement activities,53 but also the very demands raised by one of the two actors may match, more or less closely, with those raised by the other. Some have advanced the idea that the expansion of the activities of social movements and the alleged crisis of parties are inversely related, and that social movements are rivals to political parties and to the system of political representation based on elections.54 However, as I will argue in the final chapter of this book, they may also operate in a complementary fashion, the former giving voice to latent citizens’ demands, and the latter incorporating these demands into their political and institutional agendas. In turn, the fact that the two actors do not necessarily act in opposition to each other has important methodological implications, in particular with regard to the (in)appropriateness of establishing a clear-cut causal relationship between movement demands and partisan change. Several authors have underlined the methodological challenges and the complexity of observing patterns of exchange and interaction between different actors in a conflict system.55 Bosi and Giugni, for example, referred to a ‘dilemma of causal attribution’, which refers ‘to the difficulty of determining whether or not a particular change . . . is actually the result of protest activities or a social movement. The central question is how we can be sure that the relevant change we are attributing to a movement would not, in fact, have occurred without the movement’.56 Similarly, Tarrow argued that ‘although it is possi-

12 | Party Responses to Social Movements

ble to correlate the timing of outcomes with the timing of movement efforts, it is not easy to identify particular movement actions as the cause of specific outcomes’.57 Indeed, movements often coincide with other societal changes, including political changes of a more conventional type. They cannot be considered as the only motors influencing parties’ behaviour, as the social environment itself is able to influence the positions of political parties (also) independently of the movements. When discussing party responses to social movements we should therefore bear in mind that political parties themselves operate and are nurtured by the same societal stimuli and changes in the political environment to which social movements respond through their mobilizations and protest actions. More broadly, as noted by McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly, environmental stimuli may be interpreted by a plurality of actors: we see challengers, members and subjects simultaneously responding to change processes and to each other’s actions as they seek to make sense of their situations and to fashion lines of action based on their interpretations of reality.58 For these reasons, the drawing of a clear-cut linear model where the actions of movement lead to partisan change is beyond the purpose of this book. Rather, in a more parsimonious way, it seeks to identify the diffusion of discourse from one area to another, observing the way in which parties make sense of emergent societal claims by introducing changes that match the direction of social movements.

Defining Party Responses to Social Movements In this book, I purposely adopt a wide operational definition of party responses to social movements, in order to allow the identification of a broad range of options that are available to parties as they face the emergence of movements. Party responses to social movements are identified as ‘changes introduced by political parties around the major themes raised by social movements’. Such a broad operationalization allows the observation not only of the positive and more explicit responses to social movements, but also of the minor adaptive changes that parties introduce following the emergence of movements. Moreover, it allows for an analysis of the changes taking place within parties independently from their intention to establish any specific organizational tie with the movements. As Gamson and later Kriesi and his colleagues underlined,59 political institutions may respond to social movements without actually supporting them, as the result of the movements’ ‘sensitizing impact’ upon the political and the public arenas. Overall, thinking of party responses to movements in terms of degrees of change

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allows for a more thorough understanding of the way in which parties have adapted to their emergence and of the manifest and latent interconnections (and tensions) that exist between the two political actors. Of course, parties may change along a variety of dimensions.60 Gamson identified two dimensions of the success of social movements according to the responses of political institutions. The first dimension, ‘new advantages’, refers to concessions made by political authorities on social movement themes by introducing specific legislation that benefits their interests. The second dimension, ‘acceptance’, refers to institutional actors considering a social movement as a valid spokesperson for a particular set of interests. The latter dimension involves the recognition of the social movement by the political authorities and its access to the political system through the processes of consultation, negotiation, formal recognition, or inclusion.61 Drawing on Gamson’s twofold typology but adapting its logic from the perspective of social movements to the perspective of political parties, two main dimensions to party responses to social movements are identified: a discursive dimension and an organizational one. Party responses along the discursive dimension refer to changes in the parties’ political discourse that are beneficial to the social movements’ overall goals. Were movement ideas, themes and language debated within the parties, and incorporated by them? The analysis of the parties’ position with respect to the themes that the single movements were raising before and after their emergence allowed me to observe if parties adapted their political discourses to the movements’ demands, introducing new elements to or changing the way they frame specific themes. Organizational responses, on the other hand, indicate situations where political parties enact changes in their organizational environments that reflect movement influence. These can take several forms. Parties may decide to give positions of status, authority or influence within their organizational structure to the leaders or members of social movements, as with the co-optation of movement activists onto party electoral lists. Or they may establish contacts with social movement actors, and join forces for the purposes of broader umbrella organizations, protest actions, seminars, meetings, and so on. Other forms of organizational responses by parties may refer to the establishment of (previously absent) internal workgroups, offices or sections formed within the party organization with the aim of discussing the themes raised by the social movements. Noticeably, the establishment of such groups does not imply the establishment of contacts with social movement actors, nor the intention of the political party to endorse the activities of a social movement. Yet, it is an organizational response that is in the direction of the movement’s goals, as it implies an organizational effort aimed at deepening the issues raised by

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social movements within the parties themselves, although it may take place independently of (or even despite) partisan support.

Sources and Methods of Analysis Previous research investigating the presence of organizational contacts between political parties and social movements found no evidence of formal connections between the two actors. Social movements, in Poguntke’s reading, have preferred formal independence from parties.62 Poguntke’s work has the fundamental merit of comparing the ways in which political parties interact with different organizational environments. Parties, he found, are more likely to connect to societal organizations with a defined organizational profile and routinized and hierarchical structures, such as collateral or membership organizations, than to unstable and informal networks like social movements.63 However, limiting the observation of linkages between parties and social movements solely to the establishment of formal ties excludes a whole range of potential ways in which the two actors may interact, cooperate, and influence each other. In order to shed light on these possible connections, a deeper empirical analysis as well as a broader array of sources is required. The study relies on a variety of different primary data sources retrieved from social movement and party archives, documentation centres, and public libraries, including documents and texts produced by social movement groups and parties, national and party newspapers, leaflets, reports, internal organizational documents, and interviews with select party and movement activists. For the analysis of the discursive adaptation of parties, I examined their election manifestos, congress acts, written statements by party leaders and executive organs, booklets and reports published on the themes at the core of the movements, as well as party journals.64 Noticeably, these sources show the different ‘faces’ of parties: election manifestos and statements form their official image and reflect the final outcome of their elaboration; party journals and (to a more limited extent) congress acts present a greater variety of standpoints and offer the opportunity to access the internal discussions taking place around the social movement themes. The type of analysis conducted on these documents is mainly qualitative. Indeed, the specific inquiry of this book, which concerns not only the question of whether parties have responded to the emerging movements, but also the processes and underlying motives behind their patterns of responses, required an in-depth content analysis that quantitative measures alone are not able to provide. Moreover,

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a qualitative analysis allowed for a greater appreciation of the parties’ discourses, such as the transformation of their language and terminology. Only for the electoral manifestos of the four parties was a quantitative content analysis carried out, counting the number of positive frequencies whereby the single issues raised by the social movements were referred to across the different documents over time.65 Based on saliency theory, which maintains that political parties emphasize in their manifestos those issues that they most support when competing in elections,66 I expected to find variations in the number of references to social movement themes over time. As for the identification of the core themes of social movements, hard choices had to be made. Indeed, as the analysis of the four selected movements presented in Chapter 1 clearly shows, movements are highly heterogeneous. According to the ‘consensual definition’,67 they should be understood primarily as ‘networks of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organisations’.68 Hence, they are not unitary actors nor organizations, but each broadly defined movement should be understood as a plurality of groups and actors, where no group can be considered as the spokesperson or representative of the whole movement. This plurality of groups, moreover, interacts informally, in the sense that there are no established rules on whether to interact or not, or on what form these interactions should eventually take. This implies that when dealing with movements we are actually dealing with loose, segmented and multi-headed structures, with no stable leadership and rare identifiable decision-making entities.69 Identifying the organizational boundaries of social movements is therefore not an easy task, such as deciding which groups and positions qualify as belonging to this or that movement. Moreover, as we shall see in Chapter 1, different groups have had different positions even within the same social movement. Despite recognizing the complexity and the plural and heterogeneous nature of social movements, this work considers the four social movements under investigation in their most salient and politically visible expressions. In other words, for each of the four movements I consider those groups of actors that gained the greatest political visibility in the two national contexts as the main representatives of their demands. This methodological choice has been contested,70 but was necessary in order to be able to distinguish between the plethora of demands addressed by the various movement groups, and those that political parties were more likely to be challenged by. A large quantity of archival material was consulted. Party archives turned out to be a highly relevant source for collecting evidence on the parties’ organizational adaptation, and, especially, on the extent to which parties and movement groups interacted with each other for the organization of joint initiatives. The analysis will also reveal cases in which regular written cor-

16 | Party Responses to Social Movements

respondence between movement groups and parties took place. Yet, not all archives offered the same amount of information. The archive of the Italian Christian Democratic party (DC), in particular, possibly due to the splintering of the DC into several parties in the early 1990s, provided only a very limited amount of material in comparison to the remarkable amount found on social movements in the archives of other parties, which offers substantive evidence of these parties’ concerns for discussing and finding means to interpret the new waves of political engagement. Finally, semi-structured interviews with a select number of party and social movement activists were conducted to provide supplementary information, give life to textual sources, and address the problem of the limits on access to some archival records.

Outline of the Book The first chapter of the book describes the extra-institutional contexts at the turn of the 1970s in the two countries under consideration, and critically discusses the extant literature on the intersections between social movements and political parties. After discussing how uncertainty at the party system level has increasingly come to prevail after decades of institutional stability in both countries’ national contexts, the chapter advances a set of theoretical propositions that attempts to explain what factors determine different trajectories in the parties’ adaptation to social movements. The core argument I will make is that parties do not change as the consequence of electoral-type incentives only, as vote-maximization approaches to party change seem to suggest. I suggest that a broader range of factors should be considered when trying to make sense of party adaptation processes, including the pathdependent role of partisan identity, the mobilization of party members in social movement activities, and the political goals and repertoire of actions of the individual social movements. The second part of the chapter introduces the main social movements under consideration in this work, four of which proved to be particularly relevant, attracting the highest number of participants: the ecology and the feminist movements in Italy, and the ecology and the peace movements in the Netherlands. All four opposed political parties for their hierarchical decision-making structures and remoteness from the citizenry, and proposed new issues to be introduced onto the political agenda. Having explained the historical evolution of these mobilizations, the chapter clarifies their specific goals and discusses the individual movements’ attitudes towards representative institutions. Chapters 2 and 3 analyse the way in which parties on the left and parties in the centre have responded to the largest mobilizations in Italy and

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the Netherlands. Chapter 2 examines responses by the parties of the left. The emergence of independent mobilizations constituted a major challenge to both parties, which had previously controlled political mobilization and socialization on the left. New voices and demands were on the rise, and the traditional left parties, in a context of growing instability, had to find a way to channel them. While both parties introduced changes at the discursive and organizational levels, and established interorganizational connections with social movement groups, they differed from each other with respect to the intensity of their responses to the movements. The comparison of the two parties with each other sheds light on the importance of intra-party organizational structures: more open and democratic party structures allow for greater internal turnover, which also positively influences the way in which political parties respond to the movements. The final part of the chapter discusses the crucial dilemma faced by the PCI and the PvdA of how to maintain a balance between their institutional functions and their openness to the demands of social movements. Both parties ended up playing down the latter and favouring the former. Chapter 3 turns to the movements’ adversaries. By shedding light on the various forms of responses that the Italian and the Dutch conservative parties have made after the emergence of social movements, this chapter shows that this neglected area of research is worth investigating further. Both parties experienced electoral blows from the 1970s onwards, pointing to the growing detachment of the parties’ traditional constituencies. However, the confessional parties were more distant from the social movements than their left-wing counterparts, which suggests a lower degree of responsiveness from these parties. Interestingly though, the analysis shows that the confessional parties did not remain impermeable to mobilizations. They increased their attention on the main issues raised by social movements, and in some cases they also established organizational linkages with social movement groups. The chapter supports the idea that political parties can provide beneficial responses to social movements without actually endorsing their core goals. Hence, the chapter revolves around the notion of the ‘sensitizing impact’ of social movements, first introduced by Kriesi and colleagues, namely ‘the possibility that a movement will provoke a sensitizing of some social actor in the political arena or in the public arena, which goes in the direction of the goals of the movement’.71 Even when support is marginal or lacking, mobilizations are able to solicit internal discussion within parties and bring about greater attention to the issues they raise. In the Conclusion chapter, I summarize the empirical findings of the book and evaluate the major factors explaining party responses to movements across the cases observed. The chapter also opens up a broader reflection on

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the relational dynamics between social movements and political parties, and sheds light on the opportunities and the inherent challenges of their interaction. In agreement with Goldstone and a number of other social movement scholars, it is argued that the rigid and established boundaries between non-institutional and institutional politics should be challenged, and that social movements and political parties should be put on an equal footing as forms of citizen political engagement and citizen representation. Yet, the chapter also draws attention to the fundamentally problematic nature of the relationship between the two political actors. It is noted that the original demands of social movements will unavoidably be transformed as they are taken up by political parties. Even when supportive of movements, parties will translate their claims into the language of political institutions, leaving the movements’ activists dissatisfied. A perfect fit between the two worlds is therefore unlikely to take place, and some degree of separation between them seems inevitable.

Notes 1. G. Sartori, ‘Party Types, Organization and Functions’, West European Politics 2(1) (2005), 29. 2. P. Schmitter, ‘Parties Are Not What They Once Were’, in L. Diamond and R. Gunther (eds), Parties and Democracy (London: John Hopkins University Press, 2001), 68–89. 3. S.H. Barnes and M. Kaase, Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (London: Sage, 1979). 4. J.S. Fishkin, The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), 47. 5. M. Duverger, Les partis politiques (Paris: Libraire Armand Colin, 1951). 6. R.B. Andeweg, ‘De burger in de Nederlandse politiek’, in R.B. Andeweg, A. Hoogeewerf and J.J.A. Thomassen (eds), Politiek in Nederland (Alphen aan den Rijn: Samsom, 1989), 85; A. Parisi and G. Pasquino, ‘Changes in Italian Electoral Behaviour: The Relationship between Parties and Voters’, West European Politics 2(3) (1979), 33. 7. Round table, ‘Il partito del 1976’, in Rinascita, January 1976, nr. 1. 8. R. Katz, ‘Party as Linkage: A Vestigial Function?’, European Journal of Political Research 18(1) (1990), 143–61. 9. H.P. Kitschelt, ‘New Social Movements and the Decline of Party Organisation’, in R.J. Dalton and M. Kuechler (eds), Challenging the Political Order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), 179. 10. H. Kriesi, ‘Party Systems, Electoral Systems, and Social Movements’, in D. Della Porta and M. Diani (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 667–80; L. Bosi, M. Giugni and K. Uba, ‘The Consequences of Social Movements: Taking Stock and Looking Forward’, in L. Bosi, M.

Introduction

11. 12.

13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

27.

28.

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Giugni and K. Uba (eds), The Consequences of Social Movements (Cambrige: Cambridge University Press), 3–37. W. Gamson, The Strategy of Social Protest (Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press, 1975). H. Kriesi, R. Koopmans, J.W. Duyvendak and M. Giugni, New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995); S. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). See D. McAdam and K. Kloos, Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Post-War America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 9. J.A. Goldstone, ‘Introduction: Bridging Institutionalized and Noninstitutionalized Politics’, in J.A. Goldstone (ed.), State, Parties and Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 2. M. Heaney and F. Rojas, Party in the Street: The Antiwar and the Democratic Party after 9/11 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). S. Tarrow, Strangers at the Gates: Movements and States in Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 159. Goldstone, ‘Introduction’, 2. See also A.N. Constain and A.S. McFarland (eds), Social Movements and American Political Institutions: People, Passions, and Power (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998); D. McAdam, S. Tarrow and C. Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). P. Rosanvallon, Counter-Democracy: Politics in an Age of Distrust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). L. Diamond and L. Morlino, Assessing the Quality of Democracy (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). H. Kriesi, ‘The Political Opportunity Structure of the Dutch Peace Movement’, West European Politics 12(3) (1989), 295–312; Kriesi et al., New Social Movements in Western Europe, 34. D. Della Porta and M. Diani, Social Movements: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2006), 206. A. Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). D. Della Porta, Movimenti Collettivi e Sistema Politico in Italia: 1969–1995 (Rome: Laterza, 1996), 68. M. Revelli, ‘Movimenti sociali e spazio politico’, in F. Barbagallo (ed.), Storia dell’Italia repubblicana: II. La trasformazione dell’Italia: sviluppo e squilibri: 2. Istituzioni, movimenti, culture (Turin: Einaudi, 1995, 385–476). H.A.B. van der Heijden, ‘Van kleinschalig utopisme naar postgiro activisme? De Milieubeweging 1970–1990’, in H.A.B. van der Heijden, J.W. Duyvendak, R. Koopmans and L.L. Wijmans (eds), Tussen verbeelding en macht: 25 jaar nieuwe sociale bewegingen in Nederland (Amsterdam: Sua, 1992). S.M. Lipset and S. Rokkan, ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction’, in S.M. Lipset and S. Rokkan (eds), Party Systems and Voter Alignments (New York: Free Press, 1967). See Appendix 1 for data on election outcomes and government coalitions.

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29. G. Sani, ‘The Italian Electorate in the Mid-1970s: Beyond Tradition?’, in H.R. Penniman (ed.), Italy at the Polls 1976: The Parliamentary Elections of 1976 (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1977), 81–122; Parisi and Pasquino, ‘Changes in Italian Electorate Behaviour’. For the DC, this was a later development. In the first years after its establishment (1943), the party not only lacked organizational structures at the societal level (relying on the web of clerical organizations and religious parishes throughout the country for the mobilization of the electorate), but it also seemed inattentive to creating ties with its social base – see M. Caciagli, ‘Il resistibile declino della Democrazia cristiana’, in G. Pasquino (ed.), Il sistema politico italiano (Bari: Laterza, 1992), 101–27. From the early 1950s, under the leadership of the new party secretary Amintore Fanfani, the DC initiated a permanent mobilization of its social base, setting up a centralized organization with widespread locally based organizational structures, and stimulated member participation by increasing party activities between elections. With this organizational development the DC took on many of the characteristics traditionally attributed to mass integration parties – see P. Farneti, Il sistema dei partiti in Italia 1946–1979 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1983). 30. Andeweg, ‘De burger’, 87. 31. H. Daalder, ‘The Dutch Party System: From Segmentation to Polarization – And Then?’, in H. Daalder (ed.), Party Systems in Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium (London: Frances Pinter, 1987), 193–284. 32. See A. Lijphart, Verzuiling, pacificatie en kentering in de Nederlandse politiek (Amsterdam: De Bussy, 1968). 33. G.A. Irwin and J.J.M. van Holsteyn, ‘Decline of the Structured Model of Electoral Competition’, in H. Daalder and G.A. Irwin (eds), Politics in the Netherlands: How Much Change? (London: Frank Cass, 1989), 22. 34. The CDA was officially formed in June 1980 from the merger of the three confessional parties, ARP, CHU and KVP. Although the three parties continued to operate separately during the 1970s, a number of formal and informal initiatives had, since the early 1970s, bound the three confessional parties together in a pattern of increasingly closer cooperation. These include, for example, the presentation of common election manifestos (1971 and 1977), common lists of candidates (1974 local and 1977 national elections), and frequent meetings of MPs, leaders and delegates of the three confessional parties to discuss specific policy fields and release reports under the CDA label. Hence, if the CDA cannot formally be considered as a political party before the 1980s, it can nevertheless be seen as a federal political organization with its own positions, ideological disputes and political strategies. For these reasons, I consider the three confessional parties during the 1970s as part of a unitary federal political organization. On the process leading to the establishment of the CDA, see H.M.T.D. Ten Napel, Een eigen weg: De totstandkoming van het CDA (1952–1980) (Leiden: Drukkerij FSW, 1992). 35. Farneti, Il sistema dei partiti in Italia, 64–65. 36. G. Galli, Dal bipartitismo imperfetto alla possibile alternativa (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1966). 37. P. Scoppola, ‘Parlamento e governo da De Gasperi a Moro’, in L. Violante (ed.), Storia d’Italia. Annali 17, Il parlamento (Turin: Einaudi, 2001), 359.

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38. P. Craveri, ‘Dopo l’unità nazionale la crisi del sistema dei partiti’, in S. Colarizi, P. Craveri, S. Pons and G. Quagliariello (eds), Gli anni ottanta come storia (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2004), 11–29. 39. S. Tarrow, Democracy and Disorder, Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965–1975 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 159. 40. Y. Ergas, ‘1968–79: Feminism in the Italian Party System: Women’s Politics in a Decade of Turmoil’, Comparative Politics 14(3) (1982), 252–75. 41. G. Voerman, M. Brinkman and B. Freriks, ‘Klein Links en de nieuwe sociale bewegingen’, Jaarboek Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Partijen (Groningen: DNPP, 1990), 163–88. 42. S. Tarrow, ‘The Strategy of Paired Comparison: Toward a Theory of Practice’, Comparative Political Studies 43(2) (2010), 230–59. 43. Kriesi, ‘The Political Opportunity Structure’, 295–312; R. Koopmans, Democracy from Below: New Social Movements and the Political System in West Germany (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995). 44. See J.W. Duyvendak, The Power of Politics: New Social Movements in France (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995); Kriesi et al., New Social Movements in Western Europe. 45. G. Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework of Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 63. 46. J. Goodwin and J.M. Jasper (eds), Rethinking Social Movements: Structure, Meaning, and Emotion (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 137. 47. Dutch ecology groups, for example, were regularly consulted on environmental matters by the Ministry for Public Health and Environmental Care. See van der Heijden, ‘Van kleinschalig utopisme’, 81. 48. S. Bartolini and P. Mair, ‘Challenges to Contemporary Political Parties’, in L. Diamond and R. Gunther (eds), Political Parties and Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 327–43. 49. J.G. March and J.P. Olsen, ‘Elaborating the “New Institutionalism”’, in R.A.W. Rhodes, S. Binder and B. Rockman (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984). 50. H.P. Kitschelt, The Transformation of European Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); H.P. Kitschelt, ‘Landscapes of Political Interest Intermediation: Social Movements, Interest Groups, and Parties in the Early Twenty-First Century’, in P. Ibarra (ed.), Social Movements and Democracy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 83–103. 51. G. Sartori, ‘The Sociology of Parties: A Critical Review’, in P. Mair (ed.), The West European Party System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 471. 52. Kriesi, ‘Party Systems, Electoral Systems, and Social Movements’, 667–80; Della Porta and Diani, Social Movements. 53. H. Kriesi, Political Mobilization and Social Change: The Dutch Case in Comparative Perspective (Aldershot: Avebury, 1993); D. Della Porta, ‘Movimenti sociali e partiti politici: un gioco a somma zero?’, Rassegna italiana di sociologia 48(3) (2007), 503–32. Beckwith uses the notion of ‘double militancy’, that is ‘activists being located in two political venues with participatory, collective identity and ideological commitment to both’ – K. Beckwith, ‘Beyond Compare? Women’s Movements in Comparative Perspective’, European Journal of Political Research 37(4) (2000), 442.

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54. J.C. Jenkins and B. Klandermans, The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative Perspectives on States and Social Movements (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 1995), 5. 55. D. Rucht, ‘Movement Allies, Adversaries, and Third Parties’, in D.A. Snow, S.A. Soule and H. Kriesi (eds), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004), 197–216; E. Amenta, N. Caren, E. Chiarello and Y. Su, ‘The Political Consequences of Social Movements’, Annual Review of Sociology 36(1) (2010), 287–307. 56. L. Bosi and M. Giugni, ‘The Effect of Protest Movements: Theoretical and Methodological Issues’, in K. Fahlenbrach, M. Klimke, J. Scharloth and L. Wong (eds), The ‘Establishment’ Responds: Power, Politics, and Protest since 1945 (New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 22. 57. Tarrow, Power in Movement, 216. 58. McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly, Dynamics of Contention, 46. 59. Gamson, The Strategy of Social Protest; and later, Kriesi et al., New Social Movements in Western Europe. 60. R.S. Katz and P. Mair, ‘Introduction: The Cross-National Study of Party Organization’, in R.S. Katz and P. Mair (eds), How Parties Organize: Change and Adaptation in Party Organizations in Western Democracies (London: Sage, 1994, 1–20); R. Harmel and K. Janda, ‘An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change’, Journal of Theoretical Politics 6(3) (1994), 259–87; R. Harmel, ‘Party Organizational Change: Competing Explanations?’, in K.R. Luther and F. Müller-Rommel (eds), Political Parties in the New Europe: Political and Analytical Challenges (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 119–42. 61. Gamson, The Strategy of Social Protest. 62. T. Poguntke, ‘Parties without Firm Social Roots? Party Organizational Linkage’, in K.R. Luther and F. Muller-Rommel (eds), Political Parties in the New Europe: Political and Analytical Challenges (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 54–56. 63. T. Poguntke, ‘Political Parties and Other Organizations’, in R.S. Katz and W. Crotty (eds), Handbook of Party Politics (London: Sage Publications, 2006), 396–405. 64. A list of consulted documents is included in the bibliography under Primary Sources. 65. See Appendix 2. 66. D. Robertson, A Theory of Party Competition (London: J. Wiley, 1976); I. Budge, H.D. Klingemann and J. Bara, Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors and Governments 1945–1998 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 67. C. Rootes, ‘Environmental Movements’, in D.A. Snow, S.A. Soule and H. Kriesi (eds), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 610. 68. M. Diani, Green Networks: A Structural Analysis of the Italian Environmental Movement (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), 5. 69. Della Porta and Diani, Social Movements. 70. See M. Diani, ‘The Concept of Social Movements’, in K. Nash (ed.), Readings in Contemporary Political Sociology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 155–76, for a critical assessment of the way in which the boundaries of social movements are dealt with in the literature. The author is critical of the tendency of social movement scholars to identify a single group or organization as ‘the movement’ as a whole. 71. Kriesi et al., New Social Movements in Western Europe, 211.

Chapter 1

Politics beyond Parties The late 1960s were years of major transformations in West European party systems. This happened, as it has been often noted, as soon as Lipset and Rokkan were putting the finishing touches to their analysis of the stability of these systems. Their influential ‘freezing hypothesis’ held that the configuration of West European party systems of the 1960s still reflected the 1920s cleavage structures. ‘The party alternatives,’ they argued, ‘and in remarkably many cases the party organizations, are older than the majorities of the national electorates’.1 Indeed, until the 1970s, ‘the first priority of social scientists concerned with the development of political parties and party systems [was] to explain the absence of change’.2 From the late 1960s, many countries experienced a shift from a situation of stability and tranquillity to a situation of sudden change. The Danish ‘earthquake elections’ of 1973 are traditionally known among political scientists as the most paradigmatic illustration of this turning point in Western democracies. Denmark, one of the countries that inspired Lipset and Rokkan’s book, experienced a massive shift in voting behaviour, as the number of parties represented in the Folketing doubled from five to ten, the vote share of the four traditional parties decreased from 84 per cent to 58 per cent, and a new protest party entered the parliament for the first time, with over 15 per cent of the votes. The Danish case was exceptional but not isolated, as party system stability was fractured in other countries such as Norway, the United Kingdom, Belgium and France. The two countries under consideration in this book, Italy and the Netherlands, therefore, do not stand as an insulated phenomenon. They should be understood in the context of broader changes in the social structure that led, among other things, to a waning sense of identification between particular groups of citizens and the political parties that formerly represented their interests. The first part of the chapter will set the context of this study, explaining the ongoing changes in the meaning and the intensity of citizens’ political commitment to political parties in both countries and the formation of new channels of political engagement. The second part of the chapter critically reviews the state of the art on the relationship between social movements and political parties and advances a framework that attempts to explain what

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factors determine whether (and the extent to which) party responses to social movements take place. Finally, the main characteristics of the four social movements under consideration in this work are presented.

Uncertainty on the Rise From the late 1960s, a number of external events challenged the representational strength of the traditional parties and affected, to a different extent and timing, the stability of the Italian and the Dutch party systems described earlier in the Introduction. Modernization processes, rising educational levels, urbanization, greater levels of social and territorial mobility, and the emergence of a new post-war generation laid the basis for what Andeweg called a ‘political de-confessionalization’.3 For the case of Italy, the shape of the party system remained fundamentally unaltered until the 1980s, and volatility levels show no major quantitative shifts across parties. The symptoms of a more unstable environment for parties lie rather in qualitative changes, as scholars pointed to a different and new relationship between citizens and political parties in Italy. In a study conducted at the end of the 1970s, Parisi and Pasquino observed that if vote distribution had not fundamentally changed, ‘the meaning and the intensity of political commitment have qualitatively transformed themselves and have become more instrumental, specialized and secular’.4 From the beginning of the 1970s, they argued, an increasing number of Italian voters, and young voters especially, no longer expressed a ‘vote of belonging’, as was traditional for the Italian electorate, but rather a ‘vote of opinion’. In Italy, it was not until the 1980s that the first quantifiable shifts for the traditional political parties, both at the level of their organizational strength and their pervasiveness, and the level of their traditional electoral stability could be noticed. The first elections to indicate trends of dealignment with the traditional political parties were in 1979, when the PCI decreased its electoral share by four percentage points, and electoral volatility and the emergence of a ‘protest vote’ were for the first time acknowledged.5 In the Netherlands, instead, the abrupt transformation of the social structure led to immediate quantifiable changes at the level of the political institutions. As ‘electoral behaviour was almost an exact product of the pillarization matrix’,6 as soon as the pillars started to crumble, so did voting behaviour. Indeed, the outcomes of the political elections of 1967 indicate a crucial breaking point in the history of Dutch political parties. The most remarkable changes that the 1967 elections revealed were the decline of the two largest traditional parties – eight seats were lost by the Catholic party (KVP), six

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seats by the Socialist party (PvdA), and the growth of two recently emerged parties (seven seats for the newly created D’66, and a further four seats for the populist Farmers’ party). The 1967 political elections did not, moreover, remain an electorally isolated phenomenon, as the trend of electoral decline of the traditional parties continued in the political elections that followed. In 1971, the KVP lost a further seven seats; the two other confessional parties – the Dutch Reformed (CHU) and the Calvinists (ARP) – lost two seats each, while the PvdA regained only two of the six seats lost in 1967. D’66 continued its electoral success gaining four more seats, and it was again a newcomer party, DS’70, born from a right-wing split-off from the PvdA, that obtained the most remarkable success by gaining eight parliamentary seats. In the 1972 political elections, while the PvdA recovered its traditional pre-1967 electoral share, the three confessional parties continued to decline (the KVP lost a further eight seats, the ARP lost one seat, and the CHU three seats). Many of the KVP’s votes went to the Radical party (PPR), which formed in 1970 from a leftist split-off from the KVP, and which gained, in its second electoral competition since its emergence, five seats, arriving at a total of seven seats of the one hundred and fifty seats composing the Dutch parliament. Certainly, symptoms of the decline of the confessional and Socialist parties had appeared earlier, but the changes seen in the 1967 elections signalled a point of no return. ‘From the end of the 1960s Dutch voters went adrift’, it was argued.7 Political parties in the Netherlands could finally experience either gains or losses, and parliamentary elections turned into true competitions.8 Not only were the traditional political institutions in Italy and the Netherlands shaken by changes in the quality and the intensity of citizens’ partisan involvement. Simultaneously to these processes of reconfiguration of the societal and political structures, both countries experienced a shift towards greater political involvement of the citizenry. From the mid-1960s, a different conception of politics was gaining ground, which could, or should, in this new perspective, exist in all spheres of society, above and beyond political parties. The symbolic benchmark of the beginning of the ‘participatory revolution’9 in Western Europe is the Parisian students’ mobilization of 1968. Since then, unconventional forms of political participation – defined as such because they go beyond the realm of conventional, institutional politics, have spread in different cycles and levels of intensity through various Western countries. ‘People were everywhere,’ a 1970s activist told me, ‘and everywhere they – we – wanted to discuss about politics’.10 People met to read books on political theory, read Marx, or discuss the most recent political debates. To the vertical structures of representative politics and political parties, to democracy intended as delegation, these groups opposed participatory and direct conceptions of democracy.

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Social movements are often referred to as ‘mobilizations from below’ or expressions of ‘grassroots politics’, as they emerge in the majority of cases independently of political parties and their traditional policy agendas, offering alternative forms of political participation and expression. This was a novelty for both national contexts. After the war, Italian political parties had managed to permeate civil society in such a way as to prevent the formation of an autonomous sector. Pizzorno argued that associative life in Italy after the Second World War mainly formed around partisan identifications. Political parties were the main referent each time collective actions took place, and they were central to the promotion of political engagement.11 In an important study on the Italian cycle of protest, Sidney Tarrow underlined the exceptional pervasiveness and strength of the Italian political parties, a situation that persisted until the end of the 1960s in the form of a ‘monopoly’ on political representation. Before 1968, Tarrow argued, representation outside of party channels was ‘stifled’, and no emerging group managed to remain independent from parties.12 The shift from a civil society, defined as ‘structured, controlled and organized’,13 to an autonomous one therefore constituted a crucial breakpoint, which symbolically started with the student movement, but the implications of which constituted a point of return in the history of political representation of the Italian political parties. The obituary of political parties was soon signed. This critical moment was observed by the Italian political scientist Giovanni Pasquino, and led him to argue that Italian parties ‘no longer adequately perform their fundamental functions’, as they seemed unable to keep in touch with a society in transformation.14 The proliferation and mobilization of groups calling for a different way of handling political issues, for more direct involvement and participation in political decision making, and raising new demands not covered in the parties’ agendas, were perceived as a symptom of the fact that political parties were in crisis. In the Netherlands too, the decades after the Second World War were characterized by a very limited degree of political mobilization, and the few forms of mobilization that did take place occurred under the control of political elites. The literature acknowledges how the collective actions that took place in the Netherlands before the 1960s were mainly organized by the Dutch Communist party and its ancillary organizations, and mainly attracted the participation of the Communist constituency.15 From the 1960s, collective action emerged abruptly, with the proliferation of different extra-parliamentary groups, moved by a sense of dissatisfaction with respect to the functioning of the political system, critical towards the system of delegation implicit in representative democracies, with a strong participatory spirit and with new demands. In the scholarly literature, much has been written

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about an abrupt shift of the Dutch citizenry from decades of non-activity, or ‘passification’,16 to political activity. Like Italy, these mobilizations and the speed and extent of their diffusion constituted a novelty in the social and political scenario of the time. It was the very novelty of the 1960s movements, it was suggested, that led the literature to depict the shift from a passive to an active society as too clear-cut.17 Whether the intensity of the mobilizations grew more or less abruptly, it is however unanimously acknowledged that the number of collective actions increased substantially in the 1960s.

New Challengers and the Traditional Parties The emergence of social movements took the traditional parties by surprise. Yet, interaction between social movements and political parties is all but a novel phenomenon. In his seminal work on political parties, Maurice Duverger underlined that most of the political parties that formed after the turn of the twentieth century – that is after the enlargement of suffrage – were ‘externally created’ through the intervention of extra-parliamentary organizations.18 ‘Many parties begin life as movements’, as Tarrow noted.19 Indeed, the very origin of those that would become the most important party families of the twentieth century in Western Europe (i.e. the Socialists, the Liberals and the confessional parties), could not be understood without reference to the diverse movements and pressure groups, trade unions, workers and churches, which became involved in institutionalized campaigns and shaped the configuration of party systems throughout the region.20 According to Müller, the fundamental characteristic of the relationship between political parties and these ‘older’ movements is a dynamic of political integration between those social realities previously excluded from the parliamentary arena and the system of representative institutions.21 Similarly, Hanagan maintained that in the early twentieth century most social movements institutionalized gaining routine access to formal politics.22 Certainly, the relationship between parties and movements in the 1970s was inherently different from that at the turn of the twentieth century. The characteristics of the ‘new’ social movements were different with respect to the ‘old’ ones, as was the degree of organizational development of political parties as social and institutional actors. Unlike the older movements that focused on materialist issues concerning welfare (re)distribution,23 the 1970s social movements politicized and raised a range of new ‘post-material’ issues relating to symbolic resources and goods, such as women’s liberation, the environment and peace.24 Unlike the former movements, the new social movements developed alternative conceptions of democracy. To democracy

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intended as delegation and representation, they opposed models of direct and participatory democracy.25 Moreover, the new social movements were also characterized by their criticism of the institutionalized political system, and their efforts to maintain distance from political parties in order to preserve their autonomy.26 As Goodwin and Jaspers argued, ‘the 1960s movements are seen as operating outside of the polity as such, and beyond the boundaries of action defined by European mass parties’.27 Finally, the more advanced organizational development of political systems and political parties themselves also shaped the differences in the party–movement relationship between the early twentieth century and the period from the late 1960s onwards. The emergence of the ‘new’ social movements took place in consolidated political systems with fully developed and institutionalized political parties. The parties’ development, the unquestioned status they had achieved as key intermediary actors between the citizens and the state, and their permeation of the social sphere led scholars to note that until the 1960s they maintained a monopoly over political representation, mobilization and the formation of political identities.28 The emergence and proliferation of autonomous and critical social movements from the late 1960s, therefore, constituted a point of no return in the history of political parties as representative agents, as it marked the loss of their previously monopolistic position.29 Thus, despite being an older phenomenon, the social movements in the 1970s were something very new, and they challenged the representative institutions in fundamentally new ways. Scholars of both parties and social movements have acknowledged the reading of the emergence of social movements in the 1970s as a symptom of the weakening representative capacities of political parties. However, as we shall see in the following sections, not only is empirical research on the actual implications of the social movements for parties scarce, but the adaptation processes that parties have undertaken in order to respond to the emergence of these movements are also largely under-theorized.

Mutual Relationships, Separate Academic Disciplines There is general agreement in the literature that social movements, whether they do so intentionally or not, interact with power holders as a normal part of their activities. By mobilizing for social, cultural and political change, social movements confront, compete or cooperate with the broader political environment they live in. In turn, the political environment fundamentally shapes social movements’ activities. The recognition in social movement studies that social movements by no means emerged to the same extent or

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in the same form in all Western societies, and that in some countries they succeeded in having an impact on the institutional policy agenda whereas in others they were less successful, led scholars to ask questions about factors that could be taken as explanations for this extremely diversified pattern of outcomes.30 Scholars of the ‘political process approach’, in particular, stressed the importance of considering the structural political settings and the social and political conditions of the countries in which social movements are located.31 By suggesting the role of the institutional environment in shaping social movements’ outcomes, including, for instance, institutional actors carrying issues addressed by social movements into the institutional arena,32 the literature on social movements recognizes the existence of an underlying relationship between the two political actors.33 As Goldstone argues, ‘the actors, the fate and the structures of political parties and social movements are closely intertwined’.34 Yet, while recognizing the existence of such a relationship, the actual processes that lead parties to introduce social movements’ themes in their political discourse have been largely ignored. The importance of the interactions between the political context, the strategies of collective action, and their outcomes are also highlighted by those scholars focusing on the impact of social movements on policy change. The latter have observed how political effects of social movements take place at various stages of the policy-making process (i.e. agenda setting, legislation, implementation),35 and how different rules of the game apply at the different stages of the process.36 However, even when observing social movements’ impact on political agenda setting, admittedly the lowest stage of policy-making activity and the furthest removed from policy impact, empirical studies assessing movement effects on policies have mostly treated parties in parliament as unitary actors, focusing on congress hearings, bills and legislation while leaving single individual parties out of the policymaking picture.37 More recently, a number of scholars have empirically investigated the relationship between social movements and political parties, emphasizing the historical processes and mechanisms that linked the ability of social movements to stimulate changes both at the level of the individual political parties and at the party system level. In particular, McAdam and Kloos have shown that 1970s social movements in the United States have stimulated important reforms in the Democratic and the Republican parties.38 Movements’ claims entered the Democratic conventions and stimulated internal organizational changes, including binding primaries. These changes, in turn, pulled the Democratic party away from the centre and determined a greater polarization of the party system. Republicans quickly adapted. This remains to my knowledge one of the few in-depth empirical analyses investigating the way

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in which language, ideology and practices of social movements worked their way into party politics. Crossing the boundaries between the two fields of research to a decidedly minor degree, party scholars have largely overlooked social movements. This is not to say that party scholars have entirely ignored social movements. First, party scholars did underline the fundamental novelty of such massive political engagement taking place in society through new and independent channels of political mobilization and political socialization in the history of political parties and therefore the history of political representation.39 We find social movements mentioned in the party literature among those ‘fever warnings’ indicating that something has gone wrong with political parties’ traditional and fundamental function of political representation. In the 1990s, the literature looked at the emergence of the new populist parties as the most recent of these indicators, pointing to a crisis of the traditional parties. In the late 1970s, as mentioned before, various scholars pointed to the emergence of social movements as an indicator of a downward pattern in the political parties’ representational capacity. However, even when pointing to the emergence of social movements as a symptom of crisis, the actual implications for political parties and the way in which they responded to social movements has received surprisingly little attention. The social movement phenomenon in the party literature remains, therefore, empirically understudied in terms of the concrete adaptation processes that parties may have undertaken in order to respond to social movements’ challenges. The one most relevant exception of a study observing the relationship between political parties and social movements from the perspective of the former is the work of Poguntke.40 Analysing the linkages that political parties have created with three main organizational environments present in civil society (i.e. collateral organizations, membership organizations and new social movements), Poguntke found that social movements are those organizational environments that parties link to the least. Due to their lack of internal formalization and to their jealousy over their autonomy, he excluded the institution of formal ties with social movements. Moreover, he also excludes the formation of informal ties, with the exception of those phases of the movements’ highest protest visibility. ‘While good relations to new social movements may be a significant (though highly contingent) electoral asset in phases of high protest mobilization, it is of little value in quiet times’, Poguntke argued.41 In a later contribution, he drew important conclusions concerning the relationship between parties and movements: The most eye-catching finding is . . . that the entire new social movement sector in its variable incarnations has not connected at

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all to the West European party systems. In other words, the entire spectrum of the protest movements from the 1970s onwards, ranging from the anti-nuclear and ecological movements to the peace movements and anti-globalization activists, have not connected formally with political parties.42 From the comparison of these two literatures as presented so far, a puzzling and challenging picture emerges. Not only do the literatures on social movements and political parties rarely talk to each other, but more interestingly they also seem to disagree in the conclusions they draw on the relationship existing between political parties and social movements. The literature that focuses on social movements sees political parties as crucial channels for determining social movements’ internal and external evolutionary processes, implying processes of mutual interpenetration between the two political actors. The literature on political parties largely overlooks the emergence of the new social movements, and when it does look empirically at how parties relate to social movements it concludes that few linkages are established with them by political parties. As agued in the Introduction, a more in-depth empirical analysis of what has happened within parties since the social movements’ emergence can contribute to solving this puzzle, and shed light on the plurality of ways in which political parties have been influenced by the social movements, and the perception and the strategies that parties have adopted. Not only is empirical research on the actual implications of the social movements for parties scarce, but the adaptation processes that parties have undertaken in order to respond to the emergence of these movements are also largely under-theorized. Hereafter, I advance a set of theoretical propositions that attempt to explain what accounts for the different trajectories of partisan adaptation to the movements’ challenges. In other words, I will try to explore the conditions that explain why and when parties change in response to social movements.

Party Change as a Response to Movements According to the analysis of Robert Rohrschneider,43 social movements challenge political parties at the programmatic and organizational levels. At the programmatic level, they challenge parties bringing new issues onto the social scene and into political debate, such as the environment, gender difference and peace. These issues were located outside the traditional economic spheres that political parties used to cover. At the organizational level, they challenge the established parties, calling for greater involvement, a partici-

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patory style of politics and more horizontal decision-making procedures. As discussed earlier, the empirical aim of this book is to answer the questions about how political parties whose identity and political culture was formed based on older social and political cleavages, have adapted to the social movements’ challenges. Theoretically, the book aims to bring together the underlying factors accounting for the way in which partisan responses take place. The core argument that will be made is that parties do not only change as the consequence of electoral incentives, as vote-maximization approaches to party change would suggest. The proposed framework includes a broader range of factors to be considered. Before discussing the factors that are expected to shape political parties’ responses to social movements across the particular cases observed, it is important to raise some preliminary considerations on the issue of party change and its underlying motives as they are discussed in the literature on political parties and organizational studies. Although they do not address the relationship between parties and movements specifically, but rather focus on dynamics of party change in response to external stimuli more generally, these arguments will help to narrow the analytical scope of the proposed framework. I will list these issues below, and discuss them in more detail in the sections that follow: (a) Political parties do not just respond to the social environment, but are purposeful actors who have internal logics and mechanisms shaping if and how they will respond to changes in the external environment; (b) Political parties, as organizations, are change resistant. When they react, it is under the pressure of shocks. What sort of external stimulus can determine the perception of a shock for political parties? As we will see, some scholars underline how party change occurs mainly as the consequence of shocks that affect their competitive dimension, whereas others stress the multidimensionality of party goals, and how party change takes place when a shock hits what the parties themselves consider their primary goals.

The Multiple Logics of Party Change Overall, political parties are described by scholars as conservative and purposeful organizations. Like all organizations that reached a certain degree of institutionalization, they have a natural propensity to preserve the status quo and to resist change.44 As argued by Harmel and Janda, given that parties are basically conservative organizations, a stimulus would presumably have to catch the attention of someone in the party who would see fit to argue that adaptive change would be needed in order for the party ‘to do better’ in some way than it

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would otherwise do. In most instances, such an argument would have to contend with a wall of resistance to change, the result being delayed, limited change if any at all.45 Which specific incentives are necessary in order to trigger party change is a more contested issue among scholars. Since Anthony Downs’s hypothesis, the vision of party change that has been underlined most frequently is that political parties respond to the pressure of electoral competition. As Downs famously put it, ‘parties formulate policies to win elections rather than win elections to formulate policies’.46 The argument is similar to that raised in organizational studies: competition heightens the degree of uncertainty, which organizations aim first and foremost to lower. Like firms and other organizations, political parties need to lower degrees of uncertainty in order to guarantee their organizational survival. This implies that they will employ strategies that are beneficial for the maintenance of their organization, which, in representative democracies, translates into the search for stable and durable electoral support. Hence, it is in the parties’ competitive domain – i.e. the drive to gain office – that the literature on political parties has found the strongest explanatory factor accounting for party behaviour and change. As Schlesinger observed, ‘the competitive conditions surrounding an office define how much actual organizational activity is worth the effort’.47 A number of scholars challenged the electoral maximization assumption underlying party behaviour. Kitschelt, for example, complained about the fact that ‘the theoretical literature on parties defines the role of parties exclusively in terms of vote maximization . . . , [whereas] parties are more than electoral machines’.48 The study by Harmel and Janda provided an important contribution to the analysis of party change beyond vote seeking strategic calculations. Beyond maximizing electoral outcomes, political parties have multiple goals that differ according to their individual priorities: parties may want to seek office, launch specific policies, or offer internal representation to their members. Following this alternative approach, parties will be more likely to change when an external stimulus affects their performance on what is considered a primary goal.49 Hence, parties attribute political relevance to external stimuli, and engage in different types and degrees of responses towards those stimuli based on multiple factors, which relate not only to their external competitive environment but also to their own internal priorities, political identities and objectives. The decision on which political demands to pursue is path dependent, as it is based on a cultural and ideological understanding that constitutes the character and the very nature of a political party.50 This individual understanding shapes the goals that political parties intend to pursue, and their adaptive strategies with respect to external stimuli.

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Individual explanations for processes of change within political parties have received less attention than environmental ones. Alan Ware argues that the most common tendency in the literature is to perceive political parties as train drivers: parties are similar to train drivers on many subway systems, in that they do not actually drive their trains. Driving is done automatically under specific rules and conditions, regulated by a computer system, whilst the driver is there to perform either routine minor tasks or ones necessary when particular kinds of emergency arise; for the most part he or she can do little, nor is there much for her or him to do.51 These approaches have the merit of shifting the explanation of party change from factors pertaining to the parties’ competitive environments to factors that pertain to the parties’ individual natures and to their historical and cultural legacies. This seems a more suitable approach for the present analysis. According to Mair,52 we see changes in parties when they lose control, since they become unable ‘to mobilize as effectively as before or to control the political agenda so effectively as before. . . . To the extent that the party system can control what becomes politically relevant,’ he argued, ‘then to that extent these social changes need not effect a transformation of the party system’. Indeed, what is politically relevant for one party can be irrelevant for the other. Political parties act differently depending on the context, their goals and priorities, and not least, they act differently depending on the nature of the external challenges they are facing. Moreover, the very particular characteristics of social movements make them a target group of limited electoral significance for political parties. First, differently to interest groups, which are permanent associational organizations with routinized and hierarchical internal structures,53 movements are instead characterized by a cyclical and unstable nature (see Introduction). As Poguntke argued, they do not constitute a stable reservoir of voters for political parties to rely on.54 Second, as the previously discussed phenomenon of ‘cumulative involvement’ in both social movement and party activities shows, participation in a social movement does not necessarily move activists away from previous party affiliations and loyalties, and does not necessarily cause any particular shock for the electoral performances of political parties. Not referring to social movements specifically, but more broadly to the role of ‘non-electoral organizations’ in determining changes in political parties, Mair argued that ‘we know little about mass awareness or of attentiveness to cues that may derive independently from non-electoral mobilizations; we know little about the outcomes of situations in which loyalty to a party may

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pull the citizen one way while loyalty to a non-electoral organization pulls the other way’.55 Indeed, we know little, as the plurality of actors and individuals taking part in social movement activities does not constitute a specific or delimited sector of interests of the electorate, as opposed for instance to trade unions, or to business or economic interest groups. For these reasons, explanations based on the logic of electoral maximization alone are likely to say little of the underlying factors that shape the parties’ attitude to movements. Political parties may want to catch more votes and may want to enlarge their constituencies beyond their traditional realm, but they will not compete to gain a sector of the electorate that is too distant from their own cultural or political identity. As Key puts it, ‘gains by an appeal to one group may be offset by losses from another group antagonistic to the first’.56 Of course, this is not to say that attracting movement activists may not constitute an incentive for parties. When the party–movement political identities are close, in particular, electoral incentives are indeed expected to further stimulate processes of adaptive change. However, whether or not the logic of electoral competition can be considered as a factor accounting for the relationship between political parties and social movements depends in turn on the constitutive characteristics of the actors themselves, their identities and political culture.

Beyond Vote Maximizing Explanations The translation process, as Sartori argued, ‘calls for translators’, and the process for handling that translation has to be considered in its own right.57 Similar to Easton’s gatekeepers, who ‘accept, convert and reject various demands from the system’s members’,58 political parties filter desires and demands from the social environment through an internal process of conversion, consisting of the elaboration, mediation and translation of initial political demands into a final output. This study observes processes of partisan interpretation and translation through the analytical perspective of three main elements: party identity, degree of party members’ involvement in social movements’ activities, and the individual characteristics of the social movement. The importance of maintaining internal coherence with respect to the individual cultural identity has often been underlined in organizational studies as among the most primary goals of organizations: ‘In ordinary times the organization is likely to engage in incremental changes that basically converge with its core identity and cohere with its constitutive logic’.59 Mechanisms for seeking identity coherence have also been recognized in individuals. Cognitive psychology and information-processing studies show how individuals filter external information through their personal ‘schemata’

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of knowledge and on the basis of their perceptions of their own identity and reality, tending to reject counter-schematic and incoherent information.60 Similarly, in political parties cultural identity is observed as functioning as a crucial filter that discerns from among all theoretically possible actions those that are politically appropriate for the organization.61 Party identity is therefore a crucial explanatory factor for party behaviour in response to external stimuli. Indeed, the internal understanding of its own identity and the importance of maintaining it explains the variations in the relevance that different parties attribute to different social phenomena. Hence, for a party to be more likely to respond to a social movement, a certain degree of overlap must exist between the party’s identity and that of the social movement. Political parties will be more likely to be responsive to those movements that have a cultural and ideological understanding of politics closer to their own, and whose themes do not contradict their traditional political discourses.62 In sum, the maintenance of identity coherence in a political party is a crucial factor influencing its behaviour and rationale. The second element that is expected to influence the way in which parties react to movements relates to the degree to which party members become involved in social movements or around social movements’ demands. Scholars underlined how mobilization of party members in movements or around social movements’ demands may heighten the polarity of problems within parties, and lead to parties’ attitudinal changes.63 Members’ involvement in social movement themes can take various forms. As previously argued, party members may take part in social movement activities (through ‘cumulative involvement’) or they may simply sympathize with a social movement’s themes of mobilization, and pressure for change from within the party (through internal mobilization). The greater the involvement of party members in the activities of the social movement, or the greater their involvement in the themes that the social movement has raised, the more likely it is that political parties will adapt to internal pressures and respond to social movement demands. Of course, the party floor needs to be open to discussion and initiatives for this condition to hold. Finally, the parties’ strategic actions with respect to their evaluation of the different political demands are dependent of those that Sjöblom labelled as the ‘strategic attributes of political demands’.64 How parties manage external pressures is determined not only by the individual characteristics of the actor responding, but also, and intuitively, by the individual characteristics of the actor stimulating such process. As Kriesi et al. underline, ‘when political allies want to support unconventional political action, they have different patterns of behaviour depending on the type of movement’.65 Hence, the individual nature of the social movement also needs to be taken into account.

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In the remaining part of this chapter, I will provide a detailed overview of the four movements that this study focuses on.

The Challengers: Who They Are, What They Want and How They Relate to Parties The feminist and the ecology movements in Italy, and the ecology and the peace movements in the Netherlands, are commonly considered as the numerically most significant social movements that emerged in the two countries under consideration.66 Before presenting and discussing the main characteristics of these four social movements, emphasizing the way in which they brought attention to new themes, their life cycle, as well as their attitude towards representative politics, I present below some definitional issues related to social movements. First, relevant differences within the single movements exist. The unitary actor assumption, already debatable in the case of parties,67 is out of the question in the case of social movements. As anticipated in the Introduction, movements have nothing of the stability of an organization and are characterized first by their plurality: of individuals, groups, positions, and action repertoires. Indeed, there has often been disagreement within single movements over which group should be allowed the title of ‘ecologist’, ‘feminist’, or ‘peace movement activist’, and it is not infrequent to encounter specific movements labelled in the plural, such as ‘feminisms’ or ‘ecologisms’. Intra-movement disputes have been a regular feature of the four selected movements, as well as of movements more broadly.68 Second, social movements entail an expressive dimension, and seek to be conceived of as more than policy-oriented actors. Scholars have often observed how movements produce systems of collective identity, alternative interpretations of society, and transformations in the cultural spheres.69 While recognizing the complex, multidimensional and heterogeneous nature of social movements, this work considers social movements in their most salient and politically visible expressions. As we shall see in the following paragraphs, the four selected movements, especially when they will become more visible, share the fact that they addressed political institutions for specific, identifiable and politically negotiable claims. How political parties have interpreted and translated these claims is the fundamental focus of this study.

The Italian Feminist Movement The Italian feminist movement was defined as ‘the most active women’s movement of Western Europe’.70 Although the first new feminist group, Demis-

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tificazione Autoritarismo, was formed in Milan in 1966, and small feminist collectives formed around the universities and factories of the larger cities (Milan, Padua, Rome), the starting date that the literature gives for the emergence of the Italian feminist movement is 1970.71 It was in this year that the group Rivolta Femminile (Female Revolt) published its founding manifesto, providing its own definition of feminism as ‘the first political moment of historical criticism of the family and of society’.72 In February 1971, the Movimento di Liberazione della Donna, a group linked to the Radical party, held its first meeting in Rome; another two groups, the Fronte Italiano per la Liberazione Femminile and Lotta Femminista, were also established in the same year. Like all social movements, the feminist movement was extremely widespread and diverse, it was constituted by different groups that worked mainly in small, loose and informal local-level environments.73 Increasingly over the course of the 1970s, these groups networked among each other, organizing demonstrations, petitions, protest events and congresses. The feminist movement approached the issue of women from a very different perspective than had been the case before, not only for the Italian political institutions, but also for the two previously existing women’s organizations that emerged after the Second World War, the Unione delle Donne Italiane (Union of Italian Women, UDI) affiliated to the PCI, and the Centro Italiano Femminile (Female Italian Centre, CIF), affiliated to the DC.74 Indicating the differences between those women’s organizations and the groups that emerged during the 1970s is crucial for a better understanding of the novelties that this new wave of feminism introduced in terms of a theoretical approach to women’s issues, organizational structures, and for the pattern of responses of the PCI and the DC that followed their emergence. A first fundamental difference between the two forms of women’s organizations is that the groups that formed after the 1970s were independent and autonomous of the established political parties. Both the UDI and the CIF, although formally separated from the PCI and the DC, depended upon their financial and organizational support.75 Feminist groups instead rejected linkages with political parties, both formal and informal ones, and insisted on full organizational autonomy from these structures. The issue of autonomy from the traditional representative institutions also reflects a fundamental theoretical difference between the feminist organizations of the 1970s and the previous women’s organizations. Ginsborg argues how, ‘historically, feminism formed around two main themes, the one of equality and the one of difference’.76 It can be argued that while the theme of equality characterized the efforts of the women’s organizations of the first decades after the war, the theme of difference characterized the 1970s groups. Indeed, the basic goal of the pre-1970 women’s groups, both the UDI and

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the CIF, was the improvement of women’s cultural, social and political conditions. These organizations pressured for the introduction of egalitarian legislation, for universal suffrage, for equal access to the labour market, for equal pay for equal work, and for the reform of the Family Rights Law. The feminist movement of the 1970s instead went beyond the notions of equality and women’s emancipation, introducing a more complex personal, social and cultural discourse on women, on their role in society, and on their difference and specificity. ‘Women should not be defined in relation to men. . . . Women are other with respect to men. Men are other with respect to women. Equality is the ideological attempt to subjugate women at the highest levels’77 – hence the feminist struggle for a cultural revolution that would come about through the recognition of women’s specificity and would lead to a reallocation of the value systems of society as a whole. The feminist movement is considered to be a cultural rather than a policy-oriented movement.78 It did bring up a number of issues addressing specific policy changes (divorce, the legalization of abortion, and the introduction of sex education in schools are some examples), but it aimed foremost at the development of theoretical thought on difference and on women’s liberation, intended to subvert society culturally more than politically.

Becoming a Movement A number of preconditions have been suggested as crucial to the emergence and diffusion of the Italian feminist movement. As modernization certainly laid the social and cultural foundations for a women’s consciousness to emerge, the decisive impetus for the actual emergence of a feminist movement is undoubtedly related to the participation of many women in the students’ and workers’ mobilizations at the end of the 1960s.79 This impetus occurred in two ways. On the one hand, women gained important organizational experience; they ‘had gained access to political resources hitherto unavailable: they had become part of associational networks, acquired political skills and leadership capacities’.80 On the other hand, women participating in these movements soon became frustrated as they perceived that they were considered as ‘second order activists’ by their male comrades: ‘The feminist movement discovered that what was anti-institutional was actually also institutional. . . . The whole world belonged to men, even the non-institutional one. The very world of the Comrades who struggle is an authoritarian institution to women’.81 This sense of frustration, as testified by numerous life histories,82 made women willing to create their own organizations and groups, composed of women only. A separatist practice emerged, offering an unprecedented occasion for discussing women among women in a polit-

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icized space. This led to a mixture of political and private discussions, which strongly characterized the feminist movement in the 1970s. The initial phase of the feminist movement is characterized by its orthodoxy, and by the first theoretical elaborations of feminist stances and practices. A radical critique was raised against the ‘public’ male world, and against its guiding principles of competition and hierarchy.83 The initial years of feminist activity corresponded to the most anti-institutional moment of the feminist movement. In the feminist theoretical perspective, the parliament, the state institutions, and political parties as a whole were perceived as the manifestations of the patriarchal vestiges, unrelated if not hostile to feminist ideological stances.

Figure 1.1  The cultural dimension of the feminist movement

Source: Rivista del Movimento Femminista Romano, December 1977 (Archivia, Casa Internazionale delle Donne, Rome).

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From 1974, the feminist movement’s moment of greatest visibility began. The external event determinant in giving a further impulse to the consolidation of the movement was the discussion on divorce. The referendum on the repeal of the divorce law, the first in the history of the Italian Republic, was to be held in 1974. On this issue a political debate began in the country, centred on the role of the family, and indirectly, on the perception of the role of women in Italian society. It was the first time, Giannuli argues, that a political debate saw the direct participation of such a considerable number of women.84 The 1974 referendum and the striking victory of the prodivorce front (59.3 per cent of citizens voted against the repeal of the law) strengthened the feminist movement, which had actively mobilized against the repeal, and which became at that point a visible and important reference point for many women of different social and economic backgrounds.85 This is shown clearly in the publication of a number of new journals, and by the increase in the number of actions and the more continuous contacts between the different feminist groups. We will see, moreover, how this result also constituted a heavy blow to the previously unchallenged Christian Democratic party, not only because it had overtly favoured the repeal of divorce, campaigning strongly for it, but also because many women, the bulk of the Christian Democratic constituency, did not follow the party’s voting indications. The feminist movement simultaneously widened its participants, including an increasing number of women but also, most significantly, the women of the UDI.86 The discussion around the UDI’s Congress in 1978, very much centred on the issue of the autonomy of this organization, signalling the beginning of a process that would bring this organization closer to the feminist groups and collectives and making it increasingly independent from the PCI.87 The movement’s decline, in terms of visibility, dates to the implementation of the abortion law (1978), and was as a consequence, a scholar suggested, of the fact that the major negotiable goals of the feminists had been reached.88 The movement became less visible and less politically challenging, turning its attention towards cultural or introspective issues and leaving aside goals of a political nature.89 What remained of the feminist movement’s activities of the previous decade entered in the older women’s organization, UDI, and as will be discussed in Chapter 2, in the organizational and the discursive domains of the Communist party.

From Radical to Mainstream ‘Feminism has nothing to do with institutional politics!’ This was the first, almost resentful remark made by a feminist activist that I interviewed on this

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issue. The way in which the feminist movement related to representative political institutions, however, very much followed its historical development. In the first years of the movement’s activity, the establishment of linkages with the domain of institutional politics was far from a priority. The worlds of feminism and of representative politics, therefore, were perceived by feminist activists as at two opposite poles: ‘The feminist methodology cannot be exported. All parties are dominated by men and rest upon vertical structures in which there is no space for us’.90 Moreover, feminism had nothing to do with institutional politics because its goals, during its initial phase, were cultural rather than political. Better said, and to quote the most well-known feminist slogan, for feminists ‘the cultural is political’. As Della Porta argues, ‘more than about politics, the groups of women dealt with issues such as reproduction, sexuality, interpersonal relations, and daily life’.91 If its initial years of activity corresponded to its most anti-institutional moment, the years after 1974, which saw the participation of the feminist groups in the pro-divorce and pro-abortion campaigns, forced the movement to open up to confrontation with the representative institutions. The gap between the two worlds of feminist and party politics also closed as a consequence of the widening of the movement itself, and of the growing pattern of ‘cumulative involvement’ in feminist activities and the activities of the political parties of the left, both New Left (such as the PdUP/DP and the Radical party) and the ‘old left’ Communist party. The difficulty of this sense of double belonging and loyalty, and the sense of laceration that it implied, is present in many of the internal documents and declarations of the feminist activists. Whether or not the movement should be independent of, or closely aligned with, left-wing politics became a highly discussed subject, one which emerges strongly in the feminist internal publications of those years. The greatest fear of the feminist groups was the ‘cage effect’, that is that they would lose their autonomy through a merely instrumental usage of feminist slogans by the left-wing parties, which would not correspond at all to the parties’ real understanding, let alone the real practices, of feminist principles: ‘Political parties are censoring what for the movement was crucial, and are interested instead in bringing in only the quantitative side of the movement. . . . A feminist to wheel around electoral meetings and public debates was worth her weight in gold’.92 From 1976, numerous meetings and discussions took place, both among feminists themselves and between feminists and women from the UDI and PCI concerning the linkages between the feminist movement and institutional politics. These discussions are important as they testify to the increasing reciprocal interest and opening between the feminist and the left-wing institutional world, and anticipate the pattern that characterized the rela-

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tionships between those two worlds in the 1980s. Indeed, the transformation that the feminist movement experienced afterwards, in the decline of its political visibility in the 1980s, but also in the previously mentioned transformations taking place within the UDI and the PCI, led one scholar to observe how the feminist movement entered ‘the mainstream’.93 The movement entered the mainstream of institutional politics through the changes that occurred within the women operating in the left-wing parties, as we will see in the PCI at first.

The Italian Ecology Movement The ecology movement emerged as a mass movement in Italy only in the early 1980s, a full decade later than the emergence of the feminist movement. It differed substantially from the feminist movement, and in many ways. If the feminist movement somehow perfectly represents the ideal type of social movement in terms of its heterogeneity, loose and multi-headed organizational structure, the ecologist movement was, during its height, internally highly structured and institutionalized, first under a wide umbrella organization and later as a regional and then a national political party. Another important difference resides in the nature of the issues these movements raised in terms of their political negotiability. As opposed to the feminist movement, which was characterized by the predominance of a cultural dimension, the ecology movement was instead characterized by its concreteness, by strong policy-oriented actions, and hence by more politically negotiable demands. All this relates to a final distinguishing aspect concerning the different attitudes of these two movements with respect to representative institutions. Despite the criticisms addressed to the political parties by the ecology movement, this movement did not present anti-institutional traits similar to the feminist one. Moreover, from the 1980s it constituted a group within one of the collateral organizations of the Communist party, and, as previously mentioned, eventually set up as a political party on its own. There are nonetheless at least two elements common to the feminist and the ecology movements. The first is that the development of both resulted from the general post-1968 climate. The second is that for the ecology movement too, the character of the groups that emerged after the 1970s differed consistently from previously existing environmental organizations, which in turn (like the previously mentioned case of the UDI) later became contaminated by the character of the newer ecology groups. Indeed, the main characteristic of the pre-1968 environmental organizations is that they conceived of environmental issues primarily in a narrow sense: they focused mainly on

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the protection and conservation of the natural environment and did not try to link their specific environmental goals to larger issues of socioeconomic and political reforms.94 Their forms of action were, consequently, aimed at the defence of the environment and the rationalization of behaviours with respect to specific environmental issues,95 and consisted mainly of lobbying activities directed towards single deputies and ministers.96 The first environmental organization to form in Italy at the national level was Italia Nostra (1955). Its constitutive Statute describes the aims of the organization as follows: ‘to stimulate a more attentive interest in the problems inherent to the conservation of the natural landscape, of the monuments, of the environmental character of the cities, especially in relation to the modern urbanization policies’.97 It was only from the 1970s onwards that the theoretical premises were laid for what constituted the ecology movement a decade later.

From Niche Groups to the Green Party The ecology movement emerged in the early 1980s. To trace the development of this movement, however, we must look back to the early 1970s. The first ecology groups, composed mainly of students, scientists and intellectuals, laid the basis for a new theoretical reflection on environmental issues, and constituted the original nucleus of what then constituted the ecology movement in the 1980s. Their early reflections, developed in journals and publications of limited and occasional circulation, introduced new perspectives to the environmental discourse. Most importantly, they linked, for the first time, environmental issues to the economic structures of society. These groups introduced criticisms of the capitalist notion of quantitative growth, of an economic system based on consumption, of the notion of the neutrality of science, and also raised the first doubts concerning security and the environmental compatibility of nuclear power stations.98 Yet, while environmental awareness rose considerably during the 1970s in many Western societies, and was echoed internationally with the first UN Conference on the Environment and the publication of the Limits to Growth report (1972),99 in Italy environmental issues remained the focus of a relatively small niche during the first half of the 1970s. An important impulse for the politicization of environmental issues and for the broadening of the ecologists’ social basis occurred as the consequence of two national events: the decision taken by the Italian government in 1975 to construct twenty nuclear power stations,100 and the discharge of a cloud of dioxin from a chemical factory in Seveso, close to Milan, on 10 July 1976 that polluted the surrounding territory, causing hospitalizations, evacuations, and animal murrains.101 While the Seveso accident, whose dramatic effects were

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widely covered by the national media, very much impressed Italian public opinion, the decision to construct more nuclear power stations became an opportunity to mobilize for a very heterogeneous range of activists. Nuclear energy became a field of mobilization within the broader wave of left-wing collective action of 1977. The two demonstrations that took place in Montalto di Castro (GR), where the biggest of the new power stations was being built, saw the participation of the ‘pure’ ecologists represented by the newly formed Comitato Nazionale di Controllo sulle Scelte Energetiche (CCSE, National Committee on Energy Policies),102 of activists from the older environmental organizations Italia Nostra and WWF, of the students’ movement of 1977, and of a multitude of New Left and radical left extra-parliamentary groups. The two demonstrations in Montalto di Castro were considered unsuccessful as a consequence of the heterogeneity of the protestors and the difficulties in establishing positive contacts with the local population. The heterogeneity of the ecologist political cultures that emerged so clearly in Montalto, and the general Italian situation, in those years characterized by political terrorism and institutional repression, which dampened all forms of collective action, are reasons often provided when interpreting the phase of ecologist latency from 1977 to 1980.103 However, the period from 1977 to 1980 by no means saw a standstill in the movement’s internal dynamics. First, the first national-level anti-nuclear demonstration was organized by the CCSE and by a number of other ecology groups, which gathered around thirty thousand people in Rome on 19 May 1979. Secondly, by examining the ecologist journals, the period after 1977 seems to turn out to be among the most active for the ecology groups. Most importantly, in those very years the ecologist groups prepared the field for their permanent nationwide organization, which led to the establishment of the Lega per l’Ambiente. By the beginning of the 1980s the ecology groups were considerably changed in comparison to only ten years before. The intensification of the networks of relationships between the different ecology groups led scholars to consider the Italian ecology movement as forming as a social and political actor from this point. The main factors to facilitate the increased attention in Italian society to environmental issues from the 1980s, as underlined by scholars, are the improvement of economic conditions for large sectors of the Italian population, the declining incidence of traditional issues that had previously characterized party competition in Italy (class and labour), and the general trend of de-ideologization of partisan politics. Moreover, as many of the New Left organizations that emerged during the 1970s had slowly disappeared, many of those who had previously been active in those movements transferred their political experience to the ecology movement.104 Finally, the two main branches composing the ecology movement, the older groups that

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focused on environmental protection and the political ecology groups that formed during the 1970s, which had remained separate during the previous decade, now moved closer to one another, employing similar strategies and repertoires of action, forging new alliances and engaging in common campaigns.105 These processes allowed the movement to reformulate its strategies with a higher degree of specificity and pragmatism, focusing on specific environmental goals that no longer had to be charged with symbolic references to ideological antagonism. The movement also became increasingly moderate, preferring more ‘acceptable’ repertoires of action such as petitioning, promoting referendum campaigns, organizing ‘awareness-raising’ campaigns, and monitoring and publishing information on pollution with the aim of giving environmental issues wider opportunities of access to policy processes. The main organization that formed for the purpose of fostering broader and more regular cooperation between the different ecology groups was the Lega per l’Ambiente, which became the main ecology organization in the country.106 As a consequence of this process of internal organization, stable national-level leadership developed.107 In the 1980s, the different ecology groups held a number of common national assemblies and meetings, organized common initiatives including the promotion of an anti-nuclear referendum, and later in 1989 two referenda on hunting and the use of pesticides in agriculture. As Della Porta and Andretta argued, from the 1980s the movement entered the logic and mechanisms of ‘old politics’.108 Actually, the Italian ecologists entered institutional politics directly. The most evident step towards the movement’s institutionalization was the participation of ecologists in Green lists in local-level elections. From 1980, when the first Green lists appeared in the region of Alto Adige, their number increased to 150 at the local-level elections of 1985. In 1987, the ecologists participated with the Green party in the national elections, obtaining 2.5 per cent of the national electoral share. The ecology movement of the 1980s is considered as highly pragmatic in terms of its goals. Despite a strong utopian dimension, often criticized as archaic, in particular in relation to the linking of environmental and economic issues (such as the ‘zero growth’ option), the ecologists’ demands could be translated into specific policy proposals.109 Indeed, besides the previously mentioned referendum initiatives against nuclear energy, for the introduction of greater hunting restrictions and against the use of pesticides, the ecology associations mounted important campaigns against pollution, about water, and in favour of lead-free petrol. As we will see, these demands found space on the political platforms of both the political parties observed in this work, to various degrees.

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A Movement with an Institutional Vocation Differently from the feminist movement and the wave of collective mobilization that emerged at the end of the 1960s, the ecology movement was not characterized by aversion to the representative institutions. Ecology groups were among the first to align themselves with the ‘red’ political culture and tradition. This issue was discussed as early as 1971 in an editorial of one of the first ecology journals: if ecology had to have a colour, this would be red.110 Demonstrating the importance of reaffirming the political orientation of the movement, several references were made to this original article in later ecologist publications during the 1970s.111 Of course, different shades of ‘red’ existed in Italy during the 1970s. The first nucleus of the ecology movement was formed by personalities affiliated to both the institutional red of the Communist party, and to the red of the smaller parties on the PCI’s left. The two traditions merged their environmental initiatives in 1980, forming the Lega per l’Ambiente within the main collateral organization of the Italian Communist party, the Associazione Ricreativa Culturale Italiana (hereafter, ARCI). However, from the very moment of its constitution, the question of whether the Lega per l’Ambiente should maintain open channels with PCI, or instead create a ‘third pole’ in the Italian party system through which ecologist issues could be brought forward independently of the traditional left–right split, was much discussed within the ecology movement.112 Finally, after the success of the Green lists at the local-level elections, but also because of the perception that environmental issues were being treated in a merely instrumental capacity by the traditional political forces, and that they would have never ‘truly’ opened towards environmental issues, the decision was taken to present Green lists at the national level, which occurred for the first time in 1987. As the following citation testifies, the formation of an independent green political identity, and the detachment from the Communist party was not only an unpredictable process as such but also a much suffered one: The time has come to sum up our ideas and the most significant aspects of our struggles. . . . No political party, with the exception of the PdUP, DP and the Radicals, has ever listened to our claims. . . . We conducted our struggle against the nuclear power stations in the face of total apathy from the historical left. . . . We therefore start a reflection and prepare to no longer underestimate a movement that could form on the basis of awareness and socially useful ecology. If being green means this, then we will become green. We are ready to eliminate all the red in our culture and our political vision of the

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world if the left-wing parties do not seriously make our claims their own.113

The Dutch Ecology Movement The Dutch ecology movement emerged as a mass movement one decade earlier than its Italian counterpart did. In spite of their common origin in the mobilizations of the late 1960s, the character of the Dutch ecology movement in the 1970s was already far more pragmatic and less ideological compared to the smaller Italian ecologist groups of the same period. What the Dutch ecologist movement shared with the Italian one was a high level of internal structuration. Over the course of the 1970s, numerous umbrella organizations formed in order to foster common activities and maintain regular contacts between the different ecology groups and organizations in the country. The two ecology movements also share an overall cooperative attitude with the world of representative institutions. Noticeably, the Dutch ecologists’ close ties with institutions also resulted from the formal recognition and legitimation that they received from the Dutch state. Indeed, many ecology groups were not only subsidized by the state, but were also consulted within institutional discussion bodies, or co-opted to work for the ‘green sectors’ of local and national-level administrations.114 In the case of this movement too, a strong demarcation line can be drawn between the environmental organizations formed before the 1970s and those that developed afterwards. The previously existing environmental organizations, whose origins can be traced to the turn of the nineteenth century, mainly focused on the conservation and protection of the natural environment. Similar to the very first protectionist associations in Italy, the Dutch groups have been described as ‘elitist and apolitical organizations’.115 With some exceptions, these groups rarely engaged in protest actions.116 From the 1970s, environmental issues came to the fore as a consequence of the strong industrial expansion the Netherlands witnessed during the 1950s, which in turn produced the first visible effects of environmental pollution, but also basic economic wealth to the Dutch population.

A Divided Life Cycle The first protests in the United States, the UN Conference in Stockholm, the publication of Limits to Growth and the oil crisis of 1973, had a particularly strong impact in the Netherlands, both at the civil society level and, as I will discuss in the following two chapters, at the level of the Dutch political elites. Soon after 1970, new environmental groups emerged at the

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local and national levels.117 Like in Italy, these groups broadened the notion of environmental activism from a discourse centred on mere environmental protection to one that linked environmental matters to the whole social structure: under accusation were the dominant power structures, responsible for environmental exploitation because of their growth-focused mentality. The politicization of the environmental question was also advanced through new protest means (demonstrations, sit-ins, blockades and spectacular symbolic actions). This new environmental discourse, but also the new forms of actions, soon entered, in tamer versions than those of its more radical spirit, the traditional environmental organizations. Stimulated by the influx of a new generation of activists, the latter started mobilizing on previously uncovered fields and engaging in more challenging protest actions, as well as promoting environmental ‘umbrella organizations’ in order to facilitate contacts and exchanges between local and regional-level groups. The major impetus for the transition from a plurality of environmental groups to the constitution of a mass social movement was, in the Netherlands, also provided by internal events linked to the emergence of the nuclear energy debate. Two key events introduced this issue to the public and social agenda: the ‘Kalkar tax’, introduced by the government for the financing of the international nuclear reactor project in Kalkar (Germany), and the decision to construct three more nuclear plants in the Netherlands.118 Both decisions were introduced by a mainly left-oriented government, formed by the PPR, PvdA, D’66, ARP and KVP. It was in reaction to the Kalkar tax that the anti-nuclear protest started in the Netherlands.119 An act of civil disobedience, that is the refusal to actually pay that tax, was taken by ecology activists and followed by a dozen municipalities. A national-level organization against the Kalkar tax, the Landelijke Stroomgroep Stop Kalkar (National Stop Kalkar Group) formed in 1973 and organized action committees in more than eighty towns and cities in the country. In 1974, an international demonstration held in Kalkar saw the participation of ten thousand Dutch activists. These initiatives were supported by the left-wing political parties CPN, PSP and PPR, and by the local sections of the PvdA. The specific goal of stopping the Kalkar project widened into a protest against nuclear energy in general with the decision by the government to construct new nuclear energy plants. Among the new groups that formed was the one that became one of the most important ecologist umbrella organizations in the country, the Landelijk Energie Komité (National Energy Committee, hereafter LEK). In the second half of the 1970s the ecology movement was a strong political actor, and the environmental question became an increasingly relevant political issue that mobilized wider sectors of the Dutch population. The anti-nuclear movement was not only widening, but also gaining the support

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of Dutch public opinion: ‘Everybody was discussing it: the newspapers, the media, the world of science, universities’.120 The cabinet finally decided to abandon the international Kalkar project, and also decided to temporarily postpone any decision on the future of nuclear energy in the Netherlands. It was probably due to these positive responses from institutional actors that the movement started experiencing divisions between its more radical current and the more moderate one. The first critical moment in which the divisions manifested themselves took place in the most important umbrella organization, the LEK, on the occasion of a demonstration to be held in Almelo on 4 March 1978. For the radical groups of the LEK, the goal of the demonstration was the closure of the factory, while the more moderate groups intended to demonstrate against its enlargement. Two visions of democracy clashed here: the direct democracy of the radicals who wanted the immediate closure of all nuclear power stations on Dutch territory, and the representative democracy of the moderates who limited their actions to influencing the political decision-making process, without subverting the rules of the game of the political system. Yet, the major event that split the movement was the participation of the ecology groups in the launch in 1981 of the Brede Maatschappelijk Discussie (Wide Social Discussion), a project that involved Dutch citizens – and not only politicians and experts – in the decision-making process on nuclear energy. The more radical component strongly disagreed with the intention of the moderate groups to participate. Firstly, they criticized the Wide Social Discussion for not being ‘wide’ at all, and moreover they defined this programme as a trick with which the state would marginalize the movement, and keep postponing the decision to close the two nuclear reactors currently functioning.121 The radical groups were right, in the sense that it was indeed the case that with the institutionalization of the moderate component within the Wide Social Discussion, the ecology movement entered a phase of latency. From the end of the 1970s, therefore, the relationship between the more moderate component of the ecologist movement and political decision-making actors became increasingly cooperative, while the mobilizations by other groups became smaller in terms of numbers of participants, more locally based and more radical. ‘Dodewaard must close’ was the slogan of the two last nationwide demonstrations organized by the radical ecologists around the nuclear power station in Dodewaard in 1980 and 1981, which signalled the end of a unitary ecology movement in the Netherlands. Scholars emphasized a general sense of frustration among ecology activists. On one hand, it seemed that ecologists no longer had the potential to mobilize the citizenry as they had done during the previous decade.122 On the other hand, frustration derived from the perception that mobilizations had not actually produced

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any change in the government’s decision. Indeed, in spite of the fact that the Wide Social Discussion reported that the majority of the citizenry were clearly against the nuclear energy option, the Dutch government kept postponing, in a seemingly endless consultation process, the decision on what to do about the whole nuclear energy issue. In the meantime, moreover, the economic crisis of the early 1980s brought other, older priorities back to the fore. The role of ideologies and the grand ideas that the movement stood for in the 1970s declined, the number of direct actions decreased, and what remained of the movement returned to more specific, protectionist types of environmental problem, such as acid rain, waste, and the protection of water.123 Apart from some late sparks after the Chernobyl accident in 1986, wide social mobilizations no longer occurred.

Changes in the Ecologists’ Action Repertoire In an initial phase, the pattern that characterized the movement was the one of cooperation with institutional actors. Apart from organizing and participating in common demonstrations, ecologists also established enduring umbrella organizations which allowed them to maintain contact and relationships between the different organizations, including political parties. This was possible as political parties of the left, during this same period in which the ecology movement was emerging, not only opened up to the environmental discourse, but were also strongly affected internally by the spirit of the time. However, as I previously mentioned, not all groups within the ecologist movement looked favourably on the close contacts between ecologist groups and political institutions. This issue already emerged in one of the first unitary demonstrations, in Kalkar in 1974, when a number of ecologist groups refused to participate because they argued that the demonstration was dominated by political parties.124 These groups criticized representative democracy as a whole: ‘Democracy is no more than a smokescreen behind which the most anti-democratic decisions are taken; . . . The representative system does not function as representation of the people, but as representation of the nuclear lobby’.125 By the end of the 1970s, when the more moderate stream in the movement ended their involvement in protest actions, leaving this field to the radical groups, a second phase characterized by a far more critical attitude towards representative institutions started. The attitude of the radical groups towards the representative institutions and political parties is well emphasized by the radical ecologists’ documentation: The movement was moved by a feeling of strong dissatisfaction. . . . Demonstrations, petition actions, information campaigns always

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had the goal of stopping the use of nuclear power stations through the involvement of political parties. The anti-nuclear movement came to the conclusion that everything had been tried. . . . In order to bring a halt to nuclear energy it would have forced the closure of the nuclear energy plant. . . . Anti-nuclear activists wanted to set up an action that went beyond that of a simple demonstration.126

The Dutch Peace Movement Like environmental organizations, peace organizations also have a long tradition in the Netherlands. The churches, the Socialists, women and anarchists – the four main currents that went on to constitute the Dutch peace movement of the 1970s and 1980s – had formed groups around the issue of peace since the turn of the nineteenth century.127 Yet, the ‘characters’ of the peace organizations that existed before the 1960s differed consistently with the organizations that formed after that time. This holds in terms of the organizational structure these groups maintained, in terms of the strategies they adopted, and in terms of the goals they pursued. From an organizational perspective, the Dutch peace groups that emerged after the mid-1960s formed autonomously from political parties and held a more ‘grass-roots’ approach to politics as opposed to their predecessors. As far as their strategies were concerned, these groups were more politically oriented, more challenging, and engaged in more confrontational types of action. It should be remarked that the Netherlands was a particularly loyal supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).128 Peace issues were not generally very salient after the Second World War in the Netherlands. With the exception of the Pacifist and Socialist party (PSP), formed in 1957 precisely around the theme of international disarmament, participation in NATO and the introduction of nuclear weapons were uncontroversial issues. Scholars argue that in the field of foreign policy the attitude of the parties in the Netherlands was one of depoliticization. ‘Political parties’, according to van Staden, ‘cooperated to keep foreign policy . . . away from domestic political strive and daily political stirring’.129 In the non-institutional environment, peace issues were mainly covered by the Protestant and Catholic churches. Among the few bottom-up groups that formed before the mid-1960s in the Netherlands, two dealt with the issue of peace: the De Derde weg (The Third Way), and the Ban the Bomb movement, active between 1961 and 1962. In 1966, the Inter-Kerkelijk Vredesraad (Peace Council of the Churches, hereafter IKV), an umbrella organization composed of nine different churches, formed on the issue of peace. This group started an internal discussion on

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peace issues and tried to involve the Dutch population by organizing yearly ‘peace weeks’ in the month of September.

A Church-Dominated Movement The first phase of peace actions in the Netherlands started in the mid-1960s, a result of the international scenario dominated by the war in Vietnam, the echoes of the peace demonstrations in the United States, the hippy culture and the general wave of countercultural, anarchist, anti-authoritarian and anti-militarist thought. In the case of peace issues too, the Provo movement was an important actor of the late 1960s mobilizations, and organized weekly demonstrations in Amsterdam against the Vietnam War. It was observed that since the widespread and collective demand for peace became stronger, the Dutch left-wing parties immediately took up a stronger position for peace.130 Not only did the left-wing splinter of the Catholic party, the PPR, make the theme of peace one of its founding demands, but the CPN and the PvdA also took overt positions against the use of nuclear weapons. Moreover, the left-wing parties actively participated in the demonstrations organized by the first peace groups. The external event that caused peace issues to re-emerge from 1977, and that stimulated the growth of a peace movement in the Netherlands, was the decision taken by the president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, to start the production of the neutron bomb (hereafter, N-bomb).131 Responses towards this decision came from very heterogeneous sectors of the Dutch population, namely from the left-wing political parties and from the churches. In August 1977, the Dutch Communist party promoted the action group ‘Stop the N-bomb’. Despite the Communist environment it stemmed from, Stop the N-bomb was an independent organization, composed of a national-level coordination committee and a number of local-level groups. Although the only political party that joined the group formally was the PPR, the Stop the N-bomb group benefited from the informal and mainly locally based support of the other political parties of the left, and – most importantly for its legitimacy in the public eye – by the two church-related peace groups, IKV and Pax Christi. The main protest actions that this group engaged in were the promotion of a petition (1.2 million signatures were gathered against the production of the N-bomb), an international relay against the N-bomb, and a demonstration in March 1977, which gathered fifty thousand participants. In the same year, the IKV launched a campaign with the slogan ‘Rid the world of nuclear weapons, and let it begin with the Netherlands’. It was the first time that the IKV had engaged in an initiative with a clear political goal: ‘A request by the Dutch government to the government of the United

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States to remove their nuclear weapons from the Dutch territory’.132 The types of activities the IKV had previously engaged in were mainly oriented towards consciousness raising, through the distribution of information and discussion papers around peace issues, and mainly concentrated during the ‘peace weeks’.133 From 1977, instead, the IKV became the most important organization of the emergent peace movement in the Netherlands, and a crucial interlocutor on peace issues for the Dutch institutions: ‘The IKV Council, based on the principles of the Bible, aims to address the problems concerning war and peace, to study them, to inform, to stimulate civic consciousness and to lead political action.’134 The IKV became numerically the most significant group within the Dutch peace movement, increasingly developing contacts with other peace organizations in the country and becoming active in the organization of local and national-level demonstrations. It gathered more than four hundred units spread throughout the whole country.135 A second international factor that gave a further and final impulse to the peace movement in the Netherlands was the so-called ‘twin-track’ or ‘dual-track’ NATO decision taken in 1979. The NATO ministers of defence and foreign affairs decided, on one hand, to seek negotiations with the Soviet Union on a policy of arms control on long-range nuclear systems, and on the other hand, to modernize their nuclear weapon arsenal preventively, stationing 572 medium-range missiles in Western Europe, 48 of which on Dutch territory. The effect on the peace movement was a widening of social protest, as revealed by the number of new peace groups and organizations that were emerging and by the increase in the number of peace actions.136 The most important of these actions were two massive peace demonstrations against the placement of missiles on Dutch territory, and against the use of nuclear weapons worldwide, which took place in 1981 and 1983.137 Both were organized through formal cooperation between all the left-wing parties and peace groups. The general climate around the stationing of the cruise missiles in the Netherlands, indicated by the demonstrations but also by public opinion polls, was famously defined as ‘Hollanditis’, indicating a sort of Dutch neutralist disease.138 Most significant, however, was the foreign policy of the Dutch government, which managed to postpone the decision on the stationing of the missiles until 1986, a tactic that was described as ‘the most ingenious depoliticization ploy in the history of consociationalism’.139 Similar to what occurred in the case of the Dutch ecologist movement, the years of consultation, ad hoc commissions and public reflection on the cruise missiles issue resulted in the long run in a sense of frustration that paralysed the Dutch peace movement, opening the way for its decline. The last national-level action against the NATO modernization plans and against

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the stationing of the cruise missiles was the people’s petition initiated by the Komité Kruisraketten Nee (KKN) on 1 September 1985 and addressed to the Dutch government. This petitioning action was even more successful than the first one in 1977, and was signed by over 3.7 million people and handed to the prime minister in person on 26 October 1985, a few days before the decision on the stationing of the cruise missiles was to be taken by the Dutch government. The outcome of the petition, however, was ignored by the government. After years during which the movement had mobilized through cooperation with institutional actors, and through petitions, demonstrations and blockades, the peace movement groups no longer knew how to proceed. A sense of dissatisfaction and mistrust in the way that official politics translated the peace demands that came from society also affected the IKV: ‘Until politics reacts to mass social protest, it seems that the proliferation of nuclear weapons will win over democracy’.140 After the failure of the petitioning action, the IKV intended to cease mobilizing against the stationing of the missiles. The state of lethargy into which the peace movement entered after the government decided to go ahead and deploy the NATO missiles was widely covered in the national newspapers. What remained of the Dutch peace movement were smaller-scale mobilizations organized by the radical groups only.

The ‘Majority Strategy’ Throughout the whole cycle of mobilization, the Dutch peace movement was characterized by a high degree of cooperation with the representative institutions and with political parties. The strongest and most influential group within the movement, the IKV, was involved not only in the coordination of common initiatives and groups together with political parties, it also specifically targeted parties in search of alliances: ‘In a parliamentary democracy the only way to be politically effective is through the establishment of relationships with political parties’.141 This organization never questioned the primacy of institutional politics in taking decisions, and was always characterized by a moderate and legal repertoire of action. The reaction of the full acceptance and understanding of a decision taken by the government by the IKV leader Mient Jan Faber two days after the Cabinet decided to place the NATO cruise missiles in the Netherlands, despite the recent petition action organized by the peace movement, is remarkable, and shows the quite exceptional nature of this action organization.142 Duyvendak and van Huizen defined the political strategy of the IKV as a ‘majority strategy’.143 Indeed, since the publication of its action manifesto in 1977, the IKV made its intention clear to appeal to all individual citizens and to form a majority in the popula-

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tion which, it argued, would influence the decision-making processes of the political institutions. This also implied an attempt to broaden its appeal from the traditional left-wing constituency of social movements, and to involve the Christian Democratic voters and the Christian Democratic party itself in the initiatives of the peace movement. Concerning the partisan affiliations of peace activists, not only the peace movement more broadly, but also the IKV, despite its origins in the Christian churches and its attempt to take in the CDA, were on the left of the political spectrum. A clear manifestation of this was the suggestion by the IKV not to vote for the Christian Democratic party in the political elections of 1982. This organization had indeed a strong representation of members of the PvdA.144 The left-wing orientation of the peace movement activists and the particularly strong representation among them of PvdA voters moreover stretched beyond the IKV. This emerges from two surveys conducted during the two main peace demonstrations in Amsterdam (1981) and in The Hague (1983). In the demonstration of 1983, of a total of 923 respondents, only 0.4 per cent declared they had voted for the right-wing liberal party (VVD), and 3.3 per cent declared they had voted for the CDA. The remaining percentage declared they had voted for the leftwing parties in the previous elections of 1982, with 42.7 per cent declaring they had voted for the PvdA.145 The IKV’s ‘majority strategy’, and the strong linkages with the world of the political institutions, were however strongly opposed within the peace movement itself by the more radical groups, who considered the strategy as demotivating: ‘to march in the streets and then wait to see how and if political institutions react’ made no sense according to these groups.146 Moreover, they accused the IKV of attempting to monopolize the peace movement: We decided to build political initiatives with other groups in the peace movement. But our mobilizations have become a political drama. The peace apostles Faber and Ter Berge [the IKV leaders] and the other gurus of the IKV argue that more radical forms of action would ruin the work done by the peace movement so far. . . . Since when does a political action against the use of nuclear weapons need the agreement of the IKV?147 The radical component of the movement can, again, essentially be distinguished from the moderate part by its conception of democracy. Groups like Onkruid considered the whole notion of representation as ‘a lie’. They rejected representative democracy as a principle, and favoured instead more direct forms of democracy: ‘We believe that changes will not come from the parliament. We believe that changes will only occur if people themselves

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take their fate in their hands’.148 This was also reflected in the different repertoires of action of these groups, characterized by boycotting, blockades, fiscal strikes, and actions bordering on illegality. The mobilization of the radical peace groups continued, and radicalized further, even after the decision on the placement of the missiles in The Netherlands had been taken. However, if they had constituted a minority among the peace groups in the phase of highest mobilization, now they reduced their numerical presence even further.

Notes 1. S.M. Lipset and S. Rokkan, ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction’, in S.M. Lipset and S. Rokkan (eds), Party Systems and Voter Alignments (New York: Free Press, 1967), 50. 2. R. Rose and D.W. Urwin, ‘Persistence and Change in Western Party Systems since 1945’, Political Studies 18(3) (1970), 295. 3. R.B. Andeweg, ‘De burger in de Nederlandse politiek’, in R.B. Andeweg, A. Hoogeewerf and J.J.A. Thomassen (eds), Politiek in Nederland (Alphen aan den Rijn: Samsom, 1989), 85. 4. A. Parisi and G. Pasquino, ‘Changes in Italian Electorate Behaviour: The Relationship between Parties and Voters’, West European Politics 2(3) (1979), 21. 5. L. Bardi and L. Morlino, ‘Italy’, in R.S. Katz and P. Mair (eds), Party Organizations: A Data Handbook on Party Organizations in Western Democracies, 1960–90 (London: Sage, 1992), 458–618; M. Caciagli, ‘Il resistibile declino della Democrazia cristiana’, in G. Pasquino (ed.), Il sistema politico italiano (Bari: Laterza, 2003), 101–27. 6. Andeweg, ‘De burger’, 85. 7. J.W. Duyvendak and R. Koopmans, ‘Protest in een pacificatie-democratie: Nieuwe sociale bewegingen en het Nederlandse politieke systeem’, in J.W. Duyvendak, H.A. van der Heijden, R. Koopmans and L. Wijmans (eds), Tussen Verbeelding en Macht: 25 jaar nieuwe sociale bewegingen in Nederland (Amsterdam: SUA, 1992), 52. 8. G.A. Irwin and J.J.M. van Holsteyn, ‘Decline of the Structured Model of Electoral Competition’, in H. Daalder and G.A. Irwin (eds), Politics in the Netherlands: How Much Change? (London: Frank Cass, 1989), 21–41; H. Righart, De eindeloze jaren zestig: Geschiedenis van een generatie-conflict (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, 1995). 9. S.H. Barnes and M. Kaase, Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (London: Sage, 1979). 10. Feminist activist, interview 1. 11. A. Pizzorno, I soggetti del pluralismo: classi, partiti, sindacati (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1980). 12. S. Tarrow, Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965–1975 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 41. 13. G. Pasquino, Crisi dei partiti e governabilità (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1980), 143. 14. Ibid.; see also, P. Scoppola, ‘Parlamento e governo da De Gasperi a Moro’, in L. Violante (ed.), Storia d’Italia: Annali 17, Il parlamento (Turin: Einaudi, 2001), 359.

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15. W.H. van Noort, Bevlogen bewegingen, een vergelijking van de anti-kernenergie, kraak en milieubeweging (Den Haag: Uitgeverij SUA, 1988). 16. Andeweg, ‘De burger’, 83. 17. Ibid., 80. 18. M. Duverger, Les partis politiques (Paris: Libraire Armand Colin, 1951). 19. S. Tarrow, ‘Contentious Politics’, in D. Della Porta and M. Diani (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 95. 20. J.A. Goldstone, ‘Introduction: Bridging Institutionalized and Noninstitutionalized Politics’, in J.A. Goldstone (ed.), State, Parties and Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 21. W.C. Müller, ‘Political Parties in Parliamentary Democracies: Making Delegation and Accountability Work’, European Journal of Political Research 37(3) (2000), 309–33. 22. M. Hanagan, ‘Social Movements: Incorporation, Disengagement, and Opportunities’, in J.A. Goldstone (ed.), State, Parties and Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1–25. 23. N. Eggert and M. Giugni, ‘Homogenizing “Old” and “New” Social Movements: A Comparison of Partipants in May Day and Climate Change Demonstrations’, Mobilization: An International Quarterly 17(3) (2012), 339. 24. R. Inglehart, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977). 25. C. Offe, ‘New Social Movements: Changing Boundaries of the Political’, Social Research 52(4) (1985), 817–68. 26. Hanagan, ‘Social Movements’; D. Della Porta and M. Diani, Social Movements: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006). Some scholars have emphasized greater continuity between older organizations and groups and the newer ones. In their perspective, the ‘newness’ of the social movements that developed after the 1960s was often overstated, as the 1960s movement actually saw the re-emergence (rather than the emergence) of a number of issues that had significant, albeit less visible, historical predecessors. On the differences between ‘new’ and ‘old’ social movements, see S.M. Buechler, ‘New Social Movement Theories’, Sociological Quarterly 36(3) (1995), 441–64; R.J. Dalton, M. Kuechler and W. Burklin ‘The Challenge of New Social Movements’, in R.J. Dalton and M. Kuechler (eds), Challenging the Political Order: New Social and Political Movements in Western Democracies (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), 3–20. 27. J. Goodwin and J.M. Jasper (eds), Rethinking Social Movements: Structure, Meaning, and Emotion (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 137. 28. Tarrow, Democracy and Disorder; Pasquino, Crisi dei partiti. 29. R. Katz, ‘Party as Linkage: A Vestigial Function?’, European Journal of Political Research 18(1) (1990), 143–61. 30. R. Schmitt-Beck, ‘A Myth Institutionalized: Theory and Research on New Social Movements in Germany’, European Journal of Political Research 21(4) (1992), 357–83. 31. Such settings, the so-called Political Opportunity Structures (POS) of a given country, include the formal institutional structures of a political system, such as territorial centralization, separation of powers, and the informal procedures and prevailing

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32. 33.

34. 35.

36.

37.

38. 39. 40.

41. 42.

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strategies of political elites in dealing with the challengers, as well as the more volatile or shifting elements of a political context, including the degree of electoral stability, the configuration of power on the left, the presence or absence of the left in the government, and the presence of institutional allies (see H. Kriesi, R. Koopmans, J.W. Duyvendak and M. Giugni, New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995, for a theoretical and empirical appreciation of the political process approach). M. Giugni, Social Protest and Policy Change: Ecology, Antinuclear and Peace Movements in Comparative Perspective (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 120. See D. Della Porta and D. Rucht, ‘Left-Libertarian Movements in Context: A Comparison of Italy and West Germany, 1965–1990’, in J.C. Jenkins and B. Klandermans (eds), The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative Perspectives on States and Social Movements (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 229–72; M. Giugni and F. Passy, ‘Social Movements and Policy Change: Direct, Mediated, or Joint Effect?’, American Sociological Association Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements, Working Paper Series, 1(4) (1998); D. Maguire, ‘Opposition Movements and Opposition Parties’, in J.C. Jenkins and B. Klandermans (eds), The Politics of Social Protest (Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press, 1995), 7–17; S. Tarrow, ‘The Phantom of the Opera: Political Parties and Social Movements of the 1960s and 1970s in Italy’, in R.J. Dalton and M. Kuechler, Challenging the Political Order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), 251–73; Dalton, Kuechler and Burklin, ‘The Challenge of New Social Movements’; Kriesi et al., New Social Movements in Western Europe. Goldstone, ‘Introduction’, 3. See E. Amenta and N. Caren, ‘The Legislative, Organizational and Beneficiary Consequences of State-Oriented Challangers’, in D.A. Snow, S.A. Soule, and H. Kriesi (eds), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 461–68; and E. Amenta, N. Caren, E. Chiarello and Y. Su, ‘The Political Consequences of Social Movements’, Annual Review of Sociology 36(1) (2010), 287–307. B.G. King, M. Cornwall and E.C. Dahlin, ‘Winning Woman Suffrage One Step at a Time: Social Movements and the Logic of the Legislative Process’, Social Forces 83(3) (2005), 1211–34. But see S. Hutter and R. Vliegenthart, ‘Who Responds to Protest? Protest Politics and Party Responsiveness in Western Europe’, Party Politics (2016), 1–12, for a recent exception. D. McAdam and K. Kloos, Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Post-War America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). L. Morlino, ‘La crisi della democrazia’, Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica 9(1) (1979), 37–70; Pasquino, Crisi dei partiti; Katz, ‘Party as Linkage’. T. Poguntke, ‘Parties without Firm Social Roots? Party Organizational Linkage’, in K.R. Luther and F. Muller-Rommel (eds), Political Parties in the New Europe: Political and Analytical Challenges (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 43–62; and T. Poguntke, ‘Political Parties and Other Organizations’ in R.S. Katz and W. Crotty (eds), Handbook of Party Politics (London: Sage Publications, 2006), 396–405. Poguntke, ‘Parties without Firm Social Roots?’, 9. Poguntke, ‘Political Parties and Other Organizations’, 400.

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43. R. Rohrschneider, ‘Impact of Social Movements on European Party Systems’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 528(1) (1993), 157–70. 44. A. Panebianco, Political Parties: Organization and Power (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988); R. Harmel and K. Janda, ‘An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change’, Journal of Theoretical Politics 6(3) (1994), 259–87; J.G. March and J.P. Olsen, ‘Elaborating the “New Institutionalism”’, in R.A.W. Rhodes, S. Binder and B. Rockman (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 45. Harmel and Janda, ‘An Integrated Theory’, 267. 46. A. Downs, ‘An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy’, The Journal of Political Economy 65(2) (1957), 28. 47. J.A. Schlesinger, ‘On the Theory of Party Organization’, The Journal of Politics 46(2) (2004), 369–400. For a discussion about the rationalistic approaches to party behaviour, see R. Katz, ‘Party Government: A Rationalistic Conception’, in F.G. Castles and R. Wildenmann (eds), Visions and Realities of Party Government (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1986), 31–71. 48. H.P. Kitschelt, The Logics of Party Formation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), 46–47, 180. 49. Harmel and Janda, ‘An Integrated Theory’. 50. H.P. Kitschelt, ‘New Social Movements and the Decline of Party Organisation’, in R.J. Dalton and M. Kuechler (eds), Challenging the Political Order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), 179–208. 51. A. Ware, The Dynamics of Two-Party Politics: Party Structures and the Management of Competition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 1–2. 52. P. Mair, ‘Adaptation and Control: Towards an Understanding of Party and Party System Change’, in H. Daalder and P. Mair (eds), Western European Party Systems: Continuity and Change (London: Sage Publications, 1983), 420–23. 53. E.H. Allern, Political Parties and Interest Groups in Norway (Essex: European Consortium of Political Research Press, 2010). 54. Poguntke, ‘Political Parties and Other Organizations’. 55. Mair, ‘Adaptation and Control’, 422. 56. V.O. Key, Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups (New York: Cromwell, 1967), 464. That parties do not want to ‘offend the sensibilities of some members with different political connections’ is an argument made clear by O. Kirchheimer, ‘The Transformation of the Western European Party System’, in J. Palombara and M. Weiner (eds), Political Parties and Political Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966), 193. 57. G. Sartori, ‘The Sociology of Parties: A Critical Review’, in P. Mair (ed.), The West European Party System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 174–76. 58. D. Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: Wiley, 1965), 87–90. 59. M. Kraatz and E. Block, ‘Organizational Implications of Institutional Pluralism’, in R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, R. Suddaby and K. Sahlin-Andersson (eds), Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism (London: Sage Publications, 2008), 256–57. 60. H. Markus, ‘Self-schemas and Processing Information about the Self ’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35 (1977), 63–78; D. Campus, L’Elettore Pigro: Informazione Politica e Scelte di Voto (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000).

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61. F. Raniolo, ‘Un’analisi organizzativa dei partiti politici’, in L. Morlino and M. Tarchi (eds), Partiti e caso italiano (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006), 19–51. 62. J. Adams and Z. Somer-Topcu, ‘Policy Adjustment by Parties in Response to Rival Parties’ Policy Shifts: Spatial Theory and the Dynamics of Party Competition in Twenty-Five Post-War Democracies’, British Journal of Political Science 39(4) (2009), 825–46. 63. P. Lange, ‘Crisis and Consent, Change and Compromise: Dilemmas of Italian Communism in the 1970s’, in P. Lange and S. Tarrow (eds), Italy in Transition: Conflict and Consensus (London: Frank Cass, 1980), 110–32; M. Kaase, ‘The Challenge of the “Participatory Revolution” in Pluralist Democracies’, International Political Science Review 5(3) (1984), 299–318. 64. G. Sjöblom, Party Strategies in a Multiparty System (Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur, 1968), 144–45. 65. Kriesi et al., New Social Movements in Western Europe, 93. 66. M. Diani, Isole nell’arcipelago: Il movimento ecologista in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1988); P. Ginsborg, Storia d’Italia dal dopoguerra ad oggi: Società e politica, 1943– 1988 (Turin: Einaudi, 1989); J.W. Duyvendak, ‘Een beweging zonder natuurlijke vijand? Over de strategische dilemma’s van de milieubeweging’, Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijdschrift 23 (1996), 144–69. 67. R. Katz, ‘The Internal Life of Parties’, in K.R. Luther and F. Muller-Rommel (eds), Political Parties in the New Europe: Political and Analytical Challenges (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 87–118. 68. R.D. Benford, ‘Frame Disputes within the Nuclear Disarmament Movement’, Social Forces 71(3) (1993), 677–701. 69. Tarrow, Democracy and Disorder; A. Melucci, Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 70. C.M. Kirk, ‘The Policy and Practice of Women’s Politics in Italy’. Paper presented at the Midwest Political Science Conference, Chicago, 2003. 71. J.S. Chafetz and A.G. Doworkin, Female Revolt: Women’s Movements in World and Historical Perspective (Totowa, NJ: Rowmann & Allanheld, 1986); D. Colombo, ‘The Italian Feminist Movement’, Women’s Studies International Quarterly 4(4) (1981), 461–69. 72. Rivolta Femminile (1970), founding manifesto: 1. 73. Colombo, ‘The Italian Feminist Movement’, 462. 74. The UDI was founded in 1944 by a group of Communist and Socialist women who fought for the Resistance. Their intention was the creation of one large and unified women’s association that could play a role in shaping the construction of the Italian state after Fascism. One year later, a group of Catholic resistance leaders established the CIF, which grouped together smaller women’s organizations of Catholic inspiration. 75. The founding Statute of the CIF states its formal independence as an organization. However, besides providing financial support, DC leaders regularly participated in its national meetings, and many of the women politicians of the DC had previously held leadership positions in the CIF. The linkages between this organization and the DC were therefore undoubtedly present, if not strong. See D. Sassoon, Contemporary Italy: Economy, Society and Politics since 1945 (New York: Addison Wesley

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76. 77. 78. 79.

80. 81. 82.

83. 84. 85. 86.

87.

88. 89.

90. 91.

Longman, 1986). The linkages between the UDI and the PCI were also strong. According to Beckwith, ‘with few exceptions the UDI followed [the party] rather than lead, even on issues of specific importance to women’. See K. Beckwith, ‘Feminism and Leftist Politics in Italy: The Case of UDI–PCI Relations’, West European Politics 8(4) (1985), 23. Ginsborg, Storia d’Italia, 496. Rivolta Femminile (1970), founding manifesto: 1. Melucci, Challenging Codes; D. Della Porta, Movimenti Collettivi e Sistema Politico in Italia: 1969–1995 (Rome: Laterza, 1996). Y. Ergas, ‘1968–79: Feminism in the Italian Party System: Women’s Politics in a Decade of Turmoil’, Comparative Politics 14(3) (1982), 252–75; S. Bassnet, Feminist Experiences: The Women’s Movement in Four Countries (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986); B. Beccalli, ‘The Modern Women’s Movement in Italy’, New Left Review 204 (1994), 86–112. Ergas ‘1968–79: Feminism in the Italian Party System’, 261. E. Fraire, ‘Movimenti e Istituzioni’, in DonnaWomanFemme, July–September 1977, Archivia, Casa Internazionale della Donna, Rome. Other quotations from feminist activists: ‘Women participated but men made the strike decisions’, one activist complained (L.C. Birnbaum, Liberazione della Donna: Feminism in Italy, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1986, 80); or ‘women were relegated to menial tasks like making coffee or copies, whereas men engaged in active duties’ (W. Pojmann, ‘Emancipation or Liberation? Women’s Associations and the Italian Movement’, The Historian 67(1) (2005), 85). Beccalli, ‘The Modern Women’s Movement’. A. Giannuli, Il sessantotto: La stagione dei movimenti (1960–1979) (Rome: Edizioni Associate, 1988), 81. Colombo, ‘The Italian Feminist Movement’. A significant moment in the history of the development of the feminist movement was the participation of the UDI, for the first time, in the feminist (and separatist) demonstration of 3 April 1976, the day after the parliament rejected (with the votes of the DC and the MSI) the proposed law on abortion. The process of the constitution of an autonomous organization was finalized at the 11th Congress of 1982. The 11h Congress opened with the slogan ‘WE WOMEN, who rebel, transgress, get out from our homes, [we] talk to each other and organize. OUR POLITICS IS LIBERATION’ (Unione Donne in Italia, L’UDI attraverso i congressi, Rome, 2002, 14. Capital letters as in the original text). Ergas, ‘1968–79: Feminism in the Italian Party System’. Y. Ergas, ‘La costituzione del soggetto femminile: il femminismo negli anni ’60/’70’, in G. Duby and M. Perrot (eds), Storia delle donne in Occidente: Il Novecento (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1997), 64–93; A.R. Calabrò and L. Grasso (eds), Dal movimento femminista al femminismo diffuso: Ricerca e documentazione nell’area lombarda (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1985). Interview with feminist activist, ‘Dove va il femminismo italiano: soggetti politici o affiancatori della politica?’, Il Manifesto, 10 December 1977. Della Porta, Movimenti Collettivi e Sistema Politico, 64. Revealing of the particular

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92.

93. 94.

95.

96. 97.

98.

99.

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tangling of the political and personal dimensions in the feminist movement is a manuscript on the first national feminist meeting in Pinarella di Cervia (1974): ‘The meeting was more than a “normal” Congress. It was an experience that involved multiple levels. The very nature of my participation was completely different to anything I ever experienced in all the other political meetings that I took part in. I was not only there to listen and talk, I was involved in a new process of interpersonal relations’ (anonymous manuscript, ‘Impressioni e riflssioni di una partecipante all’incontro femminista di Pinarella di Cervia 1–4 November 1974’, Archivia, Casa Internazionale delle Donne, Rome. G. Ascoli (ed.), La parola elettorale: viaggio nell’universo politico maschile (Rome: Edizioni delle donne, 1976), 9. The feminist journals and internal leaflets documenting the concerns about losing autonomy for an instrumental encapsulation in institutional politics are numerous. I will only report one more example: ‘The more the movement was growing, the more the PCI intended to strangle it. . . . This party uses the terms emancipation and liberation without a clear and univocal meaning’ (‘Il femmineismo non serve più?’, Lilith, January 1978, Archivia, Casa Internazionale della Donna, Rome). Beccalli, ‘The Modern Women’s Movement’. P.R. Donati, ‘Building a Unified Movement: Resource Mobilization, Media Work, and Organizational Transformation in the Italian Environmentalist Movement’, in M. Dobkowski and I. Wallimann (eds), Research on Social Movement, Conflicts and Change (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1996), 125–57; Diani, Isole nell’arcipelago. G. Lodi, ‘L’azione ecologista in Italia: dal protezionismo storico alle Liste Verdi’, in R. Biorcio and G. Lodi (eds), La Sfida Verde, Il movimento ecologista in Italia (Padova: Liviana Editrice, 1988), 17–26. S. Menichini, I verdi (Rome: Savelli-Gaumont, 1983). Italia Nostra 1955, cited in R. Della Seta, La difesa dell’ambiente in Italia: Storia e cultura del movimento ecologista (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2000), 13. Other organizations specifically centred on the protection of the natural environment were Federnatura (formed in 1959), WWF Italia (1966), and the Federazione Nazionale contro la Distruzione degli Uccelli (1966). These groups, defined in the literature as ‘political ecologists’, were strongly influenced by post-Marxist thought and by the writings of Barry Commoner. Commoner’s book, The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology (New York: Knopf, 1971), remained a crucial point of reference for the Italian ecologists. Limits to Growth, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by the Club of Rome, predicted the collapse of humanity within the next fifty years, as the consequence of steady economic and population growth and pollution. To avoid the catastrophe, limitations had to be imposed on economic proliferation. For the first time, the ‘zero growth’ argument was raised by a scientific institution. Limits to Growth found a great echo (9 million copies were translated into twenty-nine languages) but it was also strongly criticized for its unscientific parameters. However, the core arguments this report raised, the limitations of natural resources and the necessity to pose limitations on quantitative economic growth, made it a crucial reference for all ecology groups in the world.

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100. National Energy Plan of 1975. At that time, Italy had three nuclear power stations, constructed between the late 1950s and the mid-1960s. 101. On the Seveso accident, L. Conti, Visto da Seveso: L’evento straordinario e l’ordinaria amministrazione (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1977). 102. The Comitato Nazionale di Controllo sulle Scelte Energetiche was established in 1977 by a group of New Left scientists and students with the purpose of creating an organizational structure that could provide coordination at the national level. The committee became the scientific reference for the anti-nuclear movement. 103. Diani, Isole nell’arcipelago. 104. R. Biorcio, ‘Il movimento verde in Italia’, Working Paper 46 (Milan: Istituto Superiore di Sociologia di Milano, 1982). 105. Donati, ‘Building a Unified Movement’. 106. Ibid. The constitutive phase around the birth of the Lega per l’Ambiente started at a meeting held on 20 April 1979. The first congress of the organization was held on 28–30 March 1980. 107. G. Di Meo and M. Giovannini, L’Onda Verde: I verdi in Italia (Rome: Alfamedia, 1988), 13. 108. D. Della Porta and M. Andretta, ‘National Environmental Organizations in the Italian Political System: Lobbying, Concentration and Political Exchange’, European Consortium of Political Research Conference, University of Copenhagen, April 2000, 10. 109. Donati, ‘Building a Unified Movement’. 110. Editorial, ‘Che colore ha l’ecologia’, Natura e Società (February 1971). 111. A. Poggio, ‘L’ecologia ha bisogno di un partito?’, Nuova Ecologia (March 1978); V. Bettini, ‘Contro il partito verde’, Nuova Ecologia (May 1978); Editorial, ‘Liste verdi per le amministrative?’, Nuova Ecologia (January/February 1980). 112. Di Meo and Giovannini, L’Onda Verde. 113. V. Bettini, ‘Editoriale’, Nuova Ecologia (July/August 1982). 114. Van Noort, Bevlogen bewegingen. 115. Van der Heijden, ‘Van kleinschalig utopisme naar postgiro activisme?, 77–98. 116. Van Noort, Bevlogen bewegingen. 117. H. Kriesi, Political Mobilization and Social Change: The Dutch Case in Comparative Perspective (Aldershot: Avebury, 1993), 171. 118. The ‘Kalkar tax’ implied a 3 per cent increase on individual electricity bills as a contribution to the financing of this project. After many protests, the Netherlands decided to pull out from the project. 119. J.W. Duyvendak and R. van Huizen, Nieuwe sociale bewegingen in Nederland, een onderzoek naar de kraakbeweging, de vredesbeweging en de anti-kernenergie beweging (Zwolle: SVAG-Studies, 1983), 20. 120. Interview 6. 121. ‘The Wide Social Discussion is and remains an attempt to canalize the discussion on nuclear energy to make it less menacing for the interests of the bureaucrats and the private undertakings’ (document of the anti-nuclear movement of 19 April 1982, Archief PvdA, inv.nr. 2860, IISG, Amsterdam). 122. Van Noort, Bevlogen bewegingen, 208. 123. Ibid., 214.

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124. Landelijk (Anti) Kernenergie Archief (LAKA), Tien jaar verzet tegen kernenergie, 1977–1986 (Stichting: Amsterdam, 1987), 10. 125. Duyvendak and van Huizen, Nieuwe sociale bewegingen, 82. 126. Video report on the first demonstration in Dodewaard on 24 May 1980. Material kindly provided by the LAKA Stichting, Amsterdam. 127. H. Kriesi and P. van Praag, ‘Old and New Politics: The Dutch Peace Movement and the Traditional Political Organizations’, European Journal of Political Science 15(3) (1987), 319–46. 128. The only political party that promoted the exit of the Netherlands from NATO was the Dutch Communist party. Moreover, the Netherlands was the first European ally to accept American nuclear missiles on its territory in 1957, and contributed to NATO’s defence expenditures to a much greater extent when compared to other small countries that were part of the alliance (R.B. Andeweg and G. Irwin, Governance and Politics of the Netherlands (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 195. 129. A. van Staden, ‘The Domestic Environment’, in P.P. Everts (ed.), Controversies at Home: Domestic Factors in the Foreign Policy of the Netherlands (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985), 60. 130. G. Voerman, M. Brinkman and B. Freriks, ‘Klein Links en de nieuwe sociale bewegingen’, Jaarboek Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Partijen (Groningen: DNPP, 1990), 163–88. 131. The bomb is a specialized thermonuclear weapon designed to minimize damage to property (unlike a conventional nuclear weapon). It became known to the public as ‘the bomb that killed people, leaving the buildings standing’. Following widescale protest, its development was temporarily postponed until the United States president, Ronald Reagan, restarted its production in 1981. 132. IKV, 1977, Manifest tegen de kernwapens. 133. Kriesi and van Praag, ‘Old and New Politics’, 327. 134. IKV, 1977, internal document, cited in Duyvendak and van Huizen, Nieuwe sociale bewegingen, 71. 135. Ibid., 18. 136. Among the new groups that formed in these years were: Vrouwen voor Vrede, Vrouwen tegen Kernwapens, Platform Radicale Vredesgroepen, de Franciscanen Vredeswacht, 50+ against nuclear weapons. Duyvendak and Koopmans underline how even those groups that previously had hardly mobilized became politically active at the end of the 1970s (Duyvendak and Koopmans, ‘Protest in een pacificatie-democratie’). 137. The first demonstration took place on 21 November 1981 in Amsterdam, and gathered about 400,000 people. The second was held in The Hague on 29 October 1983, gathering 550,000 people. There were three slogans at the demonstrations: ‘No nuclear weapons in Europe, either in the Netherlands or in any other country’; ‘Europe free from nuclear weapons’; and ‘Oust nuclear weapons from the world’. 138. Laqueur 1981, cited in Andeweg and Irwin, Governance and Politics of the Netherlands, 195. 139. Ibid., 196. 140. In Schoffel, Nr. 5, cited in Duyvendak and van Huizen, Nieuwe sociale bewegingen, 56.

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141. Ibid.. 142. Radio interview with Mient Jan Faber (IKV), Ton Frinking (CDA), Henk Vredeling (PvdA), ‘De andere wereld’, Veiligheidsdiscussie, 3 November 1985. Material kindly provided by Ton Frinking. 143. Duyvendak and van Huizen, Nieuwe sociale bewegingen, 52. 144. Kriesi and van Praag, ‘Old and New Politics’, 333–35. 145. Komité Kruisraketten Nee (KKN), Kruisraketten ongewenst. Voor en na 29 oktober 1983 (Amersfoort: De Horstink, Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Jan Mets, 1983), 89–91. 146. In Schoffel, cited in Duyvendak and van Huizen, Nieuwe sociale bewegingen, 73. 147. Ibid. 148. Ibid., 56.

Chapter 2

Social Movements and the Traditional Left A Cautious Reception

Previous research has referred to political parties on the left of the party systems as the ‘traditional allies’ of the 1970s social movements. Indeed, although different social movement groups may have different partisan affiliations, they tended to have stronger affinities with the left wing of the political spectrum. As Kriesi underlined, ‘supporters of new social movements have been shown to have close affinities with the left, and conversely, adherents of parties of the left have been shown to be much more likely to support new social movements than adherents of parties of the centre and of the right’.1 For sure, for both the parties examined in this book, the wave of social movements constituted a highly relevant challenge that had to be addressed. To the Italian Communist party (PCI), which had previously controlled political mobilization and socialization on the left, its immediate concern was to discuss and find means to interpret the waves of the mobilizations, starting from the students’ mobilizations in 1968. Two meetings in the late autumns of 1968 and 1969 in Ariccia (close to Rome) were the first organized attempts made by the PCI to answer the question of what type of relationship the party should maintain with respect to autonomous movements in civil society.2 While these meetings expressed the urge and willingness to understand and confer full recognition on the student movement and its claim for participation and anti-authoritarianism, it was at the same time emphasized that in order for the PCI to be able to channel this movement, important modifications needed to be introduced in the students’ radical if not revolutionary language. At these two meetings the PCI recognized the merits of the movements in terms of democratic pluralism while at the same time insisting on the need to rephrase the movements’ demands in ‘institutionally acceptable’ language, compatible with the party’s traditional discourse. We will see how this attitude also characterized the way in which the PCI dealt with the two Italian social movements selected in this work.

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The PCI slogan for the 1976 elections (‘PCI: Party of Struggle and of Government’) best indicates the balance that the party tried to keep between promoting reforms consistent with its social basis whilst at the same time appearing as a reliable potential government ally.3 Indeed, in 1973 the PCI secretary Enrico Berlinguer called the party to open to a ‘historic compromise’ with the Christian Democratic party.4 The latter proposal, which characterized the PCI’s strategy during the 1970s, was meant to allow the construction of a new society that would rest on the meeting of the two traditions, the Communist and the Catholic, in order to provide an answer to the country’s institutional and social instability. For the Italian PCI, the 1970s therefore seem to be best interpreted as an attempt to conquer, on one hand, the diffidence of the main currents within the DC, and, on the other, the Italian movement society, increasingly more demanding and decidedly in contrast with the vertical structures and weak internal democracy of the PCI. In attempting to maintain such an equilibrium, the degree to which the ‘party of struggle’ lived up to its name in the 1970s is debatable, although to be sure the PCI never became a ‘party of government’. As mentioned in the Introduction, the only significant attempt of the PCI to come closer to the governmental area came in its external support to the government from 1976 to 1979. The 1980s were characterized by a new phase of the PCI, where the strategy of the ‘historic compromise’ was put aside for that of ‘democratic alternative’, where the party sought alliances with the progressive parties of the left and where it formally gave its support to the (by that time declining) social movement sector. The quest for an alliance with the Socialist party failed, mostly because of the open veto of the Socialist leader Bettino Craxi against the PCI. Most importantly, the 1980s were characterized for the PCI by an organizational and electoral decline. It seemed that the PCI was no longer able to offer a political alternative to an increasingly individualized and de-ideologized society.5 The decline of the PCI during the 1980s ultimately led to the dissolution of the party and to its final transformation, in 1989, into the Democratici di Sinistra (Democrats of the Left), when it abandoned the Communist ideology and principles. The highly pyramidal organizational structure, with decision making taking place at the very top level, was another fundamental characteristic of the Italian Communist party, which distinguishes the PCI strongly from the Dutch PvdA. The formula of the PCI’s internal organization, named ‘democratic centralism’, was based on the principle of discipline and partisan unity. What is commonly remarked on by scholars is that the degree to which members could actually participate in the decision-making processes of the party was merely formal. As Sechi remarked, ‘the bases could discuss, but not autonomously decide on anything unless it was in agreement with

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decisions already taken by the party leadership’.6 The case of the expulsion of the group that formed the newspaper Il Manifesto is exemplary. For gathering around the publication of this newspaper, for having criticized the silence of the Western Communist parties with respect to the invasion of Prague by the Soviet Union (1968), the group was accused of factionalism and expelled. If this group was expelled, the internal voices in the party that were most closely connected to the spirit of the upcoming wave of social movements were instead marginalized. The main figure expressing dissent towards the PCI’s decision-making procedures was Pietro Ingrao. Divisions emerged clearly at the 11th Congress of 1966, where Ingrao called for a more overt discussion before and during the party congresses.7 Openings did not occur, however, and the PCI’s internal organization during the 1970s was characterized by continuity with respect to the ‘democratic centralism’ formula. It was only at the 18th Congress of 1989, the last congress before the PCI’s dissolution, that secret voting was introduced for the election of the Central Committee and the party secretary. This voting procedure allowed the configurations of the different internal factions, previously hidden by a form of forced universal agreement, to come to light. The Dutch Social Democratic party (PvdA) too had to maintain a difficult equilibrium between appearing a reliable governmental ally on the one hand and its stated intention to support the Dutch social movements family on the other. Like the PCI, the PvdA was challenged at the institutional level by a number of parties on its very left. Yet, compared to the Italian situation, the configuration of the smaller parties on the left of the party system was wider and more electorally successful, polling together over 15 per cent of the votes, and therefore constituting a significant electoral challenge to the PvdA. The most remarkable difference between the two left-wing parties examined lies in their internal organizations. As opposed to the PCI, the PvdA was a considerable decentralized and open party. This allowed an internal current that emerged in the late 1960s, named Nieuw Links (New Left), to permeate at the highest levels of the PvdA’s organizational structures, changing the party’s position and posture to a significant degree. The New Left stood for democratization, internal renewal of political parties (including their own), participatory decision-making processes, and greater polarization of the political debate. Moreover, it also touched on issues that lay at the core of the two social movements under consideration, promoting the closure of nuclear factories, as well as nuclear disarmament. The speed and extent to which New Left advanced within the party was not foreseen,8 but it certainly played a crucial role in influencing the PvdA’s openness towards social movements and extra-parliamentary activities throughout the 1970s,

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and for the party’s self-definition as ‘Action Party’ as formalized by the 1973 PvdA Congress. This notion of Action Party as formulated by the congress implied that the PvdA had to operate not only at the parliamentary level by leading and taking decisions, but also at the social level. Moreover, the party should lead and promote action and create organizational bridges between action groups and the party. The final formal step towards the full incorporation of the Action Party principle into the PvdA was the new Declaration of Principles drawn up in 1977: In order to increase the direct influence on the decision-making processes of the government, the PvdA aspires to . . . active participation by the citizens in political parties, local organs, interest groups, action groups; . . . besides exercising parliamentary influence on the decision-making processes, a Social Democratic politics must also be directed to the unification and strengthening of those forces that live in society, such as trade unions, cooperatives, women’s movements, ecology movements and media that fight against capitalism in the daily reality.9 All in all, extra-parliamentary action groups were formally conceived as important not only in terms of democratic pluralism, but also for their crucial merits of stimulating emancipation processes and political consciousness within all sectors of society. Social and parliamentary forces needed to be combined: parliamentary decisions could not bring about change without active support in society; social actions, on the other hand, would not lead to results without rules and norms settled in parliament. From the 1980s, scholars acknowledged a ‘realist’ turn in the PvdA behaviour.10 The character of the party changed and became once again less ideological and more pragmatically oriented. On the one hand, this was the consequence of the fact that the whole social and political context had changed considerably since the previous decade. The 1980s in the Netherlands was characterized in fact by economic decline, increasing levels of unemployment and a budgetary deficit. Economic and welfare issues came to the fore once more as fundamental priorities. Moreover, the political and ideological climate had changed, and a pragmatic and market-oriented line of thinking re-emerged.11 On the other hand, the polarization strategy of the 1970s was now increasingly perceived within the party as one of the major factors keeping it in opposition.12 Before the 1981 political elections, the PvdA declared itself favourable to entering a government coalition with the CDA, thereby abandoning the plan for leftist political alliances which had characterized the party’s institutional strategy in the previous decade.

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As we shall see, the two left-wing parties introduced several changes following the movements’ emergence. However, the way they responded to the movements is far from univocal. This chapter reconstructs the four different trajectories of the left-wing parties’ adaptation to social movements, trying to shed light on the mechanisms and the processes that determined these specific outcomes.

The Incorporation of Feminism within the PCI: From Workers to Women Women always received particular attention from the PCI, beginning immediately after the war. Together with the DC, the Italian Communist party was one of the major political forces in the country to promote universal suffrage, and afterwards a number of policies to help achieve equality and participation for women in all the public sectors of the newly established Italian democracy. The first post-war PCI secretary, Palmiro Togliatti, perceived full emancipation of women as a crucial and necessary condition for the development of a democratic citizenry, for the removal of old authoritarian conceptions, and for overcoming the economic and civic backwardness of the Italian state.13 Togliatti worked to promote an image of the PCI in which women were at the core of its political culture and organization. Indeed, the PCI presented electoral lists with higher percentages of women than any other party in the Italian parliament right from the first national elections, a pattern that characterized the PCI until the 1990s. Togliatti, moreover, underlined that a mere legal equality for women with respect to men was not sufficient as such, arguing that major changes had to occur within a broader set of situations: at the level of family relationships, in society, as well as in politics.14 The PCI held close organizational and financial links with the Unione delle Donne Italiane (UDI), a women’s organization that formed towards the end of the Second World War (1944) with the aim of improving women’s social, cultural and political conditions in the newly established Italian Republic. The party also formed within its internal organization ad hoc women’s sections and internal commissions at different party levels. These groups functioned as spaces for political socialization and the promotion and formation of an internal female leadership. However, many women operating within the party were critical of the way in which the PCI treated women. Indeed, the discourse and the practices of the PCI mainly focused on the inclusion of women in the productive process, but the party never addressed the cultural dimension of women’s issues, which was to be the most important revolutionary message of the feminist

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movement of the 1970s. Women were mainly referred to as working-class actors, and actions for women’s emancipation by the party were mainly oriented to women’s working conditions: equal salaries, the defence of working mothers, protection of domiciliary work, and the introduction of nurseries. In other words, the PCI addressed the so-called ‘feminism of rights’,15 but it hardly considered the broader cultural, societal or institutional spheres of women’s oppression. In turn, the UDI and the women’s special sections within the party, while apparently providing spaces and structures where women could elaborate their issues in autonomy, in real terms they implied a ‘ghettoization’ of women within their own party. A number of female writers and PCI members mentioned how these special sections were actually perceived as ‘minor corps’ of second-order members, marginalized from the party’s main activities and with no decision-making powers or influence. The words of Giovanna Filippini, women’s representative for the Communist Youth, are exemplary: ‘I must admit that until some time ago I preferred to have within the party tasks that were not specifically feminine. Those who worked in the women’s sections were considered not only by male party fellows but also by us women ourselves as some second-order personalities’.16 As we shall see, the party was initially reticent to endorse the feminist movement. However, over time, the way in which the PCI framed women’s issues changed considerably. Not only did women’s issues become more salient in the political discourse of the PCI, but also the very language and the practices the party adopted became increasingly closer to those of the feminist movement.

The Feminization of the PCI Discourse Autonomy practices and critique of the state institutions were the movement’s defining characteristics, especially in the first years of its development. Feminists raised a radical critique against political institutions and political parties were deemed to be hierarchical manifestations of patriarchal vestiges. ‘All parties are dominated by men and rest upon vertical structures in which there is no space for us’, claimed a feminist activist in a 1977 interview.17 In this context of an adversarial attitude from the movement’s activists, a relational dynamic between the feminist movement and the PCI would be difficult to envisage. The fact that feminists were focusing on cultural rather than economic issues, and the fact that they centred their reflections primarily on the private dimension rather than mobilizing on the issue of working conditions, was difficult to interpret and place in the PCI’s traditional working-class focus. Indeed, at this initial stage, feminists were much criticized by the party, not least by Communist women. Rather than improving women’s

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conditions, feminist groups were accused, by women within the PCI, of creating a ‘new apartheid for women’.18 Feminism was considered as ‘the wrong way to treat an important problem’.19 The cultural, separatist and anti-institutional orientation of the feminist groups, defined as ‘radical and excessive fringes of the women’s movement’,20 remained at the core of the Communist women’s critiques to the feminist movement until the mid-1970s. This emerges in particular from the numerous articles published on the feminist movement by the PCI weekly journal Rinascita. Instead of repeating the vane slogan that ‘power is masculine’ and that women do not want to deal with power, with political parties and the state, let’s instead face this problem of power!21 Not involving men, and remaining separated from them, from society and from institutions means moving back, and condemning women to isolation and minority.22 At the same time, we do find evidence that the PCI elites perceived the women’s movement’s emergence as one of the fundamental novelties of the 1970s. In his speech at the 1969 congress, the party secretary Luigi Longo acknowledged the movement’s importance as well as ‘the need to overcome all hesitations and limitations in the way in which the party itself treats women’.23 Yet overall, despite the recognition of the fact that female masses had begun to mobilize and acquire greater political consciousness, the movement was ‘stigmatized as a middle-class phenomenon, with a too narrow focus and distant from the problems of working women’.24 This changed from the mid-1970s, and the political elections of 1976 marked an important shift in the way in which the PCI responded to the feminist movement. The growing significance of the women’s vote undoubtedly played a role in the party’s opening to the feminist movement. The defeat of the anti-divorce referendum (1974) showed that women were not necessarily following the voting directions of the DC. The electoral success of the PCI at the local elections of 1975 was perceived as a continuation of this trend, and never – as in the 1976 political elections – had women been so central in the societal and political debate. At the same time, the feminist movement grew stronger, acquiring full visibility as a political collective actor and increasing its appeal to a wider social strata of women in the Italian population, including Communist women. The latter became increasingly more active in the movement’s activities, leading to a growing pattern of ‘double militancy’ in both partisan and feminist groups. The boundaries between the ‘old egalitarian’ feminists and the newly emerged feminist groups

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started blurring (see Chapter 1). According to Ravaioli, a turning point for the feminization of women of the ‘old left’ took place at the 6th Conference of Communist women held in February 1976.25 For the first time at a Communist conference, she argued, the discussion centred not only on the older claims for women’s emancipation, but also on those newer themes that the feminist movement had raised: women as individuals, their roles in society, sexuality, liberation. This combination of factors, electoral drives as well as the growing reciprocity between feminist activists and Communist women, led to an increased attention to women’s issues in the PCI political discourse from the mid-1970s onwards. Figure 2.1 shows the number of textual references to women’s issues in the PCI election manifestos from 1968 to 1987. The frequency count shows that women’s issues were mentioned very little before the feminist movement emerged as a visible political and social force in Italian society. In the early 1970s, attention to women’s issues increased, but it is when comparing the PCI election manifestos of 1972 and 1976 in particular that we find the total number of positive of references to women’s issues increasing the most (from thirteen in 1972, to forty in 1976). This change reflects the increasing political relevance that women’s issues acquired from the political elections of 1976 onwards. Indeed, not only the

Number of references

40

29

20

13

4 0

1969

1972

1976

Election years

1979

1983

1987

Figure 2.1 Coverage of women’s issues in the PCI manifestos, 1968–1987 Note: The dashed line indicates the Italian feminist movement’s peak of visibility. Source: See list of primary sources in bibliography (elaboration by author).

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quantity but also the very quality of the Communist discourse on women changed, as women came to be considered beyond their role as workers, and the need for a cultural shift in all spheres of society became recognized. The speech to the 14th Congress by the party secretary Enrico Berlinguer is illustrative: ‘Women’s emancipation to us means changing things but also ideas: [it means] facing women’s issues in the labour market, in the family and in society as a whole. We should start from the problems that are specific to women and try to solve them’.26 In the election manifesto of 1976, not only was a ‘full recognition of the demands made by the women’s movement’ stated for the first time, but also the term ‘liberation’ appeared in the text. Moreover, the PCI mentioned the priority of passing new legislation on abortion, and the necessity to organize methods by which women’s associations and movements would be consulted each time decisions pertaining to women were made by the government or the parliament.27 In the manifesto for the next parliamentary elections (1979), the language adopted came even closer to that of the feminist movement. Women’s liberation now formed the core of the party’s discourse on women. Moreover, the PCI stated the urgency, recently expressed by the feminist movement, of introducing legislation that adequately prevented and punished sexual violence.28 The same year signalled the formal opening of the PCI towards the feminist movement.29 Even though, remarkably, the label ‘feminist’ was still avoided and the more general label of the ‘women’s movement’, or ‘female movement’ used, the 15th PCI Congress, in its final document, ‘acknowledges and supports the will of women to liberate themselves from all kinds of oppression, including the one historically determined in the realm of sexuality’.30 For the first time, the specific feminist discourses on women’s oppression and women’s liberation were predominant over the general egalitarian discourse. In the words of the party secretary Berlinguer, ‘we need to get out of the old framework that historically influenced revolutionary thought, that the social revolution comes first, and women’s issues second. This no longer holds: the process of social revolution and that of women’s liberation have to proceed concomitantly and support each other’.31 Finally, Berlinguer overtly criticized the male chauvinist attitudes in bureaucracies, within political parties in general and not least within the PCI itself, where women should, he said, count more and hold more decision-making functions. At the turn of the 1980s, the discourse of the PCI is remarkably different compared to the previous decade, and a formal incorporation and legitimation of feminism took place. The label ‘feminism’ acquired a positive meaning and ‘the great advancement of the feminist theoretical instances [are now] justly and punctually accepted within the party’.32 Beyond the the-

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oretical acceptance of feminism, what becomes increasingly stressed is that women need to count more, to transform society and the PCI itself through their active involvement. The first time that the word ‘feminist’ is used with a positive connotation in an official PCI document is in the congress of 1983, when the PCI secretary states that the PCI must behave in coherence with feminist opinions and principles. Moreover, after this congress the contradiction of sex was given equal weight with the contradiction of class. The term ‘feminist’ also appeared in the PCI manifesto of 1983, and the feminist movement is referred to as a decisive actor in the process of the radical transformation of the country in personal and family relationships. During the 17th Congress of 1986, not only was merit explicitly attributed to the feminist movement for having opened up an important debate in Italian society, but also crucial feminist issues were recognized, such as the recognition of sexual difference, of patriarchy as a system of oppression, and of women as revolutionary subjects.33 In the party journals too the language employed when discussing women’s issues echoed that constituting the central feminist discourse of the 1970s: women’s difference, liberation, autonomy, differences between the sexes, the need for women’s solidarity and the construction of special organizational ties between women: ‘We live in a social structure that has been thought and modelled around the times and priorities of only one sex. There is a solidarity pact between men that rules social relations: let’s make a pact between women’.34 Finally, at the 18th Congress of 1989, with the process of party reform initiated by the new secretary, Achille Occhetto, social movements (feminists, ecologists and pacifists) were formally recognized as the central ideological references of the party in transformation. Feminist principles were formally stated. In the preface of the new party Statute approved at this congress, the PCI defined itself as a ‘party of women and men’, and indicated gender difference among the inspiring values of the newly reformed party. Hence, feminist positions entered into the political discourse of the party as the movement peaked, and they remained at the core of the PCI programme even after its decline.

Women’s Representation and Feminist Co-optation The increased women’s representation in political offices was far from a feminist goal in the first and more radical years of the movement’s activities. However, as the movement broadened and deradicalized, a growing number of women claimed for women’s representation in public office and in partisan institutions. If the PCI traditionally held the best record in terms of numbers of female elected MPs, with more women in its parliamentary

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Table 2.1 Women’s representation in the PCI party group, 1946–1987 Election year 1946 1953 1958 1963 1968 1972 1976 1979 1983 1987 PCI female MPs

6 16 11 13 8 14 41 35 32 53 (5.1) (11.1) (7.8) (8.1) (4.5) (7.9) (17.6) (17.5) (15.3) (33.1)

Total PCI MPs

117

143

140

159

177

176

232

199

208

160

Note: Figures in parentheses are percentages of total PCI MPs. Source: M. Guadagnini, ‘Una rappresentanza limitata: Le donne nel Parlamento italiano dal 1948 ad oggi’, Quaderni di Sociologia 8 (1987), 130–57 (elaboration by author).

group than any other party in parliament, it will further increase this pattern from the 1970s onwards. As for the introduction of feminist language into the party’s political discourse, we find the numerical representation of women increasing the most following the 1976 political elections, as the percentage of elected women in parliament nearly doubled, from 7.9 per cent in 1972 to 17.6 per cent in 1976. The second relevant increase in the PCI’s pattern of representation of women can be observed for the elections of 1987, after the formal incorporation of the feminist principles in the party discourse discussed above. Thus, if the first relevant increase in the pattern of women’s representation for the PCI can be seen as a direct effect of the political visibility of feminists in the mid-1970s, the second increase in the second half of the 1980s should instead be attributed its long-term effects. Observing the significant difference between the number of PCI women standing as candidates and the number of women actually elected to parliament, some scholars have pointed to an instrumental use of women by the party. Cattaneo and D’Amato argue how ‘a twofold phenomenon can be traced, on one hand an often exaggerated search for women to insert in the electoral lists, on the other hand the tendency to make the least number of women as possible elected’.35 Indeed, as Table 2.2 shows, the increase in the number of female candidates had little effect on the number of women elected. Table 2.2 PCI female candidates and PCI female MPs Election year

1972

1976

1979

1983

1987

Number of female candidates

71 (19.7)

120 (34.1)

119 (29.4)

97 (32.9)

183 (28.9)

14

41

35

32

53

Number of women elected

Note: Figures in parentheses are percentages of total PCI candidates. Source: Guadagnini 1987 (elaboration by author).

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This pattern has been explained by the limited tendency of the Italian electorate to use their vote of preference and cast a vote for female candidates,36 as well as by the parties’ instrumental behaviour, nominating female candidates, thereby appearing women-friendly and innovative, but without guaranteeing those women the possibility of being elected. A similar pattern can be observed with regard to women’s representation in the party’s internal organs. As shown in Figure 2.2, the percentage of women represented in the PCI’s highest decision-making organs, the Direction and the Central Committee,37 increased after the feminist mobilization took place, and increased even further in the 1980s. However, not only are figures for women’s representation in the PCI’s internal structure decidedly lower compared to those for women’s representation in parliament, but the percentage of women represented in the different PCI’s decision-making body seems to decrease with the importance of the body: the more influential the body, the fewer the women represented in it. However, for the purpose of this study, it should be sufficient to point to the evidence presented thus far, of an overtime increase in the presence of women at different party levels, notably after the emergence of the feminist movement in the mid-1970s. More clearly denoting organizational responses to the feminist movement is the co-optation by the PCI of feminist activists. To observe if and the extent to which patterns of feminist co-optation took place, I examined the biographical backgrounds of the PCI female members of parliament

18

13 10.3

5.3

1948

10.2

9.1

8.1

7.8

5.3

1951

7.8 4.8

0

0

1955

1960

1962

Direction

6.4

5.9 6.2

1966

13.9

9.1

14.5

9.1

9.1

7.2

1969

5.7

1972

5.9

1975

1979

1983

1986

Central Committee

Figure 2.2 Women’s representation in the PCI Direction and Central Committee, 1948–1986 Sources: Baldassarre 1982; Rinascita, 1 April 1986; Guadagnini 1987 (elaboration by author).

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(MPs) in both chambers of the Italian parliament between 1972 and 1987. Indeed, the highly centralized candidate nomination procedure of the PCI allows surmising that the members of parliament project the image that the leading organs of the party intended to present to the electorate.38 The election of social movement activists on its lists therefore indicates the intention of the PCI’s highest decision-making bodies to provide representation to those groups. In Table 2.2, PCI female MPs are classified according to their participation within different women’s organizations. Cross-checking official records of MPs with unofficial sources (mainly internal documentation of the feminist movement),39 I was able to distinguish if the PCI’s female MPs in parliament were involved in the 1970s feminist groups; in older women’s organizations (typically, the UDI); in women’s groups or sections within the party (such as the ‘Female Commissions’, or the various national, regional or local-level women’s party sections or groups); or, in no women’s group at all. Observing the biographical background of the women elected on the Communist party lists for both chambers of the Italian parliament reveals a pattern of increasing co-optation by the PCI, starting, once again, from the political elections of 1976. As shown in Table 2.3, two feminists entered the parliament in 1976, four in 1979, five in 1984 and eight in 1987. Co-optation processes are not, of course, unidirectional and should be looked at from two perspectives: on one hand, the PCI’s intention to give a voice to feminists; on the other hand, the willingness of feminist activists to take part in the electoral process with the PCI. Radical feminists considered elections, political parties, the parliament and the state, as such, as instruments of violence and power, and therefore, by default, enemies of feminist principles. Table 2.3 Biographical backgrounds of PCI’s female MPs, 1972–1992 1972–1976 1976–1979 1979–1983 1983–1987 1987–1992 Feminist groups

0 (0)

2 (4.3)

4 (8.7)

5 (10.6)

8 (12.3)

Older women’s organization

8 (38.1)

11 (23.9)

9 (19.6)

5 (10.6)

7 (12.3)

Women’s groups within the PCI

4 (19)

9 (19.6)

13 (28.3)

10 (21.3)

8 (12.3)

No mention to women’s groups

9 (42.9)

24 (19.6)

20 (28.3)

27 (21.3)

42 (12.3)

Total PCI female MPs

21

46

46

47

65

Note: Figures in parentheses are percentages of total PCI female MPs. Sources: As in note 39 (author’s elaboration).

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For the political elections of 1976, probably the most ‘sensitive’ elections in the history of the Italian Republic as far as women’s representation is concerned, the left-wing parties were characterized by what was defined by the Italian weekly journal L’Espresso as a ‘hunt for feminists’.40 This led to a strong sense of mistrust and suspicion among feminist groups, who feared that the left-wing parties, having perceived the strong electoral mobilization potential of the feminist movement after the divorce referendum and the 1975 local elections, were instrumentally searching for feminists in order to appear as open and women-oriented to the electorate. ‘Parties are interested in bringing in only the quantitative side of the movement, while censoring what for the movement was crucial’, a feminist activist argued.41 Fearing that they would lose their autonomy, the question within the movement of whether to participate in this newly opened institutional arena was intensely debated, but finally the majority of feminist groups refused to take part in the electoral process. As discussed in the preceding chapter, the category of ‘pure’ extra-parliamentary feminists lost its significance as the movement widened, deradicalized, and a broader number of women, including UDI women, entered the movement. As argued by Ergas, ‘the borders between the old organization of the left and the feminist movement existing in the previous decade [i.e. the

First panel – Woman alone: ‘The oppression of women is a specific issue’. PCI male party activists (thought bubbles): ‘Slut’, ‘Cunt’, ‘Lesbian’; (speech bubble): ‘Petit bourgeois individualism isolates the working class’. Third panel – PCI male party activists (thought bubbles): ‘We need these women’, ‘We have to win our women comrades back’, ‘If only we were leading the demonstration’; (speech bubble): ‘Women play an essential role in our mass movement, side by side with the working class’.

Figure 2.3 The PCI co-optation strategy from the feminists’ perspective Source: Rivista del Movimento della Liberazione della Donna Autonomo, 1–2 January 1978 (Archivia, Casa Internazionale delle Donne, Rome).

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1970s] were broken’.42 Hence, if we were to combine the first two groups of women for the elections in the 1980s, figures on the presence of feminist MPs elected in the PCI lists would increase considerably. What is more important than the exact figures is that the PCI envisaged a specific parliamentary group where social movement actors could find place in parliament, named the ‘Independent Left’ (‘Indipendenti di Sinistra’). Presenting independents in its lists revealed itself to be a very beneficial electoral strategy for the PCI, as through this political grouping the party could show itself open to areas of opinion and movements that did not identify with the Communist party (nor were they PCI members) but still considered the PCI as their party of reference within the left. As Baldassarre argues, by nominating ‘Independents’, ‘the PCI was able to present itself to the electorate simultaneously as interpreter of its own tradition and as the central political force of the Left, where the different progressive forces who stood against the current system of government and power could converge’.43 Hence, the ‘trick’ of nominating independents allowed the PCI to show its openness towards the feminist movement (and to civil society actors in general) and at the same time allowed the movement activists to raise their voice within the institutions from an independent position.

A Process of Incorporation Overall, the pattern of the PCI’s responsiveness towards the feminist movement can be traced through three main phases: scepticism, up to the second half of the 1970s; a gradual opening from 1976; and full recognition from the 1980s. Despite its positive recognition of the fact that the female masses had begun to mobilize and acquire greater political consciousness, the feminist groups appeared at the beginning too distant and deviant from the PCI’s labour and economy-focused political tradition. Initially, as argued by Confalonieri, ‘the movement is still stigmatized as a middle-class phenomenon, with a too narrow focus, and far too distant from the real problems of working women’.44 Moreover, the feminist critique of the state institutions and the hierarchical nature of parties could not find positive responses from the PCI. From 1976 onwards, a process of opening of the PCI discourse towards feminist demands, and a growing correspondence between the party’s and the movement’s discourses was observed. At the organizational level, this corresponded to an increase in women’s representation in the PCI’s parliamentary group, and to the beginning of a process of inclusion of feminist activists in its electoral lists for the 1976 elections. The introduction of specifically feminist language in 1979 clearly shows the centrality that this movement had by now acquired for the PCI. This phase corresponded to

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the movement’s moment of highest visibility, and to its enlargement to a wider spectrum of women, including UDI and Communist women themselves. Indeed, the common mobilizations of feminist activists, Communist and UDI women for the campaigns on retaining divorce legislation, for the introduction of abortion legislation and for a new law on sexual violence during the second half of the 1970s were the first of their kind. These mobilizations led to increased attention and sensitivity among women of the ‘old left’ on the themes that this movement had introduced, and to their participation in various feminist activities and a growing pattern of ‘double militancy’. From the 1980s, instead, the PCI brought feminism into both its discourses and its organizational practices. Not only was the term ‘feminist’ now used with positive connotations, but also the feminist principles of women’s difference and liberation, and women’s oppression entered the official discourse of the party at the congresses and in the new party Statute. Moreover, during the 1980s, women’s representation in the party’s internal bodies also increased. If the feminists had ended their phase of active street mobilization, their cultural heritage had strongly permeated Communist women, thus entering the party from within. Within the PCI, important changes also took place, as its female militants and representatives became increasingly active in demanding the integration of a politics for, of and by women within the party itself. Confalonieri refers to the ‘formation of a feminist faction’.45 While the usage of the term ‘faction’ might be misleading, it still reveals the great extent to which the Communist women had managed to establish themselves as a political force within the party. All in all, the increasing feminization of Communist women resulted in what Lange defined as an ‘attitudinal invasion’ within the party,46 leading to attitudinal changes in the PCI with respect to those themes at the core of the mobilizations that party members felt close to. Thus, if from the end of the 1970s, feminism disappeared from the scenario of collective movements, what remained was integrated in the institutional ‘old left’, strongly influencing its political thought, discourse and practice.

The PCI and the Ecology Movement: Shades of Green in a Red Political Culture In the political culture of the PCI, industrialization and economic growth were considered as important means for wealth distribution and the liberation of the popular masses from conditions of misery and social inequality. Little attention was paid to environmental issues.

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Before the emergence of a broad ecology movement, environmental issues mainly entered the Communist discourse through the party’s traditional fields of intervention, namely through the protection of the working class and the criticism of capitalist production processes.47 An example of the latter is the meeting ‘Uomo, Natura, Società: ecologia e rapporti sociali’, held at the residence of the PCI party school in 1971,48 where scientists and PCI members attributed responsibility for the unscrupulous exploitation of natural resources to capitalist production mechanisms. The environmental crisis was considered as just one of the many signals of the inability of the market economy to provide positive responses alone. To solve social imbalances and environmental decay, responsible state planning of the economy and ecological policies were needed. If the introduction of environmental thought and sensitivity by means of a criticism of capitalist mechanisms of production was a conceivable adaptation considering the theoretical and cultural traditions of the PCI, what the party was culturally unprepared to endorse were the implications attached to the question of limits, first introduced in the Limits to Growth report by the Club of Rome (see Chapter 1). The consideration that quantitative economic development should not necessarily be considered positively could not be accepted in the political culture of the PCI, which proved very critical of the report and its implications. The ‘zero growth’ proposal would, in the opinion of the Communist party, have crystallized social imbalances between the rich and poor countries of the world. As stated in the 1972 election manifesto: It is not possible to surrender to anguished interpretations of a humankind moving towards catastrophe and the end of its survival on earth. The development of science can on the contrary guarantee the protection and the development of natural resources to the advantage of humankind.49 Similar criticisms were raised in the PCI journals: The problem is not economic growth. Null growth would in fact have accentuated the social and economic imbalances and unfairness between the rich and poor countries, and condemn the latter to a condition of perpetuating their misery.50 The crisis of the idea of development is induced by negative streams of thought: by a literature that announces the end of life on our planet that calls for a reduction of the growth-rhythm of the economy, even technological abstinence, and various neo-romantic attitudes calling for a return to nature.51

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Although not specifically mentioned, the ‘neo-romantic attitudes’ that this last quote refers to were those of the early ecology groups that had emerged in Italy. As Giorgio Nebbia reported, these early ecologists were criticized by the left-wing political culture for being wealthy intellectuals, an expression of bourgeois culture, with no idea of the needs of the working class. Ecology was perceived as the ‘Science of the Countesses’.52 ‘How could we demand to bring consumption to a standstill when the majority of humankind was living in conditions of extreme poverty or at the borders of survival? The left could not accept such message’.53 Yet, only a few years later the PCI advanced an alternative ‘austerity proposal’ that had the reduction of wasteful uneconomic behaviour at its core.54 Quoting from the election manifesto presented by the PCI for the 1976 elections: ‘The tendency of uncontrolled growth in individual consumption has to be corrected, . . . policies of economic strictness should characterize both the behaviour of the government and the behaviour of individual citizens’.55 Austerity implied the rationalization of the use of resources, both in production and consumption levels. Despite the fact that economic and not environmental concerns were the underlying motives of the austerity proposal – as it was the economic recovery of the country that motivated it – such a message of strictness and rationalization in the use of resources would indirectly produce important medium-term benefits for the environment.56

A Quasi-Ecologist Turn The very end of the 1970s signed the beginning of what initially seemed as the environmental turn of the PCI. At the level of the party discourse, the 1979 party manifesto recognized the need to balance economic development and environmental protections, and a specific document centred solely on the environment was approved at the 15th Congress of the same year.57 At the parliamentary level, the PCI supported the presentation of a consistent number of law proposals in the environmental field, thereby providing an important impulse to the growing body of environmental legislation introduced in Italy during the first half of the 1980s.58 Moreover, a growing number of external events – seminars, meetings, congresses – were co-organized by the party on environmental matters (as will be covered later in the volume). The man–nature relationship, whose importance was so cautiously discovered at the meeting in Frattocchie in 1971, is now considered ‘extraordinarily important’, and ‘one of the central problems for the future’.59 Most importantly, the traditional technological optimism that had characterized the PCI for over fifty years, seems to be reconsidered: ‘Let’s face reality. . . . We have reached the limits of the current process of development, depreda-

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Number of references

46

23

13 9

7

0

1969

1972

1976

1979

1983

1987

Election years

Figure 2.4 Coverage of environmental issues in the PCI manifestos, 1968–1987 Note: The dashed line indicates the Italian ecology movement’s peak of visibility. Source: See list of primary sources in bibliography (elaboration by author).

tion and waste of natural resources, robbery of nature, and degradation of the environment. . . . What needs to be reconsidered from the start is the quality of development as such’.60 The analysis of the party manifestos confirms the increasing attention towards the environment by the PCI from the second half of the 1970s onwards. From being nearly absent in the initial election years observed (zero references to environmental issues are made in 1969, nine in 1972 and seven in 1976), attention grows from the late 1970s. This pattern coincides with the growing political visibility of the Italian ecology movement and with the establishment at the very heart of the PCI organizational structure of the Lega per l’Ambiente (see Chapter 1). In the party manifesto for the 1979 elections, the number of references increased to twenty-three, and in the 1983 manifesto it further increased to forty-six. In this 1983 manifesto, moreover, the PCI overtly acknowledged ‘the development of an autonomous mass movement that directly acts in the field of ecological battles’ among the positive and innovative recent developments.61 Yet, it is especially the general environmental concerns that received the greatest attention in the party documents clustered (such as ‘environmental protection’, ‘pollution’, ‘waste reduction’, ‘quality of life’, and the ‘acknowledgement of the limitations of natural resources’), whereas the issues lying at the core of the Italian ecology

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movement’s claims, and particularly the anti-nuclear claims, continued to receive more limited attention. Indeed, if the party intensified its discourse and activities on environmental matters, it struggled with the position to take on nuclear energy, which remained until the end the most crucial dividing issue between the PCI and the ecologists.

The Nuclear Energy Divide Not only was the National Energy Plan of 1975 approved by the votes of the PCI, but the party also strongly criticized the anti-nuclear demonstrations that took place in 1977 and 1978. Few were the dissonant voices. This position remained unchanged, even though from the late 1970s, in recognition of the emergence of a multiplicity of ecology groups, the party’s statements in favour of nuclear energy were always counterbalanced by a number of caveats. Hence, the use of nuclear energy needs to be ‘limited and controlled’, and ‘finalized to cover the energy requirements that other sources do not manage to cover’, and ‘greater attention and investments were to be made in alternative sources of energy’.62 In these very years, the PCI also strongly insisted on the fact that independent agencies should control security matters for nuclear power stations, and criticized the government for having instituted a biased pro-nuclear commission to establish the appropriateness of the security standards of nuclear plants.63 The reasons for this increased caution reside in a number of factors pertaining both to the party’s internal organization and to external environmental circumstances that the party had to cope with. Internally, the PCI had to face the stated anti-nuclear position of the newly established Lega per l’Ambiente. This meant that primacy over anti-nuclear energy standpoints was no longer held by the Radical party, the extra-parliamentary left, or the smaller group of ecologists, and that anti-nuclear sentiment had entered the very heart of the Communist party’s organizational structure. The formation of an organized association with an overt anti-nuclear stance within the most central collateral organization of the party placed the PCI under new and strong internal pressure. At the same time, the PCI was also being pressed by external circumstances. Indeed, after the collection of signatures promoted by the Radical party and its federated ecology group Amici della Terra in 1978, the likelihood of an upcoming referendum on nuclear energy existed in 1981, and had the potential to gain sufficient consensus among the Italian population.64 Internal documentation from meetings of the PCI’s Direction shows how the party was well aware of the risks that its pro-nuclear position entailed in terms of public image, and how it would have affected its relationship with the emergent ecology movement:

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The opinion of the Comrades is that it would be necessary to avoid the referendum repealing the law 393 [law 393/1975 on the localization of nuclear factories and the production and the use of energy] and implementing a new one. . . . If the referendum cannot be avoided then it would be necessary to promote initiatives at the parliamentary level that tackle the problems of security, health, and environmental protection. In this way, we can search for a relationship with the anti-nuclear groups (not with those ‘of principle’ but with those who justify their NO with serious and well-grounded concerns) and hence prepare for the referendum campaign.65 If the referendum could not be avoided, the PCI would do best by presenting itself as an active promoter of environmental policies, thereby appearing as a potential interlocutor of the ecologist organizations. This also emerges from a meeting of the PCI Direction, held specifically on the referendum issue: ‘We should pay attention when setting up the electoral campaign. The risk we face is to appear as the advocates of nuclear energy. We should insist on alternative sources’.66 On how to relate to the ecologist movement, members of the Direction seemed to have rather opposing views. Some underlined the necessity of links with the movement, while others remained more sceptical, pointing to the trade-off between ecologists’ and workers’ demands, or to the anti-modern positions held by the ecologists. Finally, following a judgement of the Constitutional Court, the anti-nuclear referendum did not take place in 1981. It nevertheless forced the PCI to take a clear stance on the energy issue. As a result, in February 1980 the PCI presented its proposal for a new National Energy Plan, standing for the construction of ‘at least’ two more nuclear power stations – besides the ones being completed in Montalto di Castro and Caorso – under specific security and decision-making conditions.67 However, the new climate in which this document was elaborated emerges clearly in its introductory statement: ‘The new National Energy Plan needs to have at its core a politics of saving and rational use of available resources. . . . It needs to aim at the maximum valorization of renewable sources’.68 Besides receiving criticism from the Lega per l’Ambiente,69 the party also received criticism from a growing number of PCI MPs as well as in the party press. The intensification of the internal debate on nuclear energy within the PCI took place during the 17th PCI Congress of 1986, and can be clearly seen in the introductory speech to the congress by the party secretary, Alessandro Natta: A new reformist alliance is needed that links the workers’ movement with the women’s movements, the movements of students, and the

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ecologist and environmental movements that fight for the defence of the natural and cultural heritage of our country. This does not mean that each goal has to be taken as such. We see this in the case of nuclear energy. As far as I am concerned, I expressed my position together with the majority of the Central Committee for a controlled and limited use of nuclear energy. However, I cannot ignore the meaning of those new movements of opinion, and the symptoms they represent of the emergence of new sensitivities.70 According to one of the ecologists entering the parliament under the PCI lists, the anti-nuclear amendment was voted on twice at the congress. ‘The first time it seemed that we (i.e. the anti-nuclearists within the party) were ahead by about twenty votes. There was a moment of dismay when we saw from the podium that almost no one in the entire leading group had raised their hand. Finally voting was repeated, and many delegates did not raise their hand the second time. Hence we lost’.71 The anti-nuclear amendment was outvoted by a small majority (457 against, 440 in favour and 59 abstentions). The text that was approved instead proposed a ‘limited and controlled’ use of carbon and nuclear energy, as approved by the parliament in the National Energy Plan of 1981. As the referendum on nuclear energy took place in November 1987, after the dramatic explosion of the nuclear power station in Chernobyl (26 April 1986), the PCI took an anti-nuclear position. This shift in the PCI’s position can by no means be attributed to the ecology movement, but to the wide media coverage that alarmed Italian public opinion to the extent that the whole Italian political spectrum (with the exception of the Partito Repubblicano and, as we shall see in the next chapter, the Christian Democratic party) turned against the use of nuclear energy and supported the referendum.

Co-optation and Interorganizational Contacts The attention to the environment shown at the level of party discourse also reflected at the organizational level. A first indicator pointing in this direction, is the co-optation of ecology activists among the PCI members of parliament. For the elections of 1983 and 1987 the PCI elected under the party lists, respectively, three and five ecology activists.72 As in the case of the Italian feminist movement, the ecology activists elected on the lists of the PCI did not have a militant political background in the Communist party. Although politically close to the PCI, none had previous political experience in the Communist party’s organizational structures. What these ecology ac-

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tivists share is, instead, a common pathway within the original nucleus of the ecology movement that developed during the 1970s around the journal Nuova Ecologia, and their later involvement in the initial phase of the constitution of the Lega per l’Ambiente.73 Moreover, pointing to organizational adaptation of the PCI with regard to the growing societal claims for greater environmental attention, the party introduced, for the first time, an internal workgroup on environmental matters. The first was introduced in 1979, under the direction of Giovanni Berlinguer, and centred its activities on promoting discussions on the link between health, security in workplaces, and environmental issues. This working section, through letters and reports sent to the party secretary, pressed for greater attention to be given to the environment, and to the emerging environmental demands in society: It is necessary to give greater value and to pay greater attention to environmental issues, as these are receiving increasing attention on the social scene, both in Italy as well as abroad. It is necessary to listen to the pressures and the demands that are emerging in the society towards a new quality of life, and to translate those demands in concrete programmatic standpoints and acts. This requires an intense and continuous effort.74 A second workgroup, named Sezione Beni Culturali (Workgroup on Cultural Heritage), was introduced in 1982 and had, among its constitutive functions, the mission to ‘create linkages with the local-level organizations and in particular with the Lega per l’Ambiente’.75 A year later, a third workgroup on environmental issues was established (Sui problemi dell’Ambiente, ‘On Environmental Problems’), which took over the functions of the two former groups and became the primary reference for environmental issues within the PCI in the 1980s. Archival documentation shows an active exchange of correspondence, reciprocal invitations, and joint initiatives between this particular workgroup and the Lega per l’Ambiente. Communist delegates took part at all congresses of this organization in the first half of the 1980s, and specific meetings were organized by the PCI Direction aimed at the discussion on the way in which the Communists could provide their contribution.76 However, even though the party and the ecology groups worked together in numerous initiatives on environmental matters, the PCI never provided formal support to their protest actions. The main reason for this was that ecologist protest actions were mainly centred around (and against) nuclear energy, which the party remained in favour of until the Chernobyl disaster.

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This not only holds for the 1977 and 1978 smaller-scale protests, defined by a member of the party Direction as ‘organized by promiscuous and heterogeneous groups . . . who instigate the local population on the basis of false and irrational news distorting the evidence’,77 but also for the large-scale demonstrations held thereafter.

A Two-Sided Attitude From the moment it established itself as a visible political actor, the PCI immediately showed its interest in creating a dialogue with the ecology movement. This was manifested from the 1980s in the growing attention of the party towards general environmental issues and the regular contacts that it maintained with the main ecology group of the country, the Lega per l’Ambiente. A great number of divisions between the ecology movement and the Communist party did, however, remain. First, although mentioning the necessity to reconsider the notion of quantitative development on the basis of qualitative criteria and to balance economic development with environmental protection (PCI manifestos of 1979 and 1983), the PCI did not actually overcome its industrialist or growth-oriented cultural background. The perceived trade-off between economy and ecology prevented the party from endorsing different models of growth based on ecological conservation. Second, although becoming more cautious and open to the alternative energy sources, the PCI remained in favour of nuclear energy. The shift in the party’s position against the further location of nuclear plants on the Italian territory that took place after 1986 was merely a political necessity after the nuclear energy catastrophe in Chernobyl and the upcoming referendum on the matter. This dual attitude of the PCI towards the ecology movement can be explained by the organizational closeness between the party and the Lega per l’Ambiente. Forming within the ARCI, the cultural and recreational organization of the PCI, the party was pressured from within to maintain and promote environmental initiatives with the Lega per l’Ambiente, despite the fact it did not take on board many of its environmental concerns. This pattern can also be explained by considering the potential electoral risks the PCI would have faced had it not paid sufficient attention to this newly mobilized section of the electorate. As discussed in Chapter 1, from the 1980s, Green lists began mushrooming and gaining support at local-level elections, and ecology activists increasingly considered the possibility of leaving the ‘red’ tradition and forming a national-level Green party. Fearing a loss of electoral support, the PCI recognized that creating linkages with the movement and showing its openness towards environmental concerns was the only oppor-

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tunity to prevent this from happening. Ultimately though, the ‘red’ and the ‘green’ appeared irreconcilable. This in turn influenced the movement’s decision to run as a political party in the national-level elections in 1987.

The Limitations of the ‘Action Party’ Strategy: The PvdA and the Ecology Movement Since the Second World War, the PvdA had been actively involved in stimulating the economic development of the Netherlands through a policy of industrialization. In the PvdA’s perspective, constant and stable economic growth was the necessary condition for the enhancement of general living conditions for the citizenry, for full employment, and consequently for a more equal distribution of income and general welfare. The party’s position can be summarized in a sense of ‘technological optimism’, also typical of other social democratic parties across Europe: a focus on economic growth and industrialization and trust in the market, with a certain degree of state correction. Little if no attention was paid to environmental issues. Quoting an article in a 1981 ecology movement’s journal, ‘for the PvdA, smoke from the industry chimneys meant work and welfare’.78 It was in the early 1960s, when the Netherlands had reached a condition of general welfare, but also when the negative consequences of steady industrial development had begun to manifest themselves, that the PvdA began to introduce environmental issues into its discourse. Apart from some isolated voices in the party journal Socialisme en Democratie, the first official document indicating the party’s perception of the importance of environmental issues was a report published by the scientific foundation of the PvdA.79 For the first time extra-economic factors, such as a clean environment, were explicitly mentioned as a fundamental component of citizens’ well-being: Now that a welfare phase seems to have started, it will be possible to shift our attention from production as such to its usage, and from the producer to the consumer. . . . It is a paradox, that now that citizens have greater choice and access to products, the most elementary goods, like good quality water and clean air, become less available.80 The responsibility for this was attributed to the country’s industrialization. Our assumptions endanger us: industrialization is necessary for the economic expansion of a country with a growing population like ours. At the same time, industrialization damages our environ-

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ment. It has as a side effect: the pollution of our environment, water and air.81 The importance of this recognition is considerable, especially because it anticipated one of the core arguments of the ecology movement. The way forward, according to this publication, was to draft specific policy proposals for environmental protection (such as the instalment of purification plants in factories, and a shift to less polluting combustible materials). Most importantly, the report mentions the necessity of considering limitations both in the production of goods and their consumption. These arguments were also raised in the PvdA’s party manifestos for the elections of 1963 and 1967. Another important document published by the PvdA on environmental issues before the actual emergence of an ecology movement was the report Groei en Leefbaarheid.82 Welfare and quality of life, it was argued, are intuitively similar things. However, ‘if we used to argue that welfare is the precondition of the quality of life, now we should also say: growing welfare menaces, and undermines our quality of life’.83 For a party like the PvdA, formed as an industrialist party, these comments should be interpreted as strong statements. A further decisive impulse towards an environmental discourse within the PvdA followed the publication of the Club of Rome report in 1972 (see Chapter 1). With a view creating a stable cooperation unit between the three left-wing parties – PvdA, D’66 and PPR – it set up a commission in 1971 under the chairmanship of the former PvdA minister of agriculture, Sicco Mansholt. This commission, known as the Mansholt Commission, had a twofold aim: to lay a preliminary basis for forming a Progressive People’s party that would gather the three parties together, and to discuss the Club of Rome publication. This commission discussed the potential consequences of the dramatic scenario depicted by the Club of Rome in the Netherlands, and became a forum to discuss the linkages between energy provision, population growth, food supply, limited raw materials, industrialization and its effects on the natural environment. The final report of the commission (published in February 1972) remained famous, not so much because of its policy proposals in the field of environmental protection, but because for the first time an institutional commission had questioned blind trust in economic growth, and overtly criticized the capitalist mechanism of production–consumption as responsible for damage to the environment. Most remarkably, the commission also suggested that the Netherlands set an example to the world by initiating a period of null growth. The Club of Rome report was also discussed in the party’s journal Socialisme en Democratie and described as a ‘colossal challenge’, to which the party intended to provide an answer:

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The question that should interest us is not whether the scenarios that came out of the computers of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will occur in 1984, 2050 or 2100. . . . What is essential to us is how their warnings will be translated in measures and instruments. . . . What is demanded is a critical growth policy.84 A year later, a second article was published on the same report where the thoughts of ecologist Barry Commoner – with his even more virulent and deep-seated criticism of the production system that emerged after the war – were also presented.85 In the same journal, the perception of an environmental alarm and the necessity of specific measures to be taken in this field resulted in a number of articles focused on environmentally aware economic growth. Particular attention was given to alternative sources of energy, such as solar and wind, but also nuclear energy. The party’s increasing attention to environmental issues became formally evident in their introduction in the PvdA’s election programmes from the early 1970s. Indeed, environmental issues were specifically mentioned both in the party’s election manifesto of 1971 and in the common manifesto the party presented in the same year with D’66 and the PPR.86 The most relevant proposal advanced in the common manifesto of PvdA, D’66 and PPR, and which remained at the core of the PvdA’s political discourse throughout the 1970s, was state control over the economic growth of the country through a ‘Selective Investment Rule’.87 According to this proposal, private undertakings would be subject to controls by the state, and permits for investments would be issued on the basis of ecological standards: The idea behind this is that through selective growth the state slows down, if not stops, the growth of those activities that damage the environment and that produce pollution. In all other sectors, instead, it stimulates production. If zero growth or a decrease in growth may be a result, this is a possible result, certainly not the goal. . . . The sectors that need to be restrained are the car sector, the road building sector and the air traffic sector.88 The discussion around the Selective Investment Rule, although it was not ultimately implemented by the PvdA government, led van der Heijden to argue that the one formed by the PvdA in 1973 was the first Dutch government to deal with environmental matters seriously.89 In sum, the in the case of the PvdA, environmental awareness anticipated the emergence of the ecology movement. Yet, as also shown in Figure 2.5, attention to the environment grew steadily overtime, reinforced by the

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Number of refernces

72

39

11

1971

1977

1981

1986

Election years

Figure 2.5 Coverage of environmental issues in the PvdA manifestos, 1971–1986 Note: The dashed line indicates the Dutch ecology movement’s peak of visibility. Source: See list of primary sources in bibliography (elaboration by author).

mobilizations of the ecology movement and by the internal mobilization of the PvdA members.

Shifting Position after Contestation: From Pro-Nuclear to Anti-Nuclear The decision taken by the PvdA-run government in 1974 to participate in the international project for the construction of a nuclear power station in Kalkar and increase the number of nuclear power stations in the Netherlands came as no surprise. Indeed, the PvdA had always been in favour of the nuclear energy option, and actually considered it as an ecological alternative to coal and other more polluting combustible materials. As Joop den Uyl, party secretary of the PvdA and prime minister from 1973 to 1977 acknowledged: Until the late 1960s there was an almost generally accepted optimistic belief that the problems of safety concerning the application of nuclear energy could be settled definitely, and that reasonable solutions could also be found for the problem of radioactive waste. I belong to that generation who strongly believed in the 1950s and the 1960s in the revolutionary importance of the application of nuclear energy for peaceful goals.90 When the government took the decision to participate in the Kalkar international nuclear energy project and introduce a temporary 3 per cent increase

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in electricity bills in order to finance it, environmental social action groups started mobilizing against this project (see Chapter 1). This first anti-nuclear mobilization garnered the support of the PvdA local-level sections, which took an active part in the social actions against the government decision. Local PvdA groups participated in the Stop Kalkar Group, organized action committees against the ‘Kalkar tax’, promoted the 1974 international demonstration in Kalkar, and finally, participated in the Anti-Kalkar Komité with other left-wing parties. Dissent was not only manifested vertically within the party (the local sections versus the PvdA governors) but also horizontally between the First and Second Chamber members. The PvdA’s Second Chamber faction, together with the other two coalition parties, PPR and D’66, and with the CPN, the PSP and the BP, voted against the ‘Kalkar tax’ proposal. Explaining the PvdA’s ‘no vote’ in the Second Chamber, Meiny Epema-Brugman, member of the PvdA’s parliamentary group and among those most active on environmental matters within the party during the 1970s, argued: ‘Facing the Kalkar issue without facing the whole energy policy is true nonsense. . . . It is unnecessary to hasten with this dangerous project. We can better use our money for the development of alternative energy sources’.91 The PvdA First Chamber faction remained in favour. The following statement presented on the Kalkar issue at the 14th Congress of 1973 is interesting not only for its plea for political realism, but also because the emergent anti-nuclear groups are mentioned for the first time: To take away the tax implies that the Netherlands will not participate in the project . . . which will go ahead anyhow without the Netherlands. To stop Kalkar is beyond our power. An increasing amount of energy will be needed in the future . . . and the use of nuclear energy will be unavoidable for at least a number of decades . . . Moreover, even if we had voted against Kalkar, even if we did not agree with the government (which we do), the construction of the nuclear power station would have continued anyhow, and thus the goals of the anti-Kalkar groups would not have been served.92 The distance with respect to the anti-Kalkar groups that this quotation evokes was actually far removed from the perceptions held in the party’s local branches and the increasing negative stances towards nuclear energy among PvdA members. Indeed, when the government announced its intention to construct five more nuclear power stations for the provision of energy in the Netherlands, the social mobilization against nuclear energy widened further, and with increasing support from the PvdA membership. This was reflected in the 15th Party Congress in 1975. This congress approved

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two propositions presented by the local sections, which held: (1) that until the potential risks of the radiation emitted by nuclear power stations were sufficiently understood, and until a solution was found to the safe disposal of radioactive nuclear waste, decisions on the further broadening of nuclear energy in the Netherlands had to be postponed; and (2) that in the intervening years, available funds should be invested in the research and development of alternative sources of energy (solar, wind, geothermal).93 In the party’s programme for the political elections of 1977, and in the newly drawn-up Declaration of Principles of the same year, the PvdA turned overtly anti-nuclear: What is aimed at is the greatest possible limitation of the use of nuclear energy. No new nuclear power stations shall be built.94 In order to maintain a proper balance between humankind and nature, what is aimed for is the non-broadening of the use of nuclear energy, until all the dangers for the current and future generations can be clearly accounted for.95 The 1977 Declaration of Principles also contains specific references to the ecology movement: ‘Besides exerting its influence on government decision making, a Social Democratic politics must be oriented towards uniting and strengthening those forces in society, such as unions, cooperatives, women’s movement and ecology action groups’.96 At its 1979 congress, the PvdA’s position came even closer to the ecologists’ demands. Not only was it stated that the party was against the further broadening of the nuclear energy sector, but also that the nuclear facilities in Dodewaard and Borssele should close. This was reconfirmed in the PvdA manifestos of 1981, with the additional element that the only type of research concerning nuclear energy they would support would be into the ‘secure dismantling of the nuclear energy systems’.97 From there on, the official position of the PvdA with respect to nuclear energy remained unchanged as a principle. Nonetheless, from the 1980s, the PvdA became less confrontational in its attitude with respect to nuclear energy. Its participation in the 1981 government coalition, when the PvdA was forced to reach a consensus with the CDA and D’66, is among the factors that undoubtedly played a role in this increased cautiousness. Indeed, the decision to start the Wide Social Discussion on nuclear energy (see Chapter 1) and postpone any decision on the future of nuclear energy implied that no new nuclear power stations would be built in the meantime, but that existing facilities would remain open. This decision created a distance between

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the PvdA and the ecology movement, and within the ecology movement itself, which resulted in divisions between a moderate branch supporting the Discussion, and a radical branch calling instead for the definite exit from the nuclear energy option and the immediate closure of existing nuclear power stations. Hence, from the 1980s, the PvdA remained anchored to its anti-nuclear stance, but mainly worked to promote this position within the institutional framework, but no longer to the extent of polarizing public debate, as in the 1970s, nor to the extent of being active in the social field, supporting the social protests of the radical ecology groups.

Nuclear Factories Must Close! Who Decides? Faced with the radicalization of the anti-nuclear actions in Dodewaard, whose slogan and stated goal was the immediate closure of the nuclear power station (‘Dodewaard must close’), the PvdA decided not to give its support to either the first or the second demonstration. Here is the statement by the PvdA secretary Max van Den Berg, a New Left member and one of the strongest supporters of the party’s ‘Action Party’ strategy during the 1970s, before the 1980 Dodewaard demonstration: We all agree that Dodewaard should close. However, there are great concerns on the modes of action of the activists. . . . Many of them no longer trust political parties, even the left-wing ones. Now blockades are being prepared in Dodewaard, . . . and we have to be clear on the fact that we are against the use of violence. . . . We have many [PvdA] members in the police forces and the army, who would eventually have to confront activists who act beyond the laws of our parliamentary democracy.98 The same position was shared by Kees Zijlstra, the spokesperson of the PvdA on environmental matters in the early 1980s: ‘Actions can have a good function in order to correct parliamentary democracy. But one thing should be clear: the decisions need to be taken within the parliament. Otherwise, it will be chaos’.99 For the second Dodewaard action, which not only promised to be more radical but also took place during the short-lived PvdA, CDA and D’66 government (where the minister of internal affairs, with responsibility for public order and police forces, was held by PvdA member van Thijn), the Party Executive made a clear statement against the party’s participation in the demonstration.100 Moreover, when the party journal published a call for participation in the Dodewaard blockade, as a clear demonstration that a

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large number of PvdA members intended to take part, the party leadership intervened, criticizing the publisher for not having taken sufficient distance from the means of protest that activists in Dodewaard might have engaged in.101 The more it became clear that a number of members intended to take

Figure 2.6 Ecology activists against the PvdA leader in Dodewaard (‘Wanted: Informer’; ‘Pretends to be an activist’) Source: LAKA Archief, anti-kernenergie affiches, posters on the Dodewaard reactor. Available at: https://www.laka.org/docu/posters/.

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part in the blockade, the greater the intervention by the party leadership. Some days before the demonstration, the party secretary warned party members who intended to participate that some participants might use violence during the protest, and announced that the PvdA would not take part, precisely for this reason: ‘Blockades as such have been interpreted by the party as a symbolic means – but the actual closure of the factory needs to be decided in parliament’.102 The Dodewaard blockades remained infamous in the Netherlands, as this was the first time that violent clashes had occurred between activists and the police. A number of PvdA members participated, including members of parliament and local party sections. However, the official position of the PvdA created a division between the ecology movement and the party that became impossible to fill. Following the Dodewaard demonstrations, the PvdA established stricter criteria for when social actions could be supported by the party: The PvdA cannot participate in all social actions. There are a number of prerogatives to be set. Firstly, actions must not be violent. Secondly, there needs to be a clearly identifiable organizational form with clearly identifiable representatives before and during the social action itself. Thirdly, proper discussion with the authorities needs to take place beforehand. Fourthly, there needs to be clarity for all those taking part in the initiatives from the start, the duration and the end of a social action. . . . Of course, full guarantees are difficult to give but we need to do our best. . . . Also, the participation of members at different levels of the party in social actions needs to be discussed in the light of the positions taken by the Party Executive.103 In practical terms, this implied that the PvdA did not support any of the protest actions promoted by the ecology groups from the 1980s onwards. The primacy of institutional politics over extra-parliamentary activities was re-established.

Creating Organizational Bridges The creation of organizational bridges between the party and the action groups mobilizing in society and participating in extra-parliamentary activities formed one part of the PvdA’s ‘Action Party’ strategy of the 1970s. Archival documentation reveals a wide range of contacts established between the party and the different ecology groups in the Netherlands. As for the case of the PCI, most of these contacts took place through internal groups formed

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within the party on environmental issues. Following pressure from the local sections of the party, the Party Executive established the Functionele Werkgroep Milieu en Energie (Functional Working Group on Environment and Energy, hereafter FWME) in 1978.104 This workgroup maintained a stable organizational continuity, and played an important role in establishing interorganizational contacts between the party and the major ecology groups of the country. Indeed, the need to maintain and improve contacts with environmental organizations appears, from the internal documentation, to be an important priority for the group: ‘The FWME shall pay maximum attention to the relationship with the ecology movement’.105 Archival documents reveal that booklets, leaflets, journals and reports on environmental matters were often drafted in cooperation or co-edited with representatives of the ecology groups; the journal published by the FWME (Milieu Actueel) often gave a voice to the different ecology groups or interviewed their leaders; conferences and meetings on environmental matters organized by the FWME were often either coordinated with, or attended by, representatives of ecology groups. Not least, the FWME also maintained regular written correspondence with several ecology groups, in particular with the more moderate ones.106 The letters mostly covered mutual invitations to conferences, discussion meetings and study days on nuclear energy and broader environmental themes.107 Yet, archival documentation also reveals complaints, in particular concerning the degree of internal and external effectiveness of the group’s activities. Internally, FWME members bemoaned the lack of attention paid to environmental issues by their party fellows and the fact that environmental issues seemed to remain marginal within the party: ‘Nobody in the party knows what we are doing. If the PvdA has changed on environmental issues it is surely not because of us’.108 The internal limits of the FWME are also underlined by a former PvdA MP who took an active part in the FWME: ‘The FWME has never been strong. On environmental issues the local party sections were much stronger than this group, centrally established by the Party Executive. We did not do much of what we discussed – and we never played an important role.109 In terms of external effectiveness too, and precisely on the establishment of contacts with social action groups, a number of internal records underline the few results achieved. Here is an example: ‘Not much happened, especially as concerns our relation with the ecology organizations. The relationship with ecology organizations should be promoted with more emphasis’.110 It seems therefore that the organization of joint activities (publications, working days and conferences), the writing of common reports, and the presence of an active correspondence between the working group on environmental matters and the main ecology organizations of the Netherlands

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did not lead to the establishment of effective long-term contacts between the party and those organizations. Most organizational contacts took place, according to the interviews conducted, at the interpersonal level: ‘The majority of the activists taking part in the ecology groups were from the PvdA itself ’; ‘people simply knew each other, and many PvdA members were simultaneously taking part in the ecologist groups’.111 Formal participation of the party in ecology groups’ activities was a rare occurrence too. As shown in Table 2.4, the PvdA participated in several ecology organizations throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but in cooperation with other left-wing political parties. The only organization where the PvdA participated in cooperation with ecology groups was the WED, the scientifically focused organization whose activities were mainly directed to the investigation of alternative energy sources in the years of the ‘Wide Social Discussion’. This organization not only had a primarily scientific focus – rather than a protest-oriented one – but was one of the most moderate ecology organizations formed in the Netherlands (see Chapter 1). With regard to the party’s promotion or support of ecology protest actions with social movements’ groups, we find a similar pattern.112 The three ecologists’ protest actions that received the formal support of the party Table 2.4 The PvdA’s participation in environmental groups Year

Group

Goal/Focus

Actors involved

1975 Landelijke Initiatief Komité

Promote discussion among the left-wing parties on environmental matters

CPN, PPR, PSP and PvdA

1978 Werkgroep Energie Discussie

Scientific organization focused on the development of research for a nuclear-free energy policy

PPR, CPN, PSP, PvdA (from 1981), and more than 60 ecology groups

1980 Progressief Overleg

Organized by the progressive parties PPR, PSP, CPN, for discussing and organizing social EVP and PvdA actions on environmental issues

1983 Milieuberaad

Promote discussion among the left-wing parties on environmental matters

PvdA, PSP, CPN, D’66 and EVP

1984 Geen vrede met kernenergie

Organization of activities and demonstrations that linked antinuclear energy protest with peace issues

PPR, PSP, CPN and PvdA

Source: LAKA Archive (author’s elaboration).

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during the 1970s were organized by the more moderate branches of the ecology movement and by the smaller New Left political parties. In the 1980s, concomitant with the radicalization of the Dutch ecology movement, rather than granting support, the PvdA initiated its own forms of protest actions in joint initiatives with the smaller New Left parties under the auspices of the Milieuberaad, a common (party-based) environmental group (see Table 2.4). The findings seem to reflect the changing attitude in the PvdA’s discourse on nuclear energy discussed before. As soon as the ecology movement turned to more radical actions, the party distanced itself in terms of organizational contacts. This also implied the end of the ‘Action Party’ strategy that had characterized the 1970s. Particularly relevant in this respect is how the PvdA responded towards the Netherland’s two most controversial ecology protest actions, which took place on 19 October 1980 and 18 September 1981 at the nuclear power station in Dodewaard. They constitute a point of no return both for the anti-nuclear movement, which following these actions was no longer able to mobilize at the national level, and for the PvdA’s attitude towards its participation in social actions in the 1980s.

The Limitations of the ‘Action Party’ Strategy On the relationship to be established with the newly mobilized groups, on whether they should receive support from the party, and on the borders between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary action, the PvdA produced an exceptionally prolific amount of internal literature. Yet, these principles never fully found ground in political reality. An alliance between the PvdA and the ecology movement never took place. The PvdA did introduce significant changes on environmental issues over the period under consideration. Not only was increased attention towards environmental issues observed over the course of the 1970s and until the mid-1980s, the PvdA also changed its position with respect to the core theme of mobilization of the Dutch ecology movement, namely the nuclear energy issue. The party turned against nuclear energy, rejecting proposals for the construction of further nuclear power stations in the Netherlands, and also pushed for the closure of the two (then) functioning facilities. Moreover, the PvdA established an internal working group on environmental matters, and maintained different types of organizational contacts with ecology groups. This however changed from the 1980s onwards, as the PvdA agreed (against the position expressed by the more radical branches of the movement) on the postponement and depoliticization of the decision on the future of nuclear energy through the institution of a Wide Social Discussion on nuclear energy; and as it no lon-

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ger took part in the movement’s protest actions, making, simultaneously, the criteria for the party’s participation in the latter more stringent. As the ecology movement turned to a more confrontational repertoire of action, the PvdA was no longer of a mind to support its mobilizations.

A Swift Adaptation: The PvdA and the Peace Movement The position of the PvdA on foreign policy did not substantially differ from the positions of the other Dutch parties. When the Netherlands’ entrance into the NATO alliance was discussed in parliament, the PvdA favoured Dutch membership, and voted in favour of accepting nuclear tasks in 1957, well before the other countries of the Atlantic pact. On the use of nuclear weapons in particular, the party always actively cooperated with preparations for the arrival of such weapons. During the 1970s an internal debate took place within the PvdA over the NATO alliance, and in particular its tasks and Dutch membership. The party manifesto of 1971 claimed, for instance, that NATO should be limited to the tasks of peace and security in East–West relations, and that greater contacts and cooperation should be established with the Eastern bloc and the Warsaw Pact countries in order to establish measures favouring armaments control.113 The major issue of debate within the party was the enlargement of the alliance to the then non-democratic countries of Greece, Spain and Portugal. It was the New Left current that insisted the Netherlands should withdraw from NATO should dictatorial countries enter it, a clause that was approved at the 1972 party congress. However, until the mid-1970s, no statements were made by the party against nuclear weapons or against the nuclear armaments race. The few critical voices that appeared in the PvdA journal with respect to nuclear armaments were labelled as unrealistic.114 It was only from the mid-1970s that an internal discussion within the party developed on the issue of the nuclear tasks of the Dutch army, and on the appropriateness of the use of nuclear weapons more broadly.115

Peace, Disarmament and Anti-Nuclear Stances The anti-nuclear stances of the PvdA received a significant boost following the peace movement’s emergence. In March 1977, the party formally supported a demonstration with the peace movement groups against the N-bomb, and a year later it voted against the production of the N-bomb in parliament (see Chapter 1). In the introductory page of the election manifesto for the 1977 national parliamentary elections we find the nuclear race mentioned as among ‘the crucial problems of society’.116 The deterrence

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strategy, it was argued, could not lead to any positive outcome, and therefore different political strategies were needed. In the Declaration of Principles drafted in the same year, the PvdA referred to the ‘radical streams within the churches’ as among those movements the PvdA intended to support for the promotion of greater social justice in society.117 As the peace movement developed, the PvdA became increasingly attentive to the themes of peace and international security, until they became one of the key issues that the party campaigned on. From the 1980s, the PvdA made nuclear armaments one of the dominant issues of its political campaign. In its 1981 election manifesto, the PvdA called for a new international order based on disarmament: ‘The politics of distension is the only means to obtain a stable situation of peace and security – a politics that could break through the international tensions and the current economic and military powers’.118 The PvdA, moreover, advocated a new security system in which Europe would play a greater role, and closer cooperation between Western and Eastern countries would lead to the elimination of the power blocs NATO and the Warsaw Pact. For the time being, a Dutch ‘critical membership’ position within NATO was supported. Apart from underlying these general stances on weapons reduction and disarmament, which already spelled an important change in the PvdA’s position with respect to the previous decade, the PvdA also took up the specific claims of the peace movement in its political agenda. In the same 1981 manifesto in fact, the PvdA underlined the need for one-sided actions to be made as first fundamental steps towards the reduction of nuclear weapons, and against the stationing of mid-range missiles in the Netherlands and elsewhere Europe – the main demands of the peace movement.119 The formal opening towards the peace movement dates to the PvdA Congress of 1981. In the opening speech to congress, party secretary Max van den Berg underlined that the party intended to give its full support to the peace movement, and overtly invited participation in the November demonstration against the stationing of cruise missiles on Dutch territory that was to take place in Amsterdam.120 The intention to cooperate with the peace movement against the stationing of the cruise missiles in the Netherlands was also mentioned in the party’s manifesto for the 1983 political elections, and became the central theme of the PvdA’s campaign for the 1985 political elections. Figure 2.7 shows the party’s growing attention to peace issues in its electoral manifestos. Looking in more detail at the specific items the PvdA referred to most frequently, it was the ‘NO’ to the stationing of nuclear weapons, the slogan that formed the core of the peace movement, that scored the highest in terms of the number of references.

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47

Number of refernces

41

30

10

1971

1977

1981

1986

Election years

Figure 2.7 Coverage of peace issues in the PvdA manifestos, 1971–1986 Note: The dashed line indicates the Dutch peace movement’s peak of visibility. Source: See list of primary sources in bibliography (elaboration by author).

Connections with Peace Groups and Engagement in Protest Actions In line with the ‘Action Party’ strategy, ‘seeking connections with the peace movements’ groups’ was a stated priority of the PvdA.121 However, of the multitude of peace groups that formed in the Netherlands in the period under examination, the PvdA created linkages only with the most moderate: the Discussion organ against nuclear weapons, and the Komité Kruisraketten Nee (KKN). Although these two organizations differ considerably from one another, they were similar in their particularly low degrees of radicalism. Table 2.5 The PvdA’s participation in peace groups

Year Group 1978– Discussion organ 1985 against nuclear weapons 1983 Komité Kruisraketten Nee (KKN)

Goal/Focus Discussions around the themes of peace and security

Actors involved Pax Christi, IKV, Stop the N-bomb, CPN, PSP, PPR, PvdA, CDA, FNV and VVMD Common organizaPeace groups and tion of the 1983 peace political parties on demonstration the left

Sources: PvdA Archive and party journals (author’s elaboration).

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The Discussion organ against nuclear weapons was formed in 1978 on the initiative of the PPR, Pax Christi and the IKV, and was stimulated by the great mobilization of Dutch public opinion on the N-bomb issue. This group’s aim was to facilitate communications among the different organizations dealing with activities related to the reduction of nuclear armaments. The PvdA was involved in the Discussion organ from the very start.122 Noticeably, besides sharing information and discussing the theme of nuclear weapons, the degree to which this group was involved in the organization of protest actions was very limited. Indeed, as we shall see in the Conclusion chapter, this was also the reason why the Christian Democratic party was able to take part in this group without embarrassing its own coalition government. The KKN was instead an umbrella organization formed by a number of peace groups and the whole left wing of the institutional political spectrum for the specific purpose of organizing the 1983 peace demonstration in The Hague. The PvdA not only supported its initiatives but was actually among the promoters of this group, together with the IKV. The KKN always maintained a moderate repertoire of action. When it seemed that some organizations within the KKN intended to respond to the decision taken by the government to station the cruise missiles by engaging in more confrontational types of protest, the PvdA, together with the IKV, decided to withdraw.123 Similarly, those actions the party supported were those it organized either alone or together with the most moderate group of the peace movement, the IKV. As I underlined in the preceding chapter, the IKV aimed to influence decision-making organs against stationing NATO cruise missiles in the Netherlands through the involvement of the greatest number of social and political actors (the so-called ‘majority strategy’). The protest actions the PvdA did not support correspond instead to those protest actions organized by more radically oriented groups. When the more radical part of the peace movement organized a blockade of the railways against the transport of weapons (1982), for instance, the PvdA minister of internal affairs, van Thijn, strongly criticized the action, defining it as political violence that the state would by no means tolerate.124 Similarly, the PvdA did not grant support to the fiscal strike against the government decision on the deployment of the missiles.125 The more radical components of the peace movement – groups such as Onkruid, for instance – engaged in actions on the border of legality (blockades, fiscal strikes, etc.), were in favour of more direct forms of democracy, mistrustful of, if not fully adverse to, representative forms of democracy, and aimed via their actions to subvert this system through boycott: ‘We believe that changes will not come from the parliament. We believe that changes will only occur if people themselves take their fate into their own

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hands. . . . Political representation is a lie, and the state and its authoritative mechanisms are responsible for the most repugnant actions’.126 In the 1980s, the only actions that the PvdA either promoted or supported were the nationwide demonstrations organized by the KKN and the petition action in 1985. After the petition failed to reach its goal, despite seeing over 3.7 million signatures collected, and the government deciding to allow the stationing of NATO missiles (on 1 November 1985), the only demonstration the PvdA supported was in Woensdrecht (where the missiles were to be placed) in May 1986. This demonstration was also the last in which the IKV participated. Hence, the PvdA did grant its formal support to the peace movement’s protest actions, to the extent that those actions were promoted by moderate groups and organizations.

Supporting a Moderate Social Movement The peace movement developed as a nationwide protest movement from the late 1970s. In Chapter 1, I underlined the differences between the peace and ecology movements in the Netherlands, and in particular their different ways of approaching representative institutions and their different action repertoires. While the ecology movement was characterized by its radical action repertoire and increasing mistrust of political institutions, the peace movement was instead characterized by its moderate repertoire and its continuous attempts at dialogue with political institutions. This facilitated the PvdA’s openness towards the peace movement, even though it had abandoned the ‘Action Party’ strategy that had distinguished it during the 1970s. With respect to the peace movement, the PvdA had indeed shown a high degree of responsiveness, both on the discursive and the organizational dimensions. On the discursive dimension, peace issues became increasingly more salient in the party’s discourse from the mid-1970s, concomitant with the emergence of the peace movement, and how a qualitatively different approach emerged during those same years with respect to international security, transatlantic relations and nuclear weapons. Moreover, not only did the PvdA cover the general issues connected to peace, it also formally supported the specific demands of the peace movement, and most prominently the movement’s position on the stationing of NATO missiles in the Netherlands. This same pattern was reflected in the high number of interorganizational contacts between the party and the peace movement, which manifested itself in the PvdA’s participation in protest actions, social initiatives, and common groups with the peace movement organizations. This outcome should be considered the result of the broader politicization of peace issues, stimulated both by international foreign policy factors (the NATO resolution, which

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required national decisions to be made) and by the particularly moderate repertoire of action of the peace movement.

Notes 1. H. Kriesi, Political Mobilization and Social Change: The Dutch Case in Comparative Perspective (Aldershot: Avebury, 1993), 224; D. Della Porta and M. Diani, Social Movements: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2006). 2. ‘Movimento operaio e movimento studentesco’ and ‘Per la ripresa del movimento nelle università’, meetings held in Ariccia on 29 November – 1 December 1968 and 14–16 November 1969, respectively. 3. P. Lange, ‘Crisis and Consent, Change and Compromise: Dilemmas of Italian Communism in the 1970s’, in P. Lange and S. Tarrow (eds), Italy in Transition: Conflict and Consensus (London: Frank Cass, 1980). 4. E. Berlinguer, ‘Riflessioni sull’Italia dopo i fatti del Cile’, Rinascita, 28 September 1973. 5. P. Scoppola, La Repubblica dei partiti: profilo storico della democrazia in Italia (1945– 1990) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991), 412. 6. S. Sechi, ‘L’austero fascino del centralismo democratico’, in M. Barbagli, P. Corbetta and S. Sechi (eds), Dentro il PCI (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1979), 7. 7. Similar criticisms were raised by Ingrao in his article ‘Democrazia, Socialismo e democrazia interna al partito’, Rinascita, 25 April 1964. 8. S. Wolinetz, ‘Internal Politics and Rates of Change in the Partij van de Arbeid, 1957–1984’, Jaarboek Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Partijen (Groningen: DNPP, 1996), 116. 9. PvdA Beginselprogramma, 1977, 30, 44. 10. R. Koopmans, ‘Sociale bewegingen en het primaat van de politiek’, in J.W. Duivendak, H. A. van der Heyden, R. Koopmans and L. Wijmans (eds), Tussen verbeelding en macht. 25 jaar nieuwe sociale bewegingen in Nederland (Amsterdam: SUA, 1992), 74; B. Tromp, ‘Party Strategies and System Change in the Netherlands’, in P. Mair and G. Smith (eds), Understanding Party System Change in Western Europe (London: Frank Cass, 1990), 82–98. 11. H.A.B. van der Heijden, ‘Van kleinschalig utopisme naar postgiro activisme? De Milieubeweging 1970–1990’, in H.A.B. van der Heijden, J.W. Duyvendak, R. Koopmans and L. L. Wijmans (eds), Tussen verbeelding en macht. 25 jaar nieuwe sociale bewegingen in Nederland (Amsterdam: SUA, 1992), 97. 12. Wolinetz, ‘Internal Politics’. On the transformation of the PvdA during the 1970s: P. van Praag, Strategie en illusie. Elf jaar intern debat in de PvdA (Amsterdam, Het Spinhuis, 1991). 13. T. Massari, ‘Masse femminili, partito comunista e costruzione di una nuova egemonia’, Critica Marxista 2 (1979), 117–31. 14. ‘The problem’ [for women], he argued, ‘is cultural, and concerns the most intimate part of the organization of social life’ (Togliatti, cited in Massari, ‘Masse femminili’, 121). Togliatti also dedicated a book to women’s equality issues, L’emancipazione femminile (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1965).

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15. Y. Ergas, ‘1968–79: Feminism in the Italian Party System: Women’s Politics in a Decade of Turmoil’, Comparative Politics 14(3) (1982), 252–75. 16. S. Rossetti, ‘Attente, il PCI s’è vestito da donna’, L’Espresso, 25 June 1977. On the insulation of women within the PCI see also C. Ravaioli, La questione femminile: Intervista col PCI (Milan: Bompiani Editore, 1976); and, more recently, R. Rossanda, La ragazza del secolo scorso (Turin: Einaudi, 2005). 17. ‘Dove va il femminismo italiano: soggetti politici o affiancatrici della politica?’, Il Manifesto, 10 December 1977. 18. Speech delivered to the congress by the head of the PCI women’s section, A. Seroni, 13’ Congresso del Partito Comunista Italiano. Atti e Risoluzioni (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1972), 147. 19. Ergas, ‘1968–79: Feminism in the Italian Party System’, 264. 20. A. Seroni, ‘La questione femminile alla vigilia della prova elettorale’, Rinascita, 28 May 1976. 21. Ibid. 22. A. Seroni, ‘La donna oggi non separata ma autonoma’, Rinascita, 9 January 1976. 23. Speech delivered to the congress by the party secretary, L. Longo, in O. Cecchi, Storia del PCI attraverso i suoi congressi (Rome: Newton Compton, 1977), 348. 24. M.A. Confalonieri, ‘Parties and Movements in Italy: The Case of Feminism and the PCI’, Il Politico 1 (1995), 141. 25. Ravaioli, La questione femminile. 26. Speech delivered to the congress by the party secretary, E. Berlinguer, 14’ Congresso del Partito Comunista Italiano: Atti e risoluzioni (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1975), 55. 27. PCI election manifesto (1976), ‘Programma del partito comunista italiano’, in Le promesse dei partiti, Biblioteca della Libertà, Anno XIII, September 1976, 61/62: 187–89. 28. Italian law considered sexual violence as ‘lust-driven action against morality’. Only in 1996 (law 15 February 1966, n. 15) was sexual violence defined as a ‘crime against the person’. 29. See A. Cattaneo and M. D’Amato, La politica della differenza (Rome: Franco Angeli, 1990); and K. Beckwith, ‘Women and Parliamentary Politics in Italy’, in H.R. Penniman (ed.), Italy at the Polls: The Parliamentary Elections of 1979 (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1981), 230–54. 30. Tesi 53, Le tesi e lo statuto approvati dal XV Congresso nazionale del PCI: 62. 31. Speech delivered to the congress by the party secretary, E. Berlinguer, 15’ Congresso del Partito Comunista Italiano: Atti e risoluzioni (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1979), 91. 32. M. Ferrara, ‘Si apre l’ottava festa de l’Unità dedicata alle donne’, Rinascita, 10 July 1981. 33. 17’ Congresso del Partito Comunista Italiano: Atti e risoluzioni (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1986), 678–79. 34. G. Chiaromonte, ‘La contraddizione che consente: La differenza di genere nel PCI’, Rinascita, 18 October 1986. 35. Cattaneo and D’Amato, La politica della differenza, 48. 36. The Italian electoral system (pre-1991) gave voters the opportunity to indicate three preferences of candidates. However, the general tendency of the electorate was to cast their vote for a party symbol rather than for single candidates, thereby leading to

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37.

38.

39.

40. 41. 42.

43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56.

a distribution of preferences that reflected the parties’ original rankings. This implies that whether candidates on the lists were elected to parliament or not was strongly dependent on the parties’ decision to promote one candidate over another. The Central Committee can be considered as a sort of internal parliament of the party. According to statutory rules, it was the highest decision-making body. In practice, however, the Central Committee mostly followed the decisions that had been formerly taken by the Direction and the party secretary (cf. Sechi, ‘L’austero fascino’). D.A. Wertman, ‘Italy: Local Involvement, Central Control’, in M. Gallagher and M. Marsch (eds), Candidate Selection in Comparative Perspective: The Secret Garden of Politics (London: Sage, 1988), 145–68. As official sources, I relied on the databases of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic and on the biographies published at the start of each new parliament after a general election by La Navicella (I Deputati e I Senatori del . . . parlamento repubblicano, 1972, 1976, 1979, 1983, and 1987 editions). As unofficial sources, I relied on archival documents of the feminist movement (Archivia, Casa Internazionle della Donna), party journal, national newspapers and secondary literature. C. Mariotti and S. Rossetti, ‘Chi è la meglio nella lista? Vediamo un po’, L’Espresso, 22 May 1976. G. Ascoli (ed.), La parola elettorale: viaggio nell’universo politico maschile (Rome: Edizioni delle donne, 1976), 9. Y. Ergas, ‘La costituzione del soggetto femminile: il femminismo negli anni ’60/’70’, in G. Duby and M. Perrot (ed.), Storia delle donne in Occidente: Il Novecento (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1997), 570. A. Baldassarre, ‘I gruppi parlamentari comunisti’, in M. Ilardi and A. Accornero (eds), Il Partito comunista italiano: Struttura e storia dell’organizzazione, 1921–1979 (Milan: Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, 1982), 473. Confalonieri, ‘Parties and Movements in Italy’, 141. Ibid., 142. Lange, ‘Crisis and Consent’. G. Berlinguer, La salute nelle fabbriche (Bari: De Donato Editore, 1969). ‘Uomo Natura Società: Ecologia e rapporti sociali’, 5–7 November 1971. Proceedings of this meeting were published by the Istituto Gramsci, Uomo, natura, società: ecologia e rapporti sociali (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1972). PCI election manifesto, 1972, Il programma dei comunisti per un governo di svolta democratica, in l’Unità, 26 March 1972, 4. C. Sighiboldi, ‘I teorici della crescita zero’, l’Unità, 24 June 1972. F. Martino, Rinascita, 5 May 1972. G. Nebbia, ‘Per una definizione di storia dell’ambiente’, Ecologia Politica (1999), 3–27; R. Della Seta, La difesa dell’ambiente in Italia: Storia e cultura del movimento ecologista (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2000). S. Gentili, Ecologia e Sinistra, un incontro difficile (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 2002), 29. PCI, Proposta di progetto a medio termine (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1977). PCI election manifesto (1976), 12. Nebbia, ‘Per una definizione di storia dell’ambiente’.

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57. Gentili, Ecologia e Sinistra, 38. 58. R. Lewansky, ‘La politica ambientale’, in B. Dente (ed.), Le politiche pubbliche in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990), 281–314. 59. PCI election manifesto (1983), ‘La proposta di alternativa per il cambiamento’, l’Unità, 28 November 1982, 4. 60. Ibid., 1. 61. PCI election manifesto (1983), 2. 62. PCI election manifesto (1979), 8. 63. The Comitato Nazionale per l’Energia Nucleare (National Committee on Nuclear Energy) had the task of both establishing the security of nuclear plants and of promoting activities with industry to plan and construct the nuclear power stations. 64. Della Seta, La difesa dell’ambiente in Italia. 65. Meeting of the ‘Industry, Government Holdings and Energy’ workgroup of the PCI Direction, 26 February 1980, Archivio del Partito Comunista Italiano, nr. 0440614, Fondazione Antonio Gramsci, Rome. 66. Meeting of the PCI Direction, 21 February 1980, Archivio del Partito Comunista Italiano, nr. 0440-8003, 257/265, Fondazione Antonio Gramsci, Rome. 67. M.V., ‘Senza sprechi si può vivere meglio: Le proposte del PCI per un nuovo piano energetico’, l’Unità, 25 January 1980. 68. Ibid. 69. C. Testa, at the time president of the Lega per l’Ambiente, wrote to the PCI secretary demanding to vote against this law in the Senate, 6 December 1982, 0509.3249, Archivio del Partito Comunista Italiano, Fondazione Antonio Gramsci, Rome. 70. Speech delivered to the congress by the party secretary A. Natta, 17. Congresso del Partito Comunista Italiano. Atti e Risoluzioni (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1987), 48. 71. Interview 3. 72. For the 1983 political elections: Giorgio Nebbia, Massimo Serafini and Fabio Giovannini; for the 1987 elections: Antonio Cederna, Enzo Tiezzi, Laura Conti, Massimo Serafini and Chicco Testa. It should be noted that 1987 was the first time that the Italian Greens (Federazione delle Liste Verdi) participated in national-level political elections. Obtaining 2.5 per cent of the votes, they managed to get thirteen deputies elected to the Second Chamber, and two senators to the First Chamber. The presence of ecologists elected on the lists of the PCI therefore seems to indicate not only the party’s organizational openness towards the ecology movement, but also strong linkages in terms of partisan affiliation between the ecology activists and the Communist party itself. 73. As for the co-optation of feminist activists, the official sources for this analysis are the databases of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic, and the official biographies of the MPs published by La Navicella (1983 and 1987 editions). These official sources were cross-checked with several others, including archival documentation from the Lega per l’Ambiente, the ecologist journal La Nuova Ecologia, and direct contacts with ecologist members of this organization. 74. Meeting of the ‘Ambiente e Sanità’ workgroup, 22 May 1980, Archivio del Partito Comunista Italiano, nr. 0467.762, Fondazione Antonio Gramsci, Rome. 75. Meeting of the workgroup ‘Sezione beni culturali’, 25 January 1982, nr. 0509.3250, Archivio del Partito Comunista Italiano, Fondazione Antonio Gramsci, Rome.

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76. Meeting of the PCI Direction, 26 February 1980, ‘Sezione Ambiente e Sanità’, nr. 0440.2219, Archivio del Partito Comunista Italiano, Fondazione Antonio Gramsci, Rome. 77. L. Maschiella, ‘Oltre il caso Capalbio’, l’Unità, 7 February 1977. 78. P. Kalma, ‘Sociaaldemocratie, milieu en energie’, Arbeid en Milieu 21 (1981). 79. Wiardi Beckman Stichting (WBS), Om de Kwaliteit van het Bestaan (Amsterdam: N.V. De Arbeiderspers, 1965). The publication consists of four booklets published between 1963 and 1965. The last of the four was dedicated entirely to environmental pollution. This report dealt with two general questions. First, the long-term plans the Socialist party should adopt within the new context of increased national income; and second, whether economic growth and greater welfare had brought about greater social justice and well-being. The answer to the second question was negative. 80. Ibid., 4. 81. Ibid., 7. 82. Wiardi Beckman Stichting, Groei en Leefbaarheid (Deventer: Kluwer, WBS-cahiers, 1970). 83. Ibid., 10. 84. P.A. de Ruiter, ‘Over de Club van Rome en nog wat’, Socialisme en Democratie 12 (1971), 586. 85. J. In’t Veld, ‘Over de Club van Rome en nog wat’, Socialisme en Democratie 2 (1972), 79–85. 86. All election manifestos of the Dutch political parties are available at the DNPP, Groningen. 87. ‘Selectieve Investeringsregeling’, SIR. 88. J. Pen, ‘Kanttekeningen bij de groeidiscussie’, Socialisme en Democratie 9 (1975), 413. 89. Van der Heijden, ‘Van kleinschalig utopisme naar postgiro activisme?’, 77–98. 90. Joop Den Uyl interviewed in 1981, as cited in A. Jamison, R. Eyerman and J. Kramer, The Making of the New Environmental Consciousness: A Comparative Study of the Environmental Movements in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), 153. 91. Verslagen Partij van de Arbeid. Van het Partijbestuur over de periode 1 October 1970 – 31 maart 1973: Van de de kamerfracties over de periode 1972–1974, 12. 92. Statement concerning the position of the PvdA’s First Chamber group on Kalkar, Archief PvdA, (1934, 1938–) 1946–1996, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IISG), Amsterdam, ‘Congresstukken’, inventarisnummer 21 (emphasis added). 93. Convocation to the party congress, Archief PvdA, inv. nr. 262, IISG, Amsterdam. 94. PvdA election manifesto (1977), Programma PvdA Tweede-Kamerverkiezingen, 58. 95. PvdA Declaration of Principles (1977), 26. 96. Ibid., 44. 97. PvdA election manifesto (1981), Weerwerk, 7. 98. Meeting of the Progressief Overleg, 23 March 1980, Archief PvdA, inv. nr. 2860, IISG, Amsterdam. 99. Ibid.

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100. Before taking this formal decision, the PvdA leader van den Berg delegated the party’s ‘Action Collaborator’, a particular figure within the party’s internal organization, to observe and report on the various social movements’ activities, to take part in the preparation meetings for the Dodewaard demonstration, and to explore the field. The latter reported that violent means could not in principle be excluded. Archief PvdA, inv. nrs 2860 and 2862, IISG, Amsterdam. 101. ‘Kernenergie en kerncentrale Dodewaard’, Archief PvdA, inv. nr. 2862, IISG, Amsterdam. 102. Max van den Berg, 4 September 1981, ‘Evaluatie Dodewaard’, Archief PvdA, ibid. 103. ‘Evaluatie Dodewaard’, Archief PvdA, inv. nr. 2862, IISG, Amsterdam. 104. A first intra-organizational attempt to create an internal workgroup on environmental issues was made in 1971, when the Party Executive formed the Commission of Environmental Maintainance (in Dutch, Commissie Milieubeheer). This commission was established to promote the discussion of environmental issues internally as well as externally to the party through the organization of open conferences, the diffusion of information, and the establishment of contacts between PvdA sections and environmental action groups. Due to organizational and financial problems, the group dissolved around 1974, and no equivalent internal section was established until 1978. 105. Undated document, ‘Werkgroep Milieu en Energie’, Archief PvdA, inv. nr. 1378, IISG, Amsterdam. 106. Active correspondence took place with four ecology groups, defined by an internal report of the FWME as the ‘big four’ among the Dutch ecology groups: ‘Actie Strohalm’, the VMD, the ‘National Committee for the Maintenance of the Waddenzee’ and ‘Stichting Natuur en Milieu’. Archief PvdA, ‘Werkgroep Milieu en Energie’, inv. nr. 1377, IISG, Amsterdam. 107. Archief PvdA, ‘Werkgroep Milieu en Energie’, inv. nrs 1377–1379, IISG, Amsterdam. 108. S. Cornelissen, 10 May 1982, ‘Werkplan 81–83’, Archief PvdA, inv. nr. 1377, IISG, Amsterdam. 109. Interview 6. 110. Undated document of the Functionele Werkgroep Milieu en Energie, Archief PvdA, inv. nr. 1378, IISG, Amsterdam. 111. Interviews 6 and 7. 112. The identification of the main protest actions of the ecology movement is based on the archival documents of the Laka Foundation (https://www.laka.org/). To establish the position of the PvdA towards the ecologist protest actions, I relied on official declarations and documents released by the Party Executive and statements by the party leadership, as published or declared in the party journals and/or in national newspapers. 113. PvdA election manifesto (1971), Verkiezingsprogramma, 29–30. 114. P. Boksma, ‘Kernwapens in Europa’, Socialisme en Democratie 11 (1973), 481– 94; S. Rozemond, ‘Kernwapens in Europa’, Socialisme en Democratie 12 (1973), 556–58. 115. Peace and security issues became a central focus of the discussion at the 1975 party congress. This led to the approval of the ‘Peace and Security’ resolution at the 1975 congress.

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116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123.

124. 125.

126.

PvdA election manifesto (1977), Programma PvdA Tweede-Kamerverkiezingen, 7. PvdA Declaration of Principles (1977), Beginselprogramma, 14. PvdA election manifesto (1981), Weerwerk, 23. Ibid. Speech delivered to the 1981 PvdA Congress by Max van den Berg, Archief PvdA, ‘Congresstukken’, Nr. 286, IISG, Amsterdam. PvdA brochure on nuclear weapons, by Marten van Traa, secretary of the international section of the PvdA, June 1981, DNPP, Groningen. ‘Overlegorgaan tegen de kernbewapening’, Archief PvdA, inv.nr. 2396, IISG, Amsterdam. The detachment of the PvdA and the IKV from the KNN after the deployment decision was taken, and the withdrawal of their support for further mobilizations by the peace movement, was widely covered in the national newspapers (a selection of journal articles on the topic is available at Archief PvdA, inv.nr 2383, IISG, Amsterdam. Vrij Nederland, 20 February 1982. The fiscal strike (Betaal niet mee actie), which the PvdA did not support, was taken as an opportunity for discussion within the party on how it should deal with the radicalization of the groups within the KKN. Not only was radicalization feared, but the party also worried about the possible splintering of the peace movement (internal meeting, ‘De PvdA en de kernwapens. Een tussenstand’, 16 February 1985, Archief PvdA, inv.nr. 2382, IISG, Amsterdam. Cited in J.W. Duyvendak and R. van Huizen, Nieuwe sociale bewegingen in Nederland, een onderzoek naar de kraakbeweging, de vredesbeweging en de anti-kernenergie beweging (Zwolle: SVAG-Studies, 1983), 56, 59.

Chapter 3

‘And Yes, It Moves!’ The Unexpected Response of Centrist Parties to Social Movements

Studies focusing on the relationships between social movements and political parties (mostly from the social movements’ impact perspective) have traditionally looked at parties of the left. Indeed, as shown in detail in the previous chapter, the left-wing parties have been inclined to take on board social movements’ demands and provide their support to movement groups. Little research has been undertaken on centre parties’ responses to social movements. This chapter will show that despite being more distant, centre parties did not remain impermeable to social movements. They responded too, adapting and introducing discursive and organizational changes following the movements’ emergence. Of the four parties under observation in this work, the Italian Christian Democratic party (DC), defined as ‘the conservative party par excellence of the Italian party system’, was expected to respond the least towards the social movement family.1 This expectation derived from its traditional and conservative character, and the consequent strong cultural and ideological differences between leaders, members, and the social constituency of the DC and social movement activists. Yet, the social changes that were taking place in the second half of the 1960s in Italy were perceived from the very start also by the DC. A key personality within the party stating the need for the DC to open up to the demands for change within society, and in particular to those demands coming from the younger generations from the end of the 1960s, was the party’s former secretary, Aldo Moro. Particularly important was Moro’s speech at the DC National Direction of 21 November 1968, where he underlined the transformations and the ‘new and steady emergence of new times’ in Italian society, and the need to get in touch with those transformations, and to mediate and understand those demands.2 Like the PCI in the same years, in its 1969 electoral manifesto the DC pointed to the need to pay attention to a society in rapid transformation, where autonomous groups of citizens were demanding greater involvement and participation, and to the need to provide clear answers to their demands by channelling

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them within the institutional system.3 The social mobilizations of those years also constituted one of the most central themes of the 11th Congress of the Christian Democratic party in 1969. In his opening speech to the congress, the party secretary Flaminio Piccoli mentioned the students’ protests as ‘the most prominent phenomenon of those years’. Piccoli stressed the fundamental need for political parties to listen and adapt to the new social climate, and underlined how voicing social demands was the most important function of political parties within democratic systems.4 However, the Christian Democratic party was far from being a cohesive political entity. Due to its high degree of fractionalization it was labelled as the ‘archipelago party’.5 Ever since the DC was formed, it was actually composed of three main groups: a right wing, a centre wing and a left wing, a division that remained until the dissolution of the party in 1992. Alliances and divisions between the factions determined the allocation of power positions within the party, and the party’s external political alliances and strategies. It was under the leadership of the right-wing faction (headed by Andreotti) that the DC opened up to the right (the Tambroni government of 1961); whilst it was under the leadership of the left-wing current (headed by Fanfani and Moro) the DC opened up to the Socialist party, constituting the centre-left government (1963–68). Accordingly, the 1970s and 1980s can be divided in three main phases for the party. The first phase, corresponding to the initial years of the 1970s, was characterized by a shift to the right of the DC. Faced with the left-wing turmoil of the students’ and workers’ mobilizations, the newly elected party secretary Fanfani initiated a campaign to search for alliances based on conservative values, aiming to present the DC as the only political force able to safeguard the constitutional government of the country.6 The anti-divorce campaign for the referendum of 1974 was a clear expression of the closure of the party towards the social and cultural changes that were taking place in Italian society. The second phase started with the failure of the anti-divorce referendum and the results of the local-level elections of 1975 (the PCI came in only two percentage points lower than the DC). After the local elections of 1975, Moro strongly criticized the dominant faction of the DC for its hierarchical decision making and its blindness to societal needs. There were two main directions to be pursued, in his vision: first, an internal change in the DC leadership had to occur, and second, he proposed a strategy of attention towards the PCI.7 Indeed, these defeats forced the DC to substitute the party secretary and open a new phase for the party.8 The new DC secretary, Benigno Zaccagnini, elected according to Giovagnoli for his strong capacity to attract young people and the Catholic world, followed Moro’s positions in many aspects.9 Zaccagnini centred his discourse on two

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main elements: an internally more open party, where the politics of factions would have to be abandoned; and a delineation of possible convergences with the Communist party, rather than the head-on confrontation that had characterized the attitude of the DC from the early 1970s. Moreover, Zaccagnini also followed Moro on the need to acknowledge the demands of society. His speech to the National Council of 1978 touches specifically on the need to create a dialogue with social movements: When a whole society is in transformation, like the society we are living in is, parties cannot remain closed in themselves. If in the 1940s parties could rest on an essentially static national culture and be very closed to the cultural integration of other cultures and experiences, the party that we think of today wants to become itself a factor of cultural mobility and an opening to dialogue. If in the 1940s the party could be conceived mainly as an institutional presence, and in the 1950s as an autonomous subject taking decisions within the institutional organs, the party that we conceive today needs to be aware of the numerous novelties that have matured in society. Today, the instruments for political participation go beyond political parties; the flourishing of movements and of associations needs a greater degree of adaptability from the party structures; we need to establish a dialogue with those organized social forces within our country.10 Zaccagnini’s political strategy did not last for long. The societal turmoil of the late 1970s, the economic crisis, and the murder of Moro by the ‘Red Brigades’ closed the possibility of DC’s opening forever. The third phase, starting in 1980, was characterized by a return to the past. The situation of the three confessional parties in the Netherlands was different. There is universal agreement in the literature that the fundamental impulse for the acceleration of the process of forming a unified Christian Democratic party, the CDA,11 was the vote losses the confessional parties were experiencing, and the KVP in particular.12 However, the KVP seemed to have perceived that changes were taking place in society and that new strategies had to be deployed well before its electoral defeat of 1967: ‘Before, we used to think in terms of doctrinal categories. Now, times have changed considerably. We have realized that many of the assumptions of our party were time-bound. . . . We need to be a party open to all Dutch people’.13 Similar arguments focused on the necessity to broaden the party’s appeal to different groups in society are present in the KVP’s electoral manifesto

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of 1967, and were discussed at a meeting on the KVP’s organizational renewal, held in September 1967: ‘The KVP needs to deliberately unite, in one party, with people coming from different groups in society’.14 Among the modernization processes that took place in Dutch society from the late 1960s, referred to in the Introduction, it was the trend towards secularization and individualization in particular that affected the confessional parties the most. As the proportion of citizens with no church affiliation increased and church attendance conversely decreased, confessional parties could no longer rely on their capacity to attract religious voters the way they had before. As Ten Napel argued, ‘if confessional parties wanted to remain central actors in Dutch politics, like the Socialists and the Liberals, they had to provide responses to the fundamental changes of the society’.15 Thus, throughout the 1970s, the CDA federation placed less emphasis on the traditional themes that had previously distinguished the three confessional parties, such as morality and communalism; instead, a greater emphasis was placed on other, ‘newer’, and non-religious themes, such as environmental protection, democracy and internationalism.16 Simultaneously, the very bonds between the churches became much looser than before.17 This posture proved to be successful for the CDA. If in the 1977 elections the CDA did not increase its electoral share, it nevertheless halted what previously seemed to be the full-fledged collapse of the confessional parties. In the 1980s, thanks to the strong popularity of the party leader Ruud Lubbers, who attracted a portion of the secular electorate, the CDA fully regained the electoral share that the confessional parties had held before the crisis of the late 1960s. Within ten years of the fusion of the confessional parties, the CDA had turned from being a mainly defensive political formation into an offensive and self-confident one.18 The CDA was a quite disciplined federation (and later, party). After the PPR detached itself from the KVP in 1968, it did not experience any splits. Nevertheless, as we shall see in this chapter, at the end of the 1970s internal divisions occurred between progressives and traditionalists within the CDA. Internal disagreements emerged, in particular on the core theme of mobilization of the peace movement: the stationing of cruise missiles on Dutch territory. Overall, the four cases that will be presented in this chapter will reveal an increasing distance between the social movements and the two parties on the left. However, we will see that movements managed to pressure both the DC and the CDA to position themselves with regard to their claims, stimulating internal discussions and, to some extent, changes in their political discourse and organization.

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The Unexpected Impact of the Feminist Movement on the DC Like the Communist party, the Christian Democratic party had also developed a political discourse on women from the constitutional period of the Italian Republic. It was on the initiative of DC secretary Alcide De Gasperi that universal suffrage was introduced in Italy in January 1945. The literature often underlines how the Christian Democratic party was the party that benefited most from universal suffrage. This led to an interpretation of De Gasperi’s proposition as instrumental, aimed at capturing the votes of women who were historically anchored to the domestic and traditional spheres of Italian society and who would therefore vote for the conservative church-based party.19 Analyses of electoral participation indeed reveal that since the first elections in 1948, and for the following two decades, the electorate of the DC was predominantly female, with women accounting for more than 60 per cent of the party’s electoral strength.20 If women, the majority of the Italian population, undoubtedly constituted a crucial electoral category for all the Italian political parties, other scholars underline that a merely instrumental interpretation of De Gasperi’s initiative is misplaced. With their participation in the Resistance during the war and their mobilization in aid initiatives right after it, women acquired an important social and political visibility that could simply not be ignored in the constitutional process of the new democratic system. Gaiotti refers to the proposition of universal suffrage by De Gasperi as the ‘perception of an obvious democratic decency’.21 Moreover, and consistent with the introduction of universal suffrage, the DC leader opened a discourse that appeared to appreciate the social and cultural obstacles that women in Italian society had to face. The party secretary’s speech to the First National Assembly of the Female Movement of the DC in 1946 is an apt example: ‘Since I was young I have always been concerned about the condition of women. . . . Now that we are in a phase of our political organization of the party, we have to face a number of objections, difficulties and strong prejudices, which need to be overcome’.22 The DC also formed, from its very start, internal women’s sections and supported the ‘Centro Italiano Femminile’ (CIF) with financial and logistical aid. Similar to the PCI, the actual separation of these worlds, that is the world of the women’s sections and organizations and the party’s internal organization, constituted a sort of ‘ghettoization’ of women and of women’s issues which actually prevented their participation in the decision-making organs of the DC and the formulation of ‘Big Politics’. Yet, this organizational setting

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nevertheless helped to stimulate political participation and political debate among women.23 Apart from the introduction of universal suffrage and the principles of equality between the sexes approved in the Italian Constitution, the DC was also among the promoters of the actual legal implementation of these principles to a greater extent than the historical vulgata transmitted. At the policy level, in fact, the DC promoted important legislation that favoured women by facilitating their entrance into the labour market and the public sphere. These legislative proposals were often brought forward on the initiative of Christian Democratic MPs and were strongly supported by the party’s ‘Female Movement’.24 That said, while favouring women’s participation as a matter of principle, recognizing their formal equality in the social and public spheres and promoting egalitarian legislation, the way in which the DC framed women and their role in Italian society lay mainly within specific traditional family roles, that is as wives and mothers. The following extract comes from the speech made by the DC secretary to the first national meeting of the CIF: We, men, need you and your contribution, we need your active participation in meetings, in congresses, in parliaments; we need you especially for the following reason: that you will be able to teach us and anticipate us on the road of sacrifice. We need you especially as wives and mothers, or future wives and mothers, because real politics . . . is the defence of morality, and the defence of Christianity. . . . I therefore welcome your contribution to our battle, as I am aware that instinctively with your maternal heart, you will never forget those duties that concern our children, the family and future generations.25 The secretary’s speech neatly encapsulates the general conception of women within the DC, which anchored them to the private and domestic spheres by stressing the importance of their nurturing and reproductive roles. The DC, strongly characterized by a ‘traditional conservatism’, focused on social cohesion, defence of tradition, and the importance of traditional family arrangements.26 The defence of the traditional role of the family also implied that the participation of women in the labour market was more often perceived as a necessity deriving from economic needs (to compensate the husband’s salary), rather than as a positive outcome of female emancipation. This was not only the general vision of the party but also the vision of the groups of Christian women within the ‘Female Movement’ of the party and of the CIF, who perceived attention to and the defence of the role of

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the family as essential, and a precondition for women’s justice.27 The defence of the traditional role of the family also implied that the participation of women in the labour market was often perceived as a necessity deriving from economic need (to compensate for a husband’s inadequate salary), rather than a positive free choice. Not least, moreover, the family sphere for decades remained somehow exempt from the principle of equality between the sexes.28 Nonetheless, when the ‘Family Right’ reform, which formally recognized the equal rights of husbands and wives in the family, was voted through parliament, the DC was among its most overt supporters.29 The real revolution in the private dimension, however, had to be cultural for the legal principle to be sustained. While the DC continued to frame its discourse on women in terms of equality, the feminist movement initiated its discourse on the never before recognized difference of women; while the DC continued to conceive of women mainly with reference to the family, the feminist movement discussed the family as the fundamental locus of women’s cultural and social oppression.

Changes in the DC Discourse on Women Up until 1975, the DC’s discourse on women hardly changed. In its 1968 manifesto, some recognition of the changed role of women within society, which forced the need for further egalitarian policies to be implemented in order to favour women’s effective possibilities to take part in the labour market, can be observed. However, the party mainly referred to women within the context of the family and their household responsibilities: ‘Women have their essential and irreplaceable function within the family’.30 In the mid-1970s, however, attention towards women’s issues in the DC’s political discourse had increased considerably. An analysis of the frequency of references to women’s issues in the party’s election manifestos from 1969 to 1987 clearly shows that the figures in the mid-1970s stand out. For the political elections of 1976, there were seventeen references to women’s issues in the DC political manifesto, a significant increase when compared to the DC manifesto of 1972 which included only seven references; and the number of positive references made by the DC secretary in his speeches to congress rose to ten, as opposed to the two references made in the secretary’s speech of 1973. Conversely, from the 1980s onwards, attention towards women’s issues in the party’s public discourse decreased significantly. Three main factors led to the surge in attention from the DC towards women’s issues in the mid-1970s. First, the failure of the 1974 anti-divorce referendum, promoted by the DC, constituted a severe blow for the party (see Chapter 1). The outcome showed – for the first time – that Italian voters,

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Number of references

17

12

8 7

1 0

1969

1972

1976

1979

1983

1987

Election years

Figure 3.1 Coverage of women’s issues in the DC election manifestos, 1968–1987 Note: The dashed line indicates the Italian feminist movement’s peak of visibility. Source: See list of primary sources in bibliography (elaboration by author).

including female voters, could no longer be defined a priori as traditional, conservative, and loyal to the Christian Democrats. Second, the electoral gains of the Italian Communist Party at the local elections of 1975 (the PCI were only two percentage points lower than the DC) challenged – again for the first time in the country’s political history – Christian Democratic numerical supremacy within the Italian party system.31 Third, from 1974 the feminist movement gathered pace and entered into the phase of its greatest social and political visibility, managing to place women’s issues higher on the public, media and political agenda than ever before. Combined, these factors forced the DC to pay more attention to women in its public discourse and, most importantly, to change the quality of the party’s claims for women. Qualitative changes emerge most prominently in the party’s manifesto for the 1976 elections, arguably the most ‘sensitive’ elections in the history of the Italian Republic as far as women’s representation is concerned, and in the DC Congress that took place in the same year. In this, women’s issues were said to be at the core of the DC’s political vision. The DC now emphasized strongly the fact that since the introduction of universal suffrage the party had always actively promoted legislation that favoured women’s equality and admission to all sectors of society.32 Even though the defence of the family – as the ‘core social community’33 – remained central, women were treated less within the context of the family than before, and the impor-

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tance of public social services (nurseries, part-time work, services for elderly people, family allowances) were emphasized as fundamental means by which to facilitate women’s full participation in the public sphere.34 Moreover, at the 14th DC Congress of 1980, the party secretary addressed themes that had been introduced to the public agenda by the feminist movement itself, such as women’s personal autonomy and women’s empowerment.35 Far from endorsing feminists’ representative claims, and without challenging the party’s core ideological position regarding the importance of the family and of women’s traditional nurturing and reproductive roles, the DC incorporated additional content to its claims for women, reflecting an adaptation to the social transformations that were taking place in Italian society. Yet the centrality of women that was so evident in the second half of the 1970s, and which had the potential to herald a change in the party’s conception of women and their role in the society, was ultimately short lived. While the feminist movement was entering its latent phase, the DC’s official documents show not only, as previously mentioned, a decrease in the party’s attention to women’s issues, but also a qualitative return to the party’s older, traditional conception of women. Indeed, the party’s claims for women’s personal autonomy, self-determination and political participation, and the issues concerning a cultural reorientation of society around women, disappeared from the 1980s onwards. Women’s issues were marginalized once more and revolved around the family sphere, and the party primarily stressed women’s reproductive roles,36 or made brief mentions to women’s issues as typical ‘sub-categories’ along with youths and the elderly.37 In general, then, claims for women by the Italian Christian Democratic party remained centred on women’s traditional roles. In the mid-1970s, simultaneous to the peak of the feminist movement’s visibility, and at a time of unprecedented attention towards women’s issues in Italian society more broadly, the DC seemed to adapt its discourse on women, expanding its perception of women’s interests beyond the traditional roles that the party had been advancing. This was, as previously discussed, a political and tactical necessity, as the changes that the party introduced proved to be short lived, with no real impact on the party’s broader conception of women, or in terms of women’s actual integration within the party. Instead, everything but a return to the past was the claim for women made by the DC female representatives.

Women’s Representation in the DC: A Politics of Absence Especially in the light of the decisive role of the female electorate in shaping the political outcomes of the referendum and the regional elections of

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1975, discussed in the two preceding chapters, it could be expected that the DC would have tried to promote itself as a party open to women by means of greater numbers of women in parliament or its internal structures. This, however, did not occur. Even if the DC ranked second after the PCI in terms of women’s representation, the average percentage of DC women elected to parliament in the political elections between 1946 and 1987 (2.9 per cent) stands ten percentage points lower than the figures for the PCI, shown in the preceding chapter. As Table 3.1 shows, from 1946 to 1987, the number of women in the DC’s parliamentary group remained essentially stable, with no significant increases occurring during the feminist mobilization cycle. If very few DC women actually entered parliament, even fewer were represented in the DC’s internal organs. Observing the presence of women in the core national decision-making organs of the party, not only are women markedly underrepresented, but no increase took place over time. Despite the number of representatives to the DC National Council almost tripling, a maximum of three women got elected at any one time throughout the whole period between 1946 and 1989, with women constituting an average of only 2.12 per cent of the total number of representatives to the council. The DC’s central decision-making organ, the Direction, was entirely composed of men for over four decades, as were the party secretaries. Apart from an indication of the DC’s limited openness to the representation of women, the very limited number of female representatives in the DC has been explained by the party’s practices of internal power distribution, mainly determined by the party’s internal factions. The Female Movement of the DC, from where the great majority of the DC female leaders came, not only constituted a separate organ within the party’s internal structure, but also overtly declared its intentional will to remain outside the factional logics discussed in the introductory paragraph of this chapter, consequently being left in power distribution.38 However, differences do appear when looking at the number of female candidates the DC included on its electoral lists. The leap from twenty-five Table 3.1 Women’s representation in the DC party group, 1946–1987 Election year 1946 1953 1958 1963 1968 1972 1976 1979 1983 1987 DC female MPs

7 12 10 11 8 7 9 9 6 11 (3.5) (4.5) (3.5) (3.4) (2.9) (2.6) (3.4) (3.4) (2.6) (4.3)

Number of DC MPs

195

261

283

321

267

256

262

261

225

255

Note: Figures in parentheses are percentages of total DC MPs. Source: M. Guadagnini, ‘Una rappresentanza limitata: Le donne nel Parlamento italiano dal 1948 ad oggi’, Quaderni di Sociologia 8 (1987), 130–57 (elaboration by author).

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Table 3.2 DC female candidates and DC female MPs Election year

1972

Number of female candidates

25 43 45 47 77 (28.0) (20.9) (20.0) (12.7) (14.2)

Number of women elected

7

1976

9

1979

9

1983

6

1987

11

Note: Figures in parentheses are percentages of total DC female MPs. Source: Guadagnini 1987 (elaboration by author).

women in 1972 to forty-three in 1976 after the divorce referendum, and at the highest peak of mobilization of the feminist movement, seems to indicate the party’s intention to show itself as being open to the active involvement of women in the political process. As discussed for the case of the Communist party, the low percentages of women elected shows that female candidates were not ranked highly on the DC lists, and their chances of being elected were correspondingly low (see Chapter 1). The second significant leap, from forty-seven (1983) to seventy-seven female candidates (1987), seems instead to be a response to the pressures in this direction from the Female Movement of the party. Indeed, the Christian Democratic women became increasingly more vociferous, calling for greater representation in public office and in party decision-making positions. As we shall see in the following section, it is in the discourse of the DC women that we will find the strongest influence of the feminist movement.

The Feminist Influence on Christian Democratic Women For many years, DC women had remained silent rather than voice their right to play an active role in the internal life of the party and make their own claims on women’s issues and interests. For many years, moreover, the party and its Female Movement framed women within the private and domestic spheres. The Female Movement perceived the defence of the importance of the family as essential, and a precondition for women’s justice.39 Family and motherhood were perceived as the fundamental vocation of women, and their main sphere of realization. Women’s participation in the public and political spheres was regarded as an extension of this natural ‘vocation’, from the family to society as a whole, rather than the right of women to self-realization. This vision significantly changed during the second half of the 1970s. A conception of women mainly framed around motherhood and family responsibilities did not sit well with the changes taking place in Italian society from the mid-1960s, which significantly altered the material, social and cultural conditions of women. Modernization, the arrival of household

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appliances, increasing levels of education, and the increasing number of employed women – albeit limited to certain sectors – had the outcome of reducing familial duties and the traditional role of women, on the one hand, and encouraging women to reflect upon the distribution of domestic labour, paid work, and their own personal time, on the other.40 Moreover, the feminist experience had radically touched the cultural perception of women’s issues in Italian society.41 In particular, the feminist experience touched the perception of the DC women participating actively – although marginally – in the party’s political life through the Female Movement and the Catholic women’s organizations. The emergence of feminism disoriented their cultural parameters, as DC women had to reconcile the changes that were taking place in society with respect to women, with their traditional understanding of the role of women. This reconciliation was stated as a necessary priority, precisely in order to avoid women’s issues becoming the exclusive property of the 1970s feminist movement – a ‘radical-bourgeois group of women’, as one of the leading Christian Democratic women described it.42 Women’s political participation and autonomy are vital notions in the discourse of the DC women from the 1970s. According to Gaiotti, the focus on participation was already present in the party’s Female Movement, as well as the CIF, from the very beginning of the 1970s: The Female Movement of the DC and the CIF identified in participation the model of the new role of women in society. Participation means the exaltation of the social role of women and their taking part in the realm of competences and responsibilities . . . so to fight their isolation, designing a new social figure of women that united the public and the private.43 During the early 1970s, this remained a minority discourse, with a very limited audience even within the Female Movement. From the second half of the 1970s, however, political participation became a key reference in congress speeches, and in the articles published by the DC women in the party’s weekly journal La Discussione.44 Observing the women’s speeches at the DC congresses from 1973 to 1986, we see not only an increase in the number of women’s speeches, but also an increase in the number of speeches raising the issue of women’s representation. Although women’s speeches accounted for a striking minority overall, Table 3.3 shows that the number of women’s speeches referring to the need for the integration of women into the party structures had more than doubled from 1973 (33.3 per cent) to 1986 (77.7 per cent). During the 13th Congress of 1976, female delegates criticized the party for the first time for

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Table 3.3 Speeches of female delegates to DC Congresses, 1973–1986 Congress year

1973

1976

1980

1982

1986

Number of speeches by women

3 (3.37)

9 (4.22)

6 (4.02)

9 (6.82)

9 (6.92)

Women’s speeches on representation

1 (33.3)

4 (44.4)

3 (50.0)

5 (55.6)

7 (77.7)

89

166

149

132

130

Total number of speeches

Note: Raw count reported; percentage from the larger category in parentheses. Source: Atti del . . .Congresso nazionale della Democrazia Cristiana [1973–1986]. (Reprinted with permission of ECPR Press.)

the ways in which women’s participation had been handled by the party’s internal workings. The following two examples are illustrative: We [women] have been treated as a reservoir of votes more than as actors in political life.45 I ask myself and ask you what is the relationship between the DC’s majority female electorate and the appointments that women receive within the party’s internal structures. . . . There is an absence of political will over inserting women in the local, regional and National Direction.46 Female delegates within the DC pushed the party management to bring women’s issues to the core of the party’s political action and initiate a politics of the recognition of women within the party. This pattern continued throughout women’s speeches during the 1980s. Not only did the women of the DC stress this subject greatly but, unsurprisingly, their tone became increasingly bitter over the years, given that, in spite of its rhetoric, the DC had been persistently inattentive to the internal representation of women. Instead, women in the DC became increasingly self-conscious about this issue, and explicitly critical of their own party. The following excerpts offer further examples of their frustration: There is a great discussion about the DC’s renewal, but if this party will not include women as a leading part of its renewal, not only it will not be able to follow or truly understand the transformations in society, but it will soon be short of breath.47 It is useless to say we are clever and capable, if so little space is given to us. What is expected from us [i.e. from the DC] is a truly Christian space. We say this because we want it to be put on the record: we want political responses towards this issue.48

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As no responses were given, the tones of the DC women became even more bitter, to the extent that even the PCI’s 17th Congress of 1986 (in which the PCI, remarkably, opened up to women) was used as an opportunity to highlight that the DC should give women a central role in its upcoming congress.49 In addition to the issue of political participation, many interventions seemed to indicate an openness to a different conception of women than that traditionally proclaimed by the party’s public discourse. Women in the DC become more centred on women’s autonomy and on women’s self-realization as individuals. First, there was a lack of reference to what were previously perceived as women’s ‘ancient duties’ (as wives and mothers) in any of the speeches. On the contrary, the notion of women as mainly operating within the family sphere was criticized: ‘Despite changes that have occurred in the recognition of the right of women to fully participate in social life, the habit of saddling women with all the needs and problems related to family life did not change’.50 Secondly, from the end of the 1970s, DC women adopted many elements of the feminist movement’s discourse, attempting to appropriate and reinterpret it by eradicating its more radical components. If certain issues brought up by the feminist movement were difficult for a traditional Catholic women’s organization to debate – for example, sexual liberation, the family as the structure at the core of women’s oppression, the self-determination of women, and other feminist conflicts of the 1970s – DC women sought to solve this problem by adapting the feminist discourse to suit their own agenda. Accordingly, the terms (women’s) ‘self-determination’ and ‘women’s liberation’ appear in many articles published on the women’s page in La Discussione. It is especially from these dedicated pages that we find the greatest evidence of how the women of the party conceived women’s interests, and how they dealt with the feminist movement’s emergent claims. Just as the official discourse of the party appropriated the themes linked to women’s emancipation, so the discourse of the DC women from the mid1970s adopted feminist themes, filtering the feminist discourse through their own ideological identity, as the following examples from 1976, 1981 and 1985 show: Women’s issues today should be considered as a matter of liberation . . . within a context in which greater consciousness is being acquired on the personal individuality of human beings.51 Women’s liberation is positive when it means that women acquire greater consciousness of their potential; women’s self-determination, also of their own body, is positive when it means that women are no longer objects but subjects.52

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We agree on a notion of liberation that implies the full freedom of human potential. And we need policies that help women to be freed from their isolation within the family.53 Particular emphasis was given to: women’s autonomy and to the self-realization of women as individuals; the importance of extra-domestic work for women as fundamental for the realization of their full personality; and, the importance of women’s free time for their personal, cultural and social ‘interests’ (another catchword of the feminist movement). With respect to the feminist movement itself, while the DC women considered it wrong in many of its premises, and criticized it in particular for its perception of the family, its focus on sexual liberation, its separatist practices and not least its views about abortion,54 it was, nonetheless, positively recognized for having brought to the fore the profound willingness of women to be protagonists of change. According to the DC women, the party had to bring women into the core of its political action; it was only by doing so that it would be able to stay in touch with society, and not become a ‘sclerotic organism’.55 All in all, while the party’s official discourse remained anchored to the formal recognition of women’s equality but was unprepared to really support women’s political participation or their autonomy as individuals, some Christian Democratic women were no longer willing to toe the line. Although they opposed what they interpreted to be the individualistic and libertarian drives within feminism, they opened themselves up to the language of the feminist movement and their slogans (such as ‘the self-determination of women’ and ‘women’s liberation’) by adapting their meanings to their own ideological, cultural and identity frameworks. The Christian Democratic women consequently broadened the agenda on women’s issues, offering a particular take on women’s interests, by advancing a discourse that sought to keep pace with the social transformations taking place in Italian society, albeit in a way that was compatible with their conservative stance.

Ephemeral Party Change: Lasting Impact on the DC Women The high visibility that the feminist movement acquired during the 1970s could not go unnoticed. The feminists managed to set women’s issues higher on the public, media and political agenda than ever before. This implied that the DC was also forced to take this movement into account, to discuss its main demands and to position itself with respect to it. The notions of women and their place in society held in the DC and the feminist movement were almost at opposite poles. In spite of the fact that the DC was one of the parties that had worked most actively for legislation promoting women’s

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equality and indiscriminate access to the public sphere, and labour in particular, the DC’s communitarian conception, with the family at its centre, its conservative approach to the position of women, and its Christian prolife tradition that opposed abortion, understood as a practice of the selfdetermination of women, on principle implied that the DC’s cultural identity made it impossible for this party to interpret and respond positively to the feminist movement. A qualitative change in the discourse of the DC did take place during the highest visibility of the feminist movement, in particular the decoupling of women from the family roles traditionally attributed to them by the DC, and the increasing focus on the issue of women’s participation in all spheres of society, including politics. Nevertheless, not only did this not correspond to any change in the party’s actual political practices, but it also lasted only a short time, during the highest peak of mobilization of the feminist movement. From the 1980s, a qualitative return to the party’s older conception of women emerged. Anything but a return to the past was instead the idea of the discourses of the women of the DC during the 1980s. The feminist experience had radically touched the cultural perception of women’s issues in Italian society, and the Christian Democratic women were no longer willing to toe the line. They criticized their own party claiming for representation and took on board many elements of the feminist discourse, attempting to seize and interpret it by eradicating its more radical components.

The DC and the ‘Enemies of Progress’ As discussed in Chapter 1, until the 1980s environmental issues were scarce in the political discourses of all the Italian political parties. The DC constituted no exception. Moreover, its position in government at the national level and in numerous local-level administrations, as well as its strong linkages with the agricultural and industrial sectors of the Italian economy, made the DC the party most directly accountable for the ‘feverish’ urban development of the 1950s. Indeed, it was against the DC and its indiscriminate urbanization policies that the first environmental organization in Italy (Italia Nostra), campaigned most energetically, criticizing the party of being responsible for environmental decay and for the depredation of the natural and historical environment of the country.56 The key figure who first advanced environmental issues in the DC discourse was Amintore Fanfani, DC secretary first in the 1950s, and later from 1973 to 1975, and president of the senate in the early 1970s. It was during

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his time in this latter function that Fanfani formed the first institutional committee, ‘On the problems of ecology’ (‘Sui problemi dell’ecologia’), in 1971. Composed of a number of senators and experts from the scientific community, the discussions of this body aimed to define what policies to follow in order to ‘face the dangers that have emerged after the disturbance of the balance between natural forces and the deterioration of the environment’.57 A second institutional initiative from the same period was the creation of a Ministry of Ecology, in 1972, by a DC-led government. This ministry survived until 1974, and was later absorbed by the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and the Environment.58 If the environmental discourse entered the PCI though the identitarian filter of the protection of workers’ health in their working environments and the criticism of capitalist economic structures, the point of access to the political discourse of the DC for environmental issues was the protection of human life. When covering the first UN Conference on the Environment in Stockholm, the national DC journal, Il Popolo, reported a message to the conference from Pope Paul VI on the importance of the environment for the protection of humankind. This was stressed by Fanfani himself when intervening at the UN General Assembly of 1970: ‘The populations and the governments have to work for life, taking into greater account the environment for a strategy for the survival of humanity’.59 The 1972 UN Conference in Stockholm received particular attention in the DC newspaper for all four days of the meeting. This was not, however, reflected in the party’s election manifesto of the same year, where, besides one mention of the importance of protecting the national territory, no references to environmental issues appear. The first time a specific paragraph was dedicated to environmental issues in the DC manifesto was at the elections of 1976. Here, and in a number of articles in the party’s weekly journal La Discussione, the DC stated the need to develop policies to increase the value of the country’s natural resources, reduce property speculation, and help the preservation of the natural and historical environment of Italy. Moreover, and somewhat in line with the contemporary ‘austerity proposal’ advanced by the PCI, the DC also mentioned the need to contain consumption, and for an economization of available resources: ‘Our private and public consumption levels are excessive, beyond control and above our possibilities. The containment of consumption is indispensable and will have to be of exceptional dimension’.60 Again, in the manifesto of 1979, the importance of the environment is framed within the context of the survival of humankind: ‘For the DC, the environment is not only shaped for humankind, it also shapes humankind. It is the

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continuation of its existential space across all times, the place within which to exist and to propagate’.61

The DC Discourse after the Ecology Movement’s Emergence If the 1970s were characterized by the appearance of the DC’s first discourses on environmental matters, the 1980s were instead characterized by the first effective implementation of environmental measures, with many of them supported, and in some cases even advanced, by DC members of parliament. The fundamental drive for many of these laws to be approved came from European Community (EC) directives. Nonetheless, the significance of the support given by the DC to those laws in the parliament should not be underestimated. Even though internationally bound to comply with EC directives, these laws often touched upon strong interests that the DC had always supported, thereby creating frictions within the party. This was the case, for instance, for the ‘Legge Galasso’, which placed 30 per cent of the Italian territory under planning restrictions, clashing significantly with the interests of the industrial and agricultural sectors, construction companies and enterprises, which had previously held almost indiscriminate power over the Italian territory (and to which the DC, as previously discussed, was traditionally bound). Another controversial law approval was that establishing the Ministry of the Environment.62 The existence of such a ministry in fact deprived other ministries that had indirectly held jurisdiction over environmental matters, implying not only a redistribution of competences with respect to the status quo but, most importantly, the loss of control over the management of specific economic interests. Indeed, according to the secretary of the Ufficio per i problemi dell’Ambiente (Office for Environmental Problems) of the DC (see later in this section), it was not an easy battle to get the laws unanimously approved by the party in the parliament.63 Besides these crucial legislative interventions, from the 1980s all the election manifestos presented by the DC contained a specific section dedicated to the environment (absent in those of the 1970s). Additionally, starting from 1981, a special page focusing on environmental matters (‘Pagina Ambiente’) was introduced in the weekly journal La Discussione,64 and several special issues dedicated to environmental matters were published. Like the page focusing on women’s issues discussed earlier (Chapter 2), the page on environmental issues covered different types of news, from local to national-level partisan initiatives, to the deepening of specific environmental policies. The DC also showed some changes from the previous decade concerning the quality of its discourse on environmental matters. The environment was no longer framed

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as a specific, sectoral topic, but was increasingly mentioned as a necessary part of a more complex, unitary and global political discourse. Some of the notions of the ecology movement also entered the party’s very language, such as the necessity of abandoning a merely quantitatively oriented conception of economic progress, of considering the quality of economic development, and of imposing a juncture between economic and ecological issues. However, not only are the number of references to environmental issues in the DC election manifestos very limited, but they do not increase following the ecology movement’s emergence (Figure 3.2). Moreover, further pointing to the little impact of the ecology movement on the DC discourse, the party mainly referred to the older environmental issues related to the protection of the environment and the defence of natural resources in these documents. No statements in favour of any of the main claims of the ecology movement were found throughout the period under investigation. It is only in the manifesto presented for the 1987 elections that attention to the environment peaked. On this occasion, when the Greens participated in national-level elections for the first time, and only a few months before the anti-nuclear referendum was held, it was in the interest of the party to show its environment-friendly face.

Number of references

40

8 5 1

1

1969

1972

0

1976

1979

1983

1987

Election years

Figure 3.2 Coverage of environmental issues in the DC manifestos, 1968–1987 Note: The dashed line indicates the Italian ecology movement’s peak of visibility. Source: See list of primary sources in bibliography (elaboration by author).

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A Fierce Defence of Nuclear Energy The DC was among those Italian political parties mostly in favour of further developing nuclear power stations, and was central in the elaboration and implementation of the National Energy Plan of 1975. Consequently, when covering the news on the anti-nuclear demonstration held in Montalto di Castro in 1977, the DC journal was extremely critical: ‘In Italy, too, we saw the emergence of the feasts of crazy ecology. . . . They should realize that without energy not even the Radical radios would work’.65 The demonstration in Montalto is referred to by the party journal Il Popolo as ‘a show’ and criticized for creating useless confusion in public opinion on security issues around the theme of nuclear energy. The pro-nuclear position of the party did not change during the 1980s. In his opening speech to the 14th Congress in 1980, the DC secretary stated the position clearly: Italy needs those programmes in terms of the construction of nuclear power stations, and at the same time needs to do more for the clean alternative sources for the production of energy. . . . We need to choose: we either decide with a referendum to live with lower levels of consumption, or we follow the more rational way, by at the same time increasing investments and checks for preventing the potential dangers of these power stations. We otherwise risk a crisis of occupation, of productive capacity, of tenure of life.66 After the third National Energy Plan was approved by parliament in 1981, the DC stated how the construction of nuclear power stations could no longer be delayed without penalizing the whole industrialization process of the country: ‘The DC proposes the quick implementation of the National Energy Plan and the fast construction of an adequate number of power stations, mainly nuclear ones.67 What the party underlined most strongly before the referendum took place, against the ecologist groups and indeed against the positions expressed by its government allies (and particularly the Socialist party), was the need to maintain a down-to-earth approach and vision of the energy problem, and to maximize measures ensuring the security of nuclear installations: We are not bound to nuclear energy as a principle. On the contrary, the DC is a party characterized by the presence of the most diffused and radical green current internally constituted by the agricultural sector and by the Young Movement of the party, culturally interested in the environmental protection of our waters and our soil,

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and the most concrete programmes of ecological valorization. We are, moreover, sensitive to the crucial problems concerning the security of nuclear power stations, and we are aware that Chernobyl made public opinion very alert and conscious. We fully share those priorities but we cannot deny the risks that would derive from blocking the nuclear programme. . . . We should not forget the economic and also the ecological costs that a stop to nuclear energy plans would imply.68 The official position of the party after the Chernobyl accident was approved by the National Direction on 26 November 1986. ‘Safe Nuclear Energy’ was the heading of the specific section of the DC secretary’s speech to the DC Congress of 1986: Unilateral decisions by our country would not be of any use, as Italy is surrounded by nuclear power stations in France, Switzerland, Germany and Austria. What needs to be done is to ensure the maximum degree of security for nuclear power stations and to only halt the functioning of those factories that do not guarantee security.69 It should be remarked that the DC was aware of the risk that the Italian population would not understand this position: To say no to those who propose to exit from the nuclear option is simultaneously a strong, responsible and risky choice. Risky only because of the fear of not being understood by everyone in the country. This risk, however, will be reduced to a minimum at the moment when the thoughtful cautiousness of the DC will be properly understood.70 Finally, in the three referenda on nuclear energy held in November 1987, the DC campaigned for one ‘Yes’ and two ‘Noes’, compared to the three ‘Yeses’ demanded by the promoters of the referendum.71

No Support, Mild Change (I) The ecologists were never considered as a target group that the party could benefit from, let alone possible interlocutors. Indeed, the only positive reference to this movement was made within the context of the enhancement of political pluralism and a more participatory democracy:

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The Western democratic system gives freedom to the formation and incidence of public opinion, and gives freedom to the movements (whether they are labelled green or ecologist), thereby allowing the presence of active interlocutors for the power holders, and ensuring therefore greater responsibility and greater control, stimulating attention that the absence of interlocutors may weaken, soliciting the cures that may cease to exist without the stimulus of public opinion.72 As mentioned before, the DC had criticized the 1977 anti-nuclear demonstrators – and the critical attitude of the party towards ecologists did not change during the 1980s. Indeed, ecologists were accused of being enemies of progress, promoters of a misanthropic and counterproductive culture, emotionally driven, and unprepared from the scientific point of view. This emerges clearly from a number of articles in the DC party journals: The DC will continue to pay attention and make constant contributions to the problems of the environment. The way of doing this is characterized . . . by the need to exit from a type of ecology of mere denouncement and to pass to a phase of strengthening research and proposals . . . by the conviction that the contraposition between man and nature is culturally wrong and socially damaging. This generates a type of ecology based on misanthropy, aesthetics, and mere conservationism, which we do not agree with.73 We need to exit from an ecology of mere denouncement, of closed intransigence, acritical and insufficiently scientifically grounded, and move to a positive ecology, rational and scientific.74 These political forces do not have any ideological basis. They gather all types of heterogeneity and negativity: from the 1968 Maoism to National Socialism. . . . They give emotional, pastoral and bucolic answers, often without any rational argumentation. They focus on the effects rather than on the causes; they try to solve the manifestations of the problems rather than the problem itself.75 Unsurprisingly then, the DC never supported any of the social initiatives of the ecology movement, nor did it create interorganizational linkages with any ecologist group. The only organizational change related to environmental issues that is worthwhile to report is the establishment, in 1982, of an internal workgroup specifically focusing on environmental issues, the

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Ufficio dei Problemi dell’Ambiente (Office for Environmental Problems).76 The secretary of this office referred to how this workgroup ‘was trying to promote environmental consciousness and to move the political stances of the party leadership in an environmental-friendly direction’.77 However, the office was allocated scarce logistical and human resources, and played a very marginal role in the party.78 Overall, the DC, a party that traditionally linked to the interests of the industrial and agricultural sectors, never paid specific attention to the environment. From the early 1970s, it seemed that the DC was willing to adapt to the growing environmental concerns that had emerged at the international level. For the first time in its political history the DC gave its attention to themes such as the preservation of the natural environment, the reduction of property speculation and the containment of levels of consumption. Over time, environmental issues did receive increasing attention from the DC. This is shown by the establishment within its organizational structure of an internal office for environmental issues; the introduction of a dedicated page to the environment in its weekly journal La Discussione; and from statements in the party’s election manifestos that revealed qualitative changes to the way in which the DC approached issues of economic growth. Yet, not only should such changes not be overestimated, as references to environmental issues overall remained very limited, but it would also be inappropriate to consider such changes as direct responses to the ecology movement. The DC failed to respond to the ecologists’ initial core demand (nuclear energy), and it overtly stated its criticism and disapproval of this movement, which also resulted in the absence of interorganizational contacts between the DC and ecology groups. The case of the DC responses to the ecology movement shows that parties can introduce modest changes around the general themes of social movements without any intention to support the movements’ activists or their demands. A similar outcome is discussed in the case of the responses to the ecologists by the Dutch Christian Democratic party.

Embracing Environmentalism, despite the Movement: The CDA and the Ecologists As for the case of the PvdA, economic policies centred on growth, development and industrialization were also the main priorities for the three Dutch confessional parties, the KVP, the ARP and the CHU. Nonetheless, the confessional parties made no bones about indicating the very mentality at the base of economic growth as being the cause of the environmental emergency that the Netherlands began to perceive from the late 1960s. The origins of

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air, water and soil pollution were to be found, according to early 1970s party documents, in the technological acceleration that the Netherlands had witnessed since the early 1950s: We become increasingly more conscious of the limits of our environment and of the tragic consequences and the chaos that might emerge if this growth continues unlimited. For this reason, a reconsideration of human behaviour in terms of its possibilities for expansion are crucially needed. . . . We should get away from the continuous rollercoaster of unlimited production and expansion.79 This criticism of growth-centred mentality lies at the base of the core principles shared by the three Dutch confessional parties. The political economy these parties stood for was not in fact a liberal one based on individualism and consumption – what Fogarty calls the ‘I-society’.80 What the three confessional parties stood for instead was a middle way between pure liberalism and strict state intervention, where a network of autonomous communities, ‘a community of communities’, would cooperate on the basis of shared social responsibility. In a collective and collectively responsible mode of cooperation, necessary technological development would be humanized in its fundamental processes. Since they were, from the start, critical of market mechanisms and logics of consumption, when the side effects of the economic growth on the environment began to become visible, the confessional parties had no doubts about attributing responsibility for environmental damage to a liberal marketcentred mentality. In the same years that saw the PvdA introduce the notion of ‘selective economic growth’ (see Chapter 2), the CDA introduced the notion of ‘harmonious growth’. Like the ‘selective economic growth’ advocated by the Socialists, ‘harmonious growth’ did not imply a standstill in the economy but rather state interventions for its reorientation: ‘What is needed is . . . a critical analysis of the postulate of economic growth, which has always been the primary goal of the Western investment structure’.81 From the end of the 1960s, all the manifestos of the three confessional parties, the common manifesto presented by the CDA for the 1971 parliamentary elections, and those that followed, contained specific paragraphs dedicated to environmental matters. Concretely, this meant that the CDA proposed a number of initiatives aimed at the expansion of environmentally friendly economic activities, at the contraction of those activities most dangerous to the environment, at the prevention of waste, and at the promotion of more austere lifestyles. The positions expressed on the Limits to Growth report were instead more critical. While the PvdA, together with the Progressive coalition composed

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of D’66 and the PSP, took the report as an opportunity to form a special commission to discuss the limits of natural resources and possible remedies to prevent further environmental exploitation (see Chapter 2), the KVP’s approach to the report was far more down to earth. In the KVP monthly journal, the report was subjected to substantial criticism. In particular, the vagueness and inexactness of the report was condemned, together with the potential dangers it could provoke in a time of economic crisis if the political parties were to follow its ‘zero growth’ policy advice.82

The CDA’s Position Shifts on Nuclear Energy The first time that one of the three confessional parties mentioned nuclear energy in its political manifesto was for the political elections of 1956: ‘In the frame of energy provision, greater attention should be given to the development of nuclear energy’.83 At the next elections, the Protestant party ARP also included nuclear energy in its programme, advocating the need for strong governmental initiatives for the development of this type of energy production. As mentioned in the two preceding chapters, the decision to introduce the ‘Kalkar tax’ (1973) and to construct three nuclear power stations on Dutch territory was supported by the KVP – then in government with the PvdA, the PPR and D’ 66 – as well as by the other two confessional parties. As argued in Chapter 1, as a consequence of these decisions wide-scale protests took place, and the issue of nuclear energy began to receive attention from the public at large. Following the escalation of protest, caution then became the catchword of the CDA’s position on nuclear energy for many years, and from 1977, the party was no longer overtly pro-nuclear: As far as the use of nuclear energy is concerned, because of the risks and the long-term effects that are related to it – which are partially still unpredictable – the maximum degree of caution is needed. Principally for this reason the policies should be directed towards slowing down increases in demands for greater energy consumption in our society and towards the utilization of the possibilities offered by conventional and new sources of energy, such as wind, solar and geothermal energy.84 This caution is important, not least because it imposed a veto on the issue and forced, because of the centrality the CDA maintained in all coalition governments, a halt in the construction of the new nuclear power stations for the following governments. The coalition agreement with the Liberal party for the formation of the 1977 government stated that new nuclear facilities

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would only be constructed ‘if and when’ demands for a safe and proper method for the storage of radioactive waste and security were fulfilled. The key to postponing any decision by the government on the use of nuclear energy was found in the establishment of the Wide Social Discussion in 1981. It took four years for the commission heading the discussion process to be established, and it was 1984 before it produced its final report. As discussed in Chapter 1, the Wide Social Discussion was much criticized by the ecology groups, who believed it was designed to conform only to the government’s prerogatives. Indeed, even more than for the PvdA, for the CDA the institution of such a process spelled an excellent strategic opportunity to depoliticize and postpone a decision that would have divided the government coalition, and whose outcomes might have been unpopular in a period in which nuclear energy had become a highly sensitive issue in Dutch public opinion. From the end of the 1970s until 1984, when the Wide Social Discussion produced its final document, all the official documents released by the CDA (including coalition agreements) refer to the need to postpone any decision: In our densely populated country, no further construction of nuclear power stations will take place due to the still unresolved problems of the production and storage of nuclear waste, and while waiting for the results of the Social Discussion. The Netherlands should, however, expand its scientific knowledge on the possibilities of nuclear energy and the risks that are related to it. The opening or the closure of the two current nuclear plants, in light of what has been previously discussed, will be discussed and decided upon after the end of the Social Discussion.85 This obviously implied that in the meantime the nuclear factories at Dodewaard and Borssele would remain open. At the same time, though, the CDA underlined that the final decision on the future of nuclear energy remained in the hands of the parliament. The Wide Social Discussion is not a referendum. Of course the results of the discussion are important for the formation of a decision on this issue. But never has it been argued by the governments or by the Chamber parliamentary factions that the conclusions of the Commission will determine the energy policy of the country.86 This was indeed what happened. Although the final document of the Wide Social Discussion reported that approximately one-third of the Dutch population was against the use of nuclear energy, the CDA-run government nonetheless decided to construct two nuclear power stations. Hence, from

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Number of references

stating their caution from the second half of the 1970s and from temporarily leaving any decision on the nuclear energy issue unmade, from the 1980s the CDA turned again and overtly in favour of the nuclear option. This emerges in two internal reports, both published in 1984, one by the Scientific Institute of the CDA and the other by the youth federation – the CDJA.87 Both reports, it should be noted, were published while the outcome of the Wide Social Discussion was still unknown. The document by the Scientific Institute opens by underlining the crucial importance of living in a country where energy provision is guaranteed. Most importantly, it is argued that the only concrete problem with nuclear energy relates to the storage of nuclear waste, and that the use of nuclear energy should not be renounced as a matter of principle. In October 1984, when the party executive gathered to discuss its position on nuclear energy, the conclusions followed this same line: ‘The Executive is of the opinion that neither the party’s electoral manifesto nor its declaration of principles are against nuclear energy. . . . Hence, the discussion around nuclear energy should be brought forward’.88 Overall, as far as the general themes of mobilization of the ecology movement are concerned – that is, environmental awareness and attention – documents show how the party (or its three confessional predecessors) started taking environmental issues into consideration from the late 1960s, and growingly throughout the 1970s. As shown in Figure 3.3, the number of references to environmental issues increased significantly during the 1970s, from eleven references made in the first common election manifesto presented in 1971, increasing to 61

63

1981

1986

44

11

1971

1977

Election years Figure 3.3 Coverage of environmental issues in the CDA election manifestos, 1971–1986 Note: The dashed line indicates the Dutch ecology movement’s peak of visibility. Source: See list of primary sources in bibliography (elaboration by author).

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forty-four in the manifesto of 1977, and further increased to over sixty in the manifestos of the 1980s. However, few are the references to the more specific demands of the ecology movements. As for the case of the DC, the CDA discourse very much centred on the older ‘protectionist’ environmental themes. On the specific themes of mobilization of the movement, and in particular the nuclear energy issue, the CDA maintained an ambiguous position: from ‘overtly pro-nuclear’, to ‘cautious’ from the second half of the 1970s, returning to its initial ‘pro-nuclear’ position from the early 1980s.

No Support, Mild Change (II) Like the DC, the CDA never provided organizational support for the ecology movement’s protest actions. On the contrary, the Dodewaard antinuclear blockades and the increasing radicalization of protest actions in the early 1980s were taken as an opportunity for a discussion in the CDA journals stressing the primacy of institutional politics over extra-institutional, and the role of the state as the only legitimate holder of the use of force.89 Neither did the CDA take part in any of the groups or organizations that composed the Dutch ecology movement. The only case of formal interorganizational contacts between the CDA and the ecology movement was the participation of the party’s youth branch member (CDJA) in meetings of the WED – as previously discussed, the scientific organization of the Dutch ecology movement, which participated in the Wide Social Discussion on nuclear energy, advancing the cause of denuclearization. Other formal or informal interorganizational contacts between the party and the movement (in the form of joint meetings, conferences, seminars) were also missing. As for the written correspondence between movements’ organization and the party, archival investigation revealed a very limited number of letters received from environmental organizations, and no evidence was found that the CDA ever responded.90 The only organizational change connected to environmental issues that I was able to trace is the establishment of a workgroup on environmental issues (‘Werkgroep Energie’) in 1982.91 The introduction of this workgroup was a novelty in the internal organization of the CDA, and was prompted by a request from the management of the Wide Social Discussion on nuclear energy that explicitly demanded that the CDA should outline its position on energy.92 This workgroup dealt with the issue of energy provision and followed, within the party, the developments of the Wide Social Discussion. After the establishment of this first working group, a number of other internal groups focusing on environmental issues followed, such as the Commission on Energy Policy, the Workgroup on Energy Policy, and the Workgroup on Nuclear Energy.

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A Case of Limited Social Movement Impact The CDA adapted little to the claims raised by the ecology movement in the Netherlands. Although changes in the CDA discourse on the environment could be observed, it seems inappropriate to connect these developments to any specific intention by the party to channel the demands of the ecology movement. The analysis revealed that the CDA never referred to ecology groups as societal voices whose concerns had to be addressed. The arguments that the party raised when temporarily freezing its position on nuclear energy, for example, reflected the broader societal debate that was taking place in these years around this theme, in particular the security issues affecting nuclear power stations and the need to find solutions to the problem of the storage of radioactive waste. Such concerns were not only coming from social movements. Nuclear energy was widely covered by the mass media, was discussed within universities and research centres, and became central in a wide debate within Dutch society as a whole. This broader concern affected all Dutch political parties. Of course, the multiplication of ecology groups in the country may well have reinforced such an attitude. As for the case of the Italian Christian Democratic party, this case too shows clearly how the politicization of demands can take place within a single political party concomitantly to (and possibly independently from) any intention to provide positive responses to the movement specifically. In such a case, the party is not responding to the challenges of that movement, but rather responds to a plurality of external conditions, which cause its position to change in a way that may be beneficial to a given movement’s goal. The movement’s social basis and its ideological references were on the whole too distant from those of the party in this case, and the nuclear energy issue did not provoke any polarization of stances within the party that had the potential to create significant divisions. As we shall see, the situation is very different in the case of the CDA’s responses to the peace movement.

A Heart and Mind Dilemma: The CDA and the Peace Movement As discussed earlier, participation in NATO and the introduction of nuclear weapons were uncontroversial issues for Dutch political parties. Yet, in line with the general trend of politicization and polarization that characterized Dutch politics in the 1970s, foreign policy issues became salient within the individual parties as well as a field of inter-party competition. The peace

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movement, which began mobilizing from 1977, played a very important role in this process.

The CDA, the Nuclear Weapons and the Debate on the Cruise Missiles Deployment, 1977–1986 When the Dutch position on the N-bomb came to the vote in parliament, the CDA voted against its production unanimously, together with the leftwing parties and D’66. The position of the CDA parliamentary faction was made clear some days before the actual vote in the parliament: ‘That weapon would be a contribution to the increase in the nuclear armaments race and would have disadvantageous influences on attempts as to its de-escalation’.93 The importance of this vote should not be underestimated. It was the first time that the previously uncontroversial acceptance of NATO decisions on nuclear weapons and security had been challenged by the Dutch parliament. It was also the first time that the CDA was in government as a unitary political party, relying on a small majority, and with an ally (the Liberal VVD) whose position was instead in favour of the NATO plans. What seemed to be the beginning of a new political attitude of the CDA on foreign policy issues turned out, however, to constitute only an exception. This emerges clearly from two reports drafted by internal commissions on peace and security issues, which rejected the demands of the peace movement, and in particular its appeal for unilateral disarmament.94 Paraphrasing the slogan of the IKV (‘Rid the world of nuclear weapons and let it begin with the Netherlands’), the CDA minister for the interior, Jan Nico Scholten, responded: ‘Rid the world of nuclear weapons, but not unilaterally by the Netherlands’.95 On one hand, the CDA adduced military reasons, as the geographic position of the Netherlands was considered crucial for the military balance of the whole of central Europe; on the other hand, it was Dutch participation in NATO, based on common responsibilities and duties, that the CDA did not want to put into discussion: We have to understand that the elimination of all nuclear weapons is not only a great illusion but also a dangerous deception. This elimination of nuclear weapons can only make sense in a frame of elimination of war as a whole. . . . In whatever peaceful way this type of one-sided behaviour is meant, it brings peace into danger. Such a type of pacifism bears the risk of arriving precisely where it does not want to, namely in a situation that is approximately the opposite of peace.96

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Hence, even though it was in principle against nuclear weapons and favoured restrictions in their use, the CDA considered NATO as the fundamental means to prevent crises and maintain international peace and security, and, if nothing better could be found through international agreements, considered nuclear armaments and the strategy of tension as a necessary evil in order to maintain international balances: The tradition of Christian Democracy is based on the principle that the state has the task of protecting citizens against attacks on the rule of law within the country, and against aggression from outside. . . . The degree of nuclear armaments needs to be high enough for opponents to be restrained from committing aggressive acts, but at the same time low enough that they do not lead to escalation.97 As the social climate around the issue of the NATO missile deployment intensified, however, the CDA became more cautious. In the party’s electoral manifesto presented for the 1981 elections,98 the CDA stressed the autonomy and the ‘critical contribution’ of the Netherlands within NATO; it did not exclude (‘eventually’) unilateral steps towards denuclearization by the Netherlands; moreover, it stated the need for a ‘continuous dialogue’ with the churches and peace movement organizations, and the need to maintain contacts with them.99 On the most central demand of the Dutch peace movement, ‘No to the stationing of nuclear weapons, not in Europe or in the Netherlands’, the CDA manifesto avoided taking any definite position. The CDA was in favour of a reduction of nuclear weapons in the world, and stressed the need for greater efforts to be made to promote international agreements on their reduction and the enlargement of nuclear-free zones. The stationing of NATO missiles in the Netherlands would, however, depend on the degree to which, at the end of 1981, concrete results (or at least a reliable perspective) have been achieved in: the weapons reduction agreements with the Soviet Union; the degree to which results are achieved for the actual diminishing of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe in the agreements; and if the location of new weapons on Dutch territory would lead to a reduction of the current nuclear tasks of the Netherlands.100 Figure 3.4 shows the number of references to peace issues in the CDA’s election manifestos from 1971 to 1986. Attention to peace issues peaked in 1982, corresponding to the moment of highest visibility of the movement.

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Number of references

57

38

18 10

1971

1977

1982

1986

Election years Figure 3.4 Coverage of peace issues in the CDA election manifestos, 1971–1986 Note: The dashed line indicates the Dutch peace movement’s peak of visibility. Source: See list of primary sources in bibliography (elaboration by author).

For the 1986 elections, the number of references to peace issues decreased, moving back down to thirty-eight. As discussed in Chapter 1, the decision on the deployment of missiles in the Netherlands had been taken (1985), and the numerically most significant organizations of the peace movement no longer intended to mobilize against it. As far as the Dutch–NATO relationship is concerned, the party no longer referred to a ‘critical contribution’ but rather to a ‘creative and enterprising’ one. In its 1982 manifesto, the CDA formally legitimized the peace movement and those party members holding beliefs in peace – the so-called ‘atom pacifists’: ‘The CDA recognizes the so-called “atom pacifism” as a legitimate opinion within the party, and expects to receive a constructive input to the party’s opinion formation from it’.101 This clause, previously absent in the CDA manifestos, was clearly added in order to satisfy those members within the parliamentary faction who disagreed with the deployment of the missiles. As I will discuss in more depth in the following section, peace issues became a field of conflict within the CDA.

Handling Internal Dissent Many CDA members did not see the ambiguity of the party’s official position with respect to the issue of deployment positively,102 especially because the headquarters of the CDA made no mystery of their actual pro-deployment position: ‘Who is the IKV actually? It is a loud group within the

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churches – but it is not the church, nor its voice’.103 This brought about a numerically limited but constant expression of internal dissent, which the CDA headquarters had to cope with from 1979 onwards. It was the Second Chamber faction, in particular, that showed a high degree of ‘nuclear sensitivity’.104 From 1979, the pattern of split voting among the CDA parliamentary faction became regular in all debates in which foreign policy issues, and deployment in particular, were discussed. CDA dissidents supported several opposition motions against their own government: in 1979, demanding that the government not support the NATO resolution; twice in 1983, demanding that the government postpone any decision on the deployment of cruise missiles; and in 1984, again demanding that the government postpone a final decision on the issue. Not only did the CDA legitimize atom pacifists within the party, but a second means by which the party handled internal dissent was to give MPs the right to address their personal dissent (the so-called gravamen) to the party executive if they did not agree on a specific policy.105 Although formally recognizing this possibility, a reading of the internal correspondence between the party executive and those MPs who raised a gravamen on the stationing of NATO missiles make it clear that those requests were rarely approved. In 1981, for example, only two out of the nine gravamina issued to the party executive were accepted.106 Moreover, the right to a ‘gravamen’ did not always hold. When a gravamen endangers the governing coalition, for example, ‘the minority has to adhere to the position of the majority’.107 Hence, while recognizing ‘atom pacifists’ and the right to personal dissent, during the very same years the party executive strongly pushed for an internal policy of unitary voting in the CDA parliamentary faction. In a report published before the vote on the NATO ‘Twin Track’ resolution, for instance, the executive recalled and explained the CDA position as expressed in its manifesto, overtly inviting the Christian Democrats in parliament to remain loyal to it.108 In 1983, two members were expelled from the faction because of their public statements against the missiles, accused of a lack of internal discipline after the leader of the CDA parliamentary faction had openly appealed to CDA fellows in parliament not to release any public statements before the publication of an internal party report on defence.109 Appeals by the party leaders to avoid polarized reactions and for unitary voting in the parliament continued through the first half of the 1980s: ‘We chose to function as a political unitary actor. The expression of dissent is one thing, but once it comes to voting the majority needs to be followed. . . . We cannot present ourselves as divided in the parliament’.110 All this, it should be remarked, led to a vivid discussion over the degree of freedom within the CDA itself.

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The peace movement played a strong role in the internal developments that have been underlined so far. This emerges even more clearly from the analysis of the CDA party journals. Here, the ‘heart and mind dilemma’ hanging over CDA members in the first half of the 1980s emerges distinctly. ‘Deep in our hearts, we would like to say “No” to nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the mind makes it clear that by saying “No” we still do not solve the problem that nuclear weapons still exist in the world’.111 The level of attention paid to the peace movement in the CDA journals was considerably higher than what appears in the party’s manifestos or other official documents. Not only were the peace movement and its mobilizations frequently discussed in the journals, but so was the need to establish a dialogue between the party and peace organizations – the IKV and Pax Christi especially. Not least, space was often given to publications by the peace organizations themselves, as a way of presenting their standpoints. The ambiguity the CDA maintained over the years with respect to the stationing of cruise missiles in the Netherlands can probably be considered to have been a result of internal divisions, and the fact that numerous voices within the party itself supported not only the demands but also the initiatives of the peace movement.

An Open Dialogue: The CDA and the IKV In contrast to most social movement groups, the Dutch peace movement and its largest and most visible actor in particular, the IKV, did not hold an indiscriminately adversarial attitude to the centre party, and actually tried to involve the CDA as much as possible in its numerous initiatives. Thus, although the CDA never formally allied itself with the IKV, it established a considerable number of interorganizational contacts with it. This is particularly the case at the level of common meetings, consultations and exchange of written correspondence. In most circumstances, it was the IKV that initiated contacts with the party. The opposite seems to have occurred only to a very limited extent, not least as a consequence of the IKV’s advice against voting for the CDA handed out for the 1982 parliamentary elections. This also emerges in a report on a meeting between the two organizations held in 1983: ‘The chairman explains the reasons why from the side of the CDA delegation there was no particular haste for this meeting to take place. The main reason is the anti-CDA campaign that the IKV initiated before the parliamentary elections. There seemed to be no particular need for contacts’.112 Nonetheless, albeit not enthusiastically,113 the CDA remained open to dialogue with the IKV, and the creation or maintenance of contacts with (religious) peace organizations was often discussed in reports of the party’s

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internal committees on peace issues:114 ‘The Christian Democratic parties and the church-based movements both find inspiration for their goals in the Testament. Their common background and their common striving for peace and justice in the world make them natural allies. A mutual dialogue is obvious and is a first priority’.115 The archive documentation collected from the CDA on the peace movement is exceptionally rich. It is possible to find numerous internal documents produced by the peace movement itself (leaflets, journals, booklets and declarations).116 The party came closest to peace movement organizations by participating in the ‘Discussion Organ’ against nuclear weapons. As underlined in the two preceding chapters, the fundamental condition for participating in this group was having been visibly active in, or at least sympathetic to, the Stop the N-bomb petition of 1977. As the CDA voted against the N-bomb in parliament, it qualified as a candidate and was invited to take part by the IKV. For a party seeking to maintain balance in its external formal discourses in terms of its position on nuclear weapons (and international alliances in particular), participation in such a Discussion Organ with organizations that constituted the most active (but least radical) part of the Dutch peace movement may appear surprising. The key to understanding the CDA’s participation in the discussion group is that it was no more than just that: a discussion organ. The group never released official declarations or statements, and remained at the margins of the active process of political influence. The most relevant external activity with political implications organized by the Discussion Organ was the organization of a study day on nuclear armaments, at which political leaders and experts discussed issues of peace, war and security.117 This conference, in which about a thousand people participated, unavoidably carried a political message on the importance of, at the very least, introducing policies to concretely limit the quantitative and qualitative development of nuclear armaments in the Netherlands. This implied a stance against NATO’s modernization plans and against the stationing of mid-range cruise missiles on Dutch territory (as contained in the Twin Track resolution of 1979). This was an issue about which, as previously discussed, the CDA was anything but clear. Apart from this external initiative, however, the Discussion Organ never engaged in formal acts or produced statements that would risk embarrassing the CDA. This aspect emerges clearly when some groups within the Discussion Organ questioned the CDA’s participation after its parliamentary faction had voted in favour of the 1979 ‘Twin Track’ NATO resolution: the Discussion Organ merely fulfilled the function of communication and exchange of information on the nuclear armaments issue. The CDA therefore remained in the group, and its participation remained strongly supported by the party’s Foreign Policy Commission in 1981.118

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Although contacts took place at meetings, seminars and through the joint discussion platform discussed above, the CDA never supported any of the protest actions initiated by the peace movement. However, for the three main peace demonstrations, in Utrecht against the N-bomb (1977), and in Amsterdam and the Hague against the stationing of cruise missiles (1981 and 1983), the question of whether to take part was at least seriously considered. Not only the party journals but also the national press covered the question of whether the CDA would support this demonstration extensively. The CDA was involved in the early phases of the organization of the first national demonstration against the N-bomb, along with the left-wing parties, the IKV and Pax Christi. In the end, it decided not to participate.119 The declaration by the CDA executive on this matter was as follows: The development of the N-bomb is considered to be a crucial and worrying phase of the armaments race. This weapon threatens to bring nuclear war closer, and the Executive Board does not see how the N-bomb can be an acceptable weapon in the defence system. Nevertheless, the Executive Board considers that a demonstration, like the one initiated by the PvdA, does not give the opportunity for a proper consideration of this problem.120 A similar pattern can be observed for the 1981 national peace demonstration. In an official statement, the CDA declared that despite fully sharing the wishes for peace that the movements and participants expressed, the party would not take part because it disagreed with the movement’s call for unilateral disarmament.121 Nonetheless, not only did a number of CDA members of the Second Chamber announce their participation in the demonstration, but the CDJA (the party’s youth organization) gave its formal support.122 In addition, one CDA member spoke from the podium at the demonstration. On the occasion of the last nationwide peace demonstration held in The Hague in 1983, the possibility that the CDA would take part initially seemed even greater. Indeed, two CDA members, Arie Oostlander, the head of the Scientific Institute for the CDA, and Rob van den Toorn, a member of the CDA parliamentary group, participated in early March 1983 in a meeting held by a number of peace organizations (amongst which the moderate branch of the peace movement – represented by the IKV, Pax Christi and Humanistische Vredesberaad – but also the more radical groups, such as the Platform Radicale Vredesgroepen). After the meeting, Oostlander and van den Toorn declared that the slogans for the 1983 demonstration did not conflict with the CDA election manifesto. These declarations were followed by immediate criticism from two prominent CDA leaders, the minister of

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foreign affairs, Hans van den Broek, and the prime minister, Ruud Lubbers. On 14 March 1983, the party executive voted against participating in the demonstration, with opposition from fourteen of the forty-five members. Interviewed on this issue, Lubbers declared: ‘It was a difficult but necessary decision. We cannot go to a demonstration with groups who do not respect the international agreements.123 The peace movement clearly forced the CDA through a complex process of internal mediation. It was a heart and mind dilemma for many activists at various levels of the party who perceived the core demands raised by the peace movement – in particular by its most visible political group, the IKV, formed in the late 1960s as a confederation of churches – as fully consonant with the cultural identity of this confessional party. This was reflected in the emergence of internal dissent, frequent split votes within the parliamentary faction, the legitimation of those members who disagreed with the deployment of cruise missiles on Dutch territory, and not least in the ambiguity the party maintained on the core demand of the Dutch peace movement – the stationing of the missiles – from 1979 to 1985. At the organizational level, although the CDA did not establish formal alliances with peace movement organizations, it did maintain a high number of contacts throughout the movements’ cycle of mobilization. Facilitating factors for the CDA’s openness to the peace movement were therefore the moderate and non-confrontational character of this movement, its ‘majority strategy’ expressed in the search for dialogue with political institutions, and the fact that it framed its core demand as being based on the principles of Christianity.

Notes Parts of this chapter have been previously published in D.R. Piccio, ‘A Complex Mediation of Interests’, in K. Celis and S. Childs (eds), Gender, Conservatism and Political Representation (Colchester: ECPR Press, 2014). 1. M. Caciagli, ‘Il resistibile declino della Democrazia cristiana’, in G. Pasquino (ed.), Il sistema politico italiano (Bari: Laterza, 1992), 11. 2. A. Moro, Una politica per i tempi nuovi (Rome: Agenzia Progetto, 1969). 3. DC election manifesto (1968), ‘Il programma della DC a servizio del paese’, Il Popolo, 19 April 1968, 4. 4. Speech delivered to the DC congress by the party secretary. F. Piccoli, Atti del XI Congresso nazionale della Democrazia Cristiana (Rome: Edizioni Cinque Lune, 1972), 481–83. 5. Caciagli, ‘Il resistibile declino’. 6. P. Farneti, Il sistema dei partiti in Italia 1946–1979 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1983). 7. A. Moro, speech to the DC National Council of 20 July 1975, Il Popolo, 21 July 1975.

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8. R. Leonardi and D.A. Wertman, Italian Christian Democracy: The Politics of Dominance (London: Macmillan, 1989). 9. A. Giovagnoli, Il partito italiano: la Democrazia Cristiana dal 1942 al 1994 (Bari: Laterza, 1996). 10. B. Zaccagnini, speech to the DC National Council on 5 October 1978. 11. See footnote 35 in the Introduction for a discussion on the fusion of the three parties. 12. H.M.T.D Ten Napel, Een eigen weg: De totstandkoming van het CDA (1952–1980) (Leiden: Drukkerij FSW, 1992); M. Fogarty, ‘How Dutch Christian Democracy Made a New Start’, The Political Quarterly 66(3) (1995), 147–76; R.B. Andeweg and G. Irwin, Governance and Politics of the Netherlands (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). 13. Structuurcommissie van de KVP, 1966, Grondslag en karakter van de KVP, 1, 15, Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Partijen (DNPP), Groningen. 14. KVP election manifesto (1967), Memorandum, 4. 15. Ten Napel, Een eigen weg, 134. 16. Fogarty, ‘How Dutch Christian Democracy’, 140. 17. H.M.T.D. Ten Napel, ‘De paradoxale revival van de Christen-Democratie’, Jaarboek Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Partijen (Groningen: DNPP, 1990), 131–53. 18. G.A. Irwin and J.J.M. van Holsteyn, ‘Towards a More Open Model of Competition’, in H. Daalder and G. Irwin (eds), Politics in the Netherlands: How Much Change? (London: Frank Cass, 1986), 112–38. 19. K. Beckwith, ‘Feminism and Leftist Politics in Italy: The Case of UDI–PCI Relations’, West European Politics 8(4) (1985), 19–37; Y. Ergas, ‘1968–79: Feminism in the Italian Party System: Women’s Politics in a Decade of Turmoil’, Comparative Politics 14(3) (1982), 252–75; S. Bassnet, Feminist Experiences: The Women’s Movement in Four Countries (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986). 20. G. Galli and A. Prandi, Patterns of Political Participation in Italy (London: Yale University Press, 1970), 56–57. 21. P. Gaiotti, ‘Il voto alle donne nel 1945’, in P. Gaiotti (ed.), I cattolici e il voto alle donne (Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1996), 22. 22. Speech delivered to the First National Assembly of the party’s Female Movement (1946) by the DC party secretary, A. De Gasperi, cited in Gaiotti ‘Il voto alle donne’, 161. 23. P. Gaiotti, ‘Cattoliche e cattolici di fronte all’aborto e il mutamento degli equilibri della Repubblica’, Genesis 3(1) (2004), 57–87. 24. A. Cattaneo and M. D’Amato, La politica della differenza (Rome: Franco Angeli, 1990). 25. A. De Gasperi, cited in Gaiotti ‘Il voto alle donne’, 164. 26. V. Brysol and T. Heppel, ‘Conservatism and Feminism: The Case of the British Conservative Party’, Journal of Political Ideologies 15(1) (2010), 31–50. 27. P. Gaiotti, ‘Movimento Cattolico e questione femminile’, in F. Traniello and G. Campanini (eds), Dizionario storico del movimento cattolico in Italia 1860–1980, Vol. I, 1 (Turin: Marietti, 1981), 96–111.

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28. Despite the struggle of the female Christian Democratic deputies for principles of equality within the family sphere, the statement by one of the DC’s leaders, Guido Gonnella, that ‘in the public life sphere women are equal to men, in the family sphere women are subordinated to men’ (cited in Gaiotti, ‘Il voto alle donne’, 107) seems to indicate well the dominant culture of the time on the role of women in Italian society. 29. Until 1975, the articles covering the family sphere were those introduced with the Civil Code of 1942. They were based on the principle of the patria potestas, which implied that decisions on the education of children, the choice of the family’s residence and control over the family finances pertained to the husband only. With the reform of Family Rights, husband and wife became in all effects equal, with the same rights and duties within the family (law 19 May 1975, n. 151). 30. DC election manifesto (1968), 1. 31. These elections, described as ‘the earthquake of 15 June’, caused a sensation as this was the lowest electoral percentage that the DC had ever obtained. See C. Ghini, Il terremoto del 15 giugno (Milan: Feltrinelli Editore, 1976). 32. DC election manifesto (1976), ‘Il programma elettorale della DC’, in Le promesse dei partiti, Biblioteca della Libertà, September 1976, 61/62, 105. 33. Ibid., 100. 34. Ibid., 106–7. 35. Speech delivered to the Congress by the party secretary, E. Zaccagnini, Atti del XIV Congresso nazionale della Democrazia Cristiana (Rome: Edizioni Cinque Lune, 1982), 44–45. 36. DC election manifesto (1987), ‘Un programma per l’Italia’, Il Popolo, April 24–25, 3. 37. Speech delivered to the congress by the party secretary, C. De Mita, Atti del XVII Congresso nazionale della Democrazia Cristiana (Rome: Edizioni Cinque Lune, 1988), 113. 38. Cattaneo and D’Amato, La politica della differenza. 39. C. Dau Novelli, Società, chiesa e associazionismo femminile: L’Unione fra le donne cattoliche d’Italia (1902–1919) (Rome: AVE, 1988); Gaiotti, ‘Movimento Cattolico’. 40. A. Giannulli, Il sessantotto. La stagione dei movimenti (1960–1979) (Rome: Edizioni Associate, 1988). 41. Gaiotti, ‘Il voto alle donne’. 42. Speech delivered to the congress by M.E. Martini, Atti del XIII Congresso della Democrazia Cristiana (Rome: Edizioni Cinque Lune, 1980), 263. 43. Gaiotti, ‘Il voto alle donne’, 108. 44. In 1977 (nr. 1192), a specific page named ‘Partito Donna’ (literally, ‘Woman Party’) edited by the party’s Female Movement was introduced in the DC weekly journal La Discussione. 45. Speech delivered to the congress by the representative of the Female Movement, V. Zalaffi, Atti del XIII Congresso della Democrazia Cristiana (Rome: Edizioni Cinque Lune, 1980), 494. 46. Speech delivered to the congress by B.M. Pallini, ibid., 449. 47. Speech delivered to the congress by L. Pigino, Atti del XV Congresso della Democrazia Cristiana (Rome: Edizioni Cinque Lune, 1984), 334.

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48. Speech delivered to the congress by M. L. Cassamagnago, ibid., 342. 49. M. Inonna, ‘La questione femminile al congresso PCI’, La Discussione, 17 March 1986. 50. Speech delivered to the congress by I. Boffardi, Atti del XIV Congresso Nazionale della Democrazia Cristiana (Rome: Edizioni Cinque Lune, 1982), 47. 51. DC Female Movement, ‘La donna nella politica in Italia’, La Discussione, 27 December 1976. 52. M.E. Martini, ‘Un sì per la vita e per la donna’, La Discussione, 11 May 1981. 53. M. Izio, La Discussione, 12 January 1985. 54. The DC’s position on abortion – that it constituted murder and ‘the most absolute negation of the sacred’ (in La Discussione, 13 April 1981) – did not change, even after the implementation of abortion legislation in 1978, and following the defeat of the referendum in 1981 that had aimed to repeal it. 55. Pigino (as note 47). 56. Della Seta, La difesa dell’ambiente in Italia: Storia e cultura del movimento ecologista (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2000). 57. C.M. Daclon, L’Europa per l’ambiente (Rome: DC/SPES, 1989), 6. 58. Lewanski defined these ministries as ‘empty boxes’, as they actually had neither the powers nor the finances to initiate any activities. See R. Lewanski, ‘La politica ambientale’, in B. Dente (ed.), Le politiche pubbliche in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990), 305. 59. Speech to the UN General Assembly by A. Fanfani, 26 June 1970, cited in Daclon, L’Europa per l’ambiente, 5. 60. S. Maggi, ‘La chiave sta nel consumare meno’, La Discussione, 4 October 1976. 61. DC election manifesto (1979), 107. 62. Law 8 July 1986, n. 349. 63. Interview 8. 64. The first one being on 16 March 1981. 65. Special issue on energy, in La Discussione, 6 July 1977. 66. Zaccagnini (as note 35), 43. 67. DC manifesto (1983), ‘Un programma per garantire lo sviluppo’, Il Popolo, 5–6 May 1983, 2. 68. G. Brodato, ‘Governare il progresso’, La Discussione, 29 September 1986. 69. De Mita (as note 37), 78–79. 70. Meeting of the DC National Direction, 26 November 1986, Archivio della Democrazia Cristiana, ‘Serie Direzione Nazionale’, 57.787, Istituto Luigi Sturzo, Rome. 71. The 1987 referendum on nuclear energy comprised three norms that citizens could decide to abrogate. The DC agreed that the decision-making power on the location of nuclear power stations should be shifted to a more representative institutional organ (as opposed to the inter-ministerial committee that previously held this power). Instead, it voted against the abrogation of the norms of the second and third questions of the referendum: the party considered economic support from the state to those regions accepting the location of nuclear power stations on their territory as important indications of solidarity, and considered that the National Agency for Electric Energy should continue to participate in international nuclear energy projects.

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72. De Mita (as note 37), 78. 73. L. Melandri, ‘Un’altra battaglia della Democrazia Cristiana’, La Discussione, 16 December 1985. 74. L. Melandri, ‘Abbandonare l’emotività per scelte razionali’, La Discussione, 1 April 1986. 75. C.M. Daclon, ‘Creare una cultura positiva per la tutela dell’ambiente’, Il Popolo, 5–6 May 1986. 76. ‘Ufficio per i Problemi dell’Ambiente’, Archivio della Democrazia Cristiana, ‘Direzione Nazionale’, inv.nr. 57.787, Istituto Luigi Sturzo, Rome. 77. Interview 8. 78. See C.M. Daclon, Nuova politica per l’ambiente (Rome: DC/SPES, 1986). 79. ARP, CHU, KVP common manifesto (1972), Op weg naar een verantwoordelijke maatschappij, 8. 80. Fogarty, ‘How Dutch Christian Democracy’, 147. 81. Ibid. 82. A.J. Ahsmann, ‘Het “rapport van Rome”, een kritische terugblik’, Politiek Perspectief (July/August 1976), 50; M.A.M. Boersma, A.C.P.M. Kolen, ‘Basisvoorwarden voor een verantword miliaubeleid’, Politiek Perspectief (May/June 1978), 33; M.A.M. Boersma, ‘Energie in perspectief ’, Politiek Perspectief (May/July 1979), 16. 83. KVP manifesto (1956), Werkprogram, 9. 84. CDA manifesto (1977), Niet bij brood alleen. CDA-verkiezingsprogram 1977–1981, 31. 85. CDA manifesto (1981), Programma CDA Tweede-Kamerverkiezingen 1981, 27. 86. ‘Werkgroep kernenergie’, CDA Archive, Nationaal Archief, Den Haag, Christen Democratisch Appèl (CDA): Partij, 1980–1988, nummer toegang 2.19.112, inventarisnummer 387. 87. CDA (1981), Vernieuwd Energiebeheer (Een rapport van de werkgroep Energie van het Wetenschappelijk Instituut voor het CDA); CDJA (1984), Nederland, energie eiland? Een CDJA visie op energie politiek, both available at the DNPP, Groningen. 88. Declaration of the party executive, ‘CDA-bestuur over kernenergie’, in CD/Actueel, 3 November 1984. See also P. Bukman (CDA Secretary), ‘Geen principiele afwijzing kernenergie’, ibid. 89. H. van Ruller, ‘De overheid: geweldsmonopolie als onderdeel van de staatstaak’, Christen Democratische Verkenningen 6 (1981); and G. Manenschijn, ‘Wie zich tegen de overheid verzet (over burgelijke ongehoorzaamheid), Christen Democratische Verkenningen 9 (1984). 90. In one letter sent to CDA MPs in the Second Chamber by forty-three environmental organizations, demanding a stand against the nuclear energy option, it was interesting to note the link to churches or religious denominations being marked with a symbol (‘Werkgroep kernenergie’, letter of 26 June 1984, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1980–1988, 2.19.112, inv.nr. 387). 91. ‘Werkgroep energiebeleid’, CDA Archive, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1980–1988, 2.19.112, inv.nr. 1183. 92. Letter of 25 September 1981, ‘Energiebegeleidingscommissie Brede Maatschappelijke Discussie 1983’, CDA Archive, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1980–1988, 2.19.112, inv.nr. 206.

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93. Public statement by CDA MPs about the N-bomb, 3 February 1978, ‘Werkgroep Vrede en Veiligheid, Documentatie inzake kernbewapening 1982’, CDA Archive, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1973–1980, 2.19.105, inv.nr. 159). 94. Vrede en veiligheid and Over vredesbeleid, reports issued by the Neuman Commission (1979) and the Donner Commission, respectively, DNPP, Groningen. 95. ‘Kernwapens de wereld uit, maar niet eenzijdig uit Nederland’, Utrechtsche Nieuwsblad, 14 April 1979 (emphasis added). 96. CDA election manifesto (1981), Over vredesbeleid, 15–16. 97. C.J. Klop, meeting between the CDA and local governors, 4 June 1983, ‘Werkgroep Vrede en Veiligheid’, Documentatie inzake kernbewapening 1982’, CDA Archive, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1973–1980, 2.19.105, inv.nr. 159. 98. The CDA presented the same electoral manifesto for the political elections of 1981 and 1982. In 1982, however, two resolutions by the party executive and one motion presented to the government specifically dealing with the issues of peace, international security, and the stationing of NATO missiles on Dutch territory were added. 99. CDA election manifesto (1982), Om een zinvol bestaan, 13. 100. Ibid., 90. 101. CDA manifesto (1982), 88. 102. The fact that the CDA manifestos left room for ‘multiple interpretations’ was also emphasized by the very CDA Commission of Foreign Affairs, CDA Archive, ‘Foreign Affairs Commission’, 9 April 1984, CDA Archive, ‘Werkgroep Vrede en Veiligheid’, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1980-1988, 2.19.112, inv.nr. 572. 103. W. Scholten, CDA minister of defence, interviewed on the relations between the CDA and the IKV, in Radio Journal AVRO, 3 October 1978 (DNPP, Groningen). 104. P. Everts, Controversies at Home: Domestic Factors in the Foreign Policy of the Netherlands (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985), 141. 105. Article 140 of the 1980 CDA Statute defines a gravamen as an ‘insurmountable objection based on a strong internal belief against one or more aspects of the declaration of principles and/or of the political manifesto of the CDA’ (CDA Statuten en kandidaatstellingen). The definition of a ‘gravamen’ and its procedures were established by a special commission, the ‘Gravamina Commissie’ (CDA Archive, ‘Gravamen-commissie’, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1980–1988, 2.19.112, inv.nr. 378). 106. The reasons why gravamina were rejected were fundamentally formalities. To those members who presented their ‘gravamen’ stating that they were against the deployment of the missiles, the party executive replied that the party did not state anywhere that it was in favour of deployment, for which reason the ‘gravamen’ in question was refused (ibid.). 107. CDA secretary P. Bukman, interviewed in CD/Actueel, 21 August 1982. 108. Meeting of the party executive, 17 November 1979, CDA Archive, ‘Dossiers Minderhedenbeleid, CDA Aktueel, C.D.J.A., Kadervorming’, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1973–1980, 2.19.105, inv.nr. 67. 109. Meeting of the party executive, 18 November 1983, CDA Archive, ‘Stukken betreffende het vraagstuk over het aanblijven van de uit de partij getreden TweedeKamerleden Scholten en Dijkman’, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1980–1988, 2.19.112, inv.nr. 920.

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110. CDA secretary Piet Bukman, interviewed in Trouw, 21 January 1983. 111. Journal redaction, in Christen Democratische Verkenningen (1981), 51. 112. Meeting between CDA and IKV representatives, 24 January 1983, CDA Archive, ‘Algemene correspondentie van de directie 1983–1986’, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1980– 1988, 2.19.112, inv.nr. 289. 113. ‘Yes, every now and then we were called by the IKV and asked to discuss this or that matter. Yes we did it but, what do you have to do with those people after all?’ (Interview 5). 114. ‘The CDA and the Churches on the Nuclear Armaments Issue’, internal report issued by the peace and security workgroup, March 1984, CDA Archive, ‘Werkgroep Vrede en Veiligheid’, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1980–1988, 2.19.112, inv.nr. 572. 115. ‘Declaration on the Peace Movements’, 22 October 1981; document prepared for the meeting of the Peace and Security Commission of the European People’s Party, CDA Archive, ‘Werkgroep Vrede en Veiligheid, Documentatie inzake Kernbewapening’, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1980–1988, 2.19.112, inv.nr. 159. 116. The material collected refers only to the religious peace organizations IKV, Pax Christi and ICTO. No documentation was found on the more radical groups taking part in the peace movement. 117. ‘Studiedag kernbewapening’, held at the Free University of Amsterdam, 7 April 1979. 118. At a meeting held on 22 April 1981, the Foreign Policy Commission of the CDA voted unanimously that participation would not in any case be a matter for discussion. CDA Archive, ‘Werkgroep Vrede en Veiligheid, vergaderingen’, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1980–1988, 2.19.112, inv.nr. 116. 119. According to Everts, the CDA dropped out of the organization of the 1977 demonstration because of its fear of being criticized at the demonstration as a result of its overly moderate positions on peace issues (Everts, Controversies at Home). 120. Party executive statement on the Neutron Bomb, 21 September 1977, CDA Archive, ‘Werkgroep Vrede en Veiligheid, Documentatie inzake Kernbewapening’, NL-HaNA, CDA, 1980–1988, 2.19.112, inv.nr. 159. 121. Party executive statement on the peace movement’s 21 November 1981 demonstration, 9 November 1981, CDA Archive, ibid. 122. CDJA, ‘Verklaring CDJA-bestuur over vredesdemonstratie’, CD/Actueel, 3 September 1983. 123. R. Lubbers, interviewed by the KRO, 15 March 1983, DNPP, Groningen.

Conclusion

It Was Worth the Effort Previous research has shown that movement outcomes can go well beyond a movement’s stated goals and often beyond policy changes.1 This book has shown that social movements brought their themes onto the agenda of political parties. Of course, having an impact on the agendas of political parties is far from being the goal of a movement. As discussed in the preceding chapters, in the majority of cases movements emerge in opposition to political parties, dislike their hierarchical organizational structures, and consider them as inattentive to society’s needs. However, parties, whether in government or in opposition, are crucial for the further politicization of movement demands, and thus play an important role in determining the extent to which their claims spread out, politically and culturally, both in the domain of public policies and in society at large. As Tarrow has argued, ‘movements seldom produce their major effects directly, but do so through their interactions with more conventional political forces’.2 For these reasons, observing the way in which parties respond to movements not only tells us about the ability of ‘the most important organizations in modern politics’ to integrate new demands and link with a society in transformation.3 It also improves our knowledge of the broader, possibly unintended longer-term consequences that social movements are able to produce. Following the emergence of social movements, demands that were previously unaddressed by parties and not yet articulated in institutional politics entered their discourse and, to some extent, their organizational practices. Faced with the challenges presented by social movements, all four of the political parties observed in this study adapted and showed at least some indication of change, even when the distance between an individual party and an individual movement seemed insurmountable. This is an important result in itself. Previous studies have underlined that parties seldom formally connect to movements; but even if formal alliances are indeed rare, this book has pointed to a variety of ways in which parties have connected to social movements. As was argued in the Introduction, in order to shed light on this multiplicity of ways in which the two actors interact, it was essential to move beyond the narrow notion of an alliance structure. As Kriesi has recently remarked, ‘political parties are linked to social movements not only as possible

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allies, but in more fundamental ways as well’.4 The operational definition of party responses to movements used in this study (i.e. changes introduced by political parties around the major themes raised by social movements) was chosen for this very purpose – to allow the observation of a greater variety of responses by different parties. Especially because this purposely wide operational definition of party responses was adopted, saying that the parties observed changed in response to the challenges presented by the movements is far from saying that movements ‘won their battle’ or that they saw their demands fully supported by parties. The analysis has shown that in some cases parties diluted their responses to such an extent that little remained of the movements’ original demands. However, the parties also revealed themselves to be far from impermeable to social movements. At the very least, movements raised fundamental questions that entered their agendas, forcing them into internal processes of elaboration. Overall, mobilizing was definitely ‘worth the effort’.5 Before proposing a reflection on the substantive implications for democracy presented by this analysis, the following sections review the results of the book in the light of the three analytical perspectives used to uncover party adaptation trajectories.

Partisan Identity Cultural norms play an important role in regulating the inflow of external demands into political systems. It is based on such norms, consisting of rules of behaviour and cultural understandings of what is or is not permissible, that the system establishes which demands to allow through.6 Similar to political systems, organizations and individuals, the maintenance of internal coherence with respect to individual cultural identity has been underlined as a crucial factor for explaining the way in which parties interact, adapt and respond to the external environment. For this reason, partisan identity is considered as a fundamental point of access, or ‘filtering element’, which discerns from among all the theoretically possible actions those that are politically appropriate to the party organization. Accordingly, and with regard to social movements, political parties are more likely to be responsive to those movements whose cultural and ideological understanding is somewhat similar to their own, and whose issues do not contradict their traditional political stances (see Chapter 1). The importance of maintaining internal coherence with respect to a party’s traditional cultural identity emerged within the discourses of all four parties studied, as a legitimizing element to be referred to when providing their support to the demands of social movements. Political parties were shown

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to mine their own pasts, seeking aspects of cultural continuity in how they treated those demands in earlier phases of their historical development. In order to legitimize its novel attention to the environment in the early 1970s, for example, the PCI searched for traces of environmental awareness in the works of the classic Communist thinkers. Moreover, to legitimize the party’s endorsement of feminist issues, the PCI emphasized its historical continuity in promoting women’s groups and emancipation. Most interestingly, such processes of internal legitimation in party rhetoric were also observed for those parties whose identities were most distant from the social movements. Accordingly, the Italian Christian Democratic party was willing to show how women’s issues had always belonged to the party’s political tradition, emphasizing the crucial role the party played in the implementation of egalitarian legislation in Italy after the end of the Second World War, and, not least, how the Catholic party that preceded the DC (the Partito Popolare Italiano) had been calling for universal suffrage from the early twentieth century. In addition to the emphasis placed by the parties themselves on aspects related to cultural and identitarian continuity with the past, the analysis has also shown that elements related to partisan identity constituted the key points of entrance for the new demands in the parties’ discourses. It was in relation to workers – the Italian Communist party’s traditional target group – that the PCI introduced the notion of the quality of the environment, in a process that first considered the ‘working environment’ (i.e. factories), subsequently the workers’ external environment, and finally the quality of the environment as a value per se. The point of access for environmental issues in the political discourse of the DC was instead the protection of human life and humankind, as advanced in the late 1960s by Pope Paul VI. Environmental awareness and, not least, the principle of ‘harmonious’ economic growth based on ecological standards, entered the CDA’s discourse in line with the party’s traditional criticism of a liberal, market-centred mentality. The latter was thought by the party to be responsible for environmental damage in the country. The same held for the particularly lively internal discussion within the CDA on how to position itself with respect to the peace movement’s demands. It was the religious affiliations of the dominant group within the Dutch peace movement, the IKV, which was composed of representatives of the Dutch churches, that linked it to the Christian tradition of the CDA. It was the cultural affinity between the issues that the IKV raised and the traditional party identity of the CDA that forced the party into intense internal discussions on how to relate to this particular social movement. Conversely, partisan identity also proved to function as a blocking filter in the way in which parties responded to movements. The demand for the legalization of abortion, for example, independently of whether it was framed

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as a matter of women’s self-determination (as framed by the feminist movement) or as a necessary instrument for women’s health (as framed by the institutional language), could hardly be supported by the Italian Christian Democratic party. Based on principles of Christianity, the DC considered abortion as murder, and actively campaigned for a referendum for the repeal of the 1978 abortion law. The Italian Communist party’s lack of response to the specific demands raised by the ecology movement constitutes a second example. Despite maintaining interorganizational contacts with the ecology movement’s most politically active organization, the Lega per l’Ambiente, the PCI did not change its pro-nuclear position, nor did it introduce the notion of the ecological conversion of economic processes, which the Italian ecology movement called for, into its political discourse. Interestingly, it is the only case among those observed where a left-wing party did not provide support for a social movement’s specific goals. Industrialization and quantitative economic development were considered by Italian Communist political culture as the fundamental means for the liberation of the popular masses from social inequalities. The ecologists’ claim that economic development should be subject to restrictions based on the increasingly limited availability of natural resources was met with a strong cultural resistance within the PCI. This ultimately resulted in the ecology movement’s institutionalization through the establishment of a national Green party (1987). In sum, all internal elaboration processes were fundamentally shaped and filtered through the political parties’ individual characteristics, their characters, and the cultural and ideological understandings they had of themselves.

Membership Mobilization The analysis also revealed the role played by party members in heightening the polarity of problems around the themes that social movements had been raising. As argued in Chapter 1, party membership involvement in social movement themes can take various forms: party members can take a full and active part in a social movement’s activities, or they may sympathize with the issues a particular movement mobilizes around and hence pressure their parties for changes from within. Examples of the involvement of party members in social movement actions were found in both the left-wing parties studied, as both PvdA and PCI members took part in several movement activities, demonstrations and events. The PvdA’s local sections were particularly active in establishing contacts with social movement groups and in stimulating the party to introduce changes on the issues raised by the social movements. Exemplary in this sense was the role that local sections played in shaping the party’s stances on the nuclear energy issue. The party’s local sections in fact

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participated in the very first protest actions against the (PvdA-run) government proposal to introduce a new tax to finance an international nuclear project in Kalkar alongside ecology movement groups. Second, it was the local sections that presented the anti-nuclear motions to the 1975 party congress, determining the shift in the PvdA’s position on nuclear energy that was formalized in the new Declaration of Principles of 1977. Most importantly, during the 1970s, participation and involvement in extra-parliamentary actions was stimulated by the PvdA leadership itself as a consequence of the permeation of the New Left current to the party’s top level. Thus, the PvdA self-defined as an ‘Action Party’, and was often the promoter of social mobilization initiatives in cooperation with social movement groups. The involvement of party members in movement activities was also observed in the Italian Communist party. However, differently from the case of the PvdA, such involvement barely affected the party leadership; it remained mainly at the lower levels of the party organization and took the form of interpersonal exchanges between party members and social movement groups. The common participation of Communist women in feminist social and cultural initiatives played a fundamental role in shaping the evolution of the feminist movement itself, as well as the PCI’s responses to it. Even though the Communist party had already introduced changes in line with the feminist movement’s goals from the mid-1970s (by paying greater attention to women’s issues in its political discourse, increasing the number of women representatives in parliament, and not least by nominating a number of feminist activists to its party lists), the most pronounced responses to the feminist movement took place in the 1980s. A fundamental role was played in this process by an increasing number of initiatives that involved feminist activists and Communist women, such as the campaign against the repeal of the divorce laws (1974), the campaigns for the legalisation of abortion (1976–78) and for a new law against sexual violence (from 1979 onwards), which resulted in the feministization of Communist women. From the 1980s onwards, Communist women became extremely active in terms of pressuring the party to introduce feminist practices into its internal organization, and feminist principles in its official discourse. The outcome of mobilization within the party was successful, as the PCI formally recognized specifically feminist issues, first at the party congress of 1986 and then in the new party statutes approved in 1989. Membership mobilization and patterns of cumulative involvement also took place in the PCI around environmental matters. Cumulative involvement manifested itself in particular with the establishment of the Lega per l’Ambiente, the main ecological organization to emerge in Italy, formed within one of the largest collateral associations of the Communist party

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(ARCI), which meant that numerous initiatives were held by ecology movement groups and the party together. Pressure for change in line with the ecology movement’s goals, in particular around the issue of nuclear energy, also came from the party’s own MPs – notably from those ecologists coopted onto PCI lists after the political elections of 1983 – and statements released in daily newspapers by a number of prominent members of the Communist party. However, the most vivid example of the internal mobilization of PCI members on environmental matters took place at the 17th PCI Congress of 1986, when an amendment was introduced against the party’s official position, and proposing the interruption of the construction of nuclear power stations. The practice of open voting made apparent that there were two major factions that opposed each other at the congress: the party leadership, anchored to its pro-nuclear position; and the party delegates, of whom a majority held anti-nuclear positions. The amendment was finally rejected, showing the difficulty ecologist issues met in permeating the traditional political culture of the PCI. In contrast to the two left-wing political parties, there was only very limited membership mobilization around the issues raised by social movements in the two centre political parties under study, with the one relevant exception of CDA members’ involvement in peace movement issues. Indeed, the internal mobilization of CDA members around peace issues, and in particular against the stationing of NATO missiles on Dutch territory, which was one of the core areas around which the peace movement mobilized, was exceptionally strong. This was reflected in the emergence of internal dissent, frequent incidents of split-voting within the parliamentary faction of the Second Chamber, the expulsion of two MPs from the CDA faction in 1983, and in general in the intense debate played out in the CDA party journals. The establishment of interorganizational contacts with the peace movement’s most politically active group, the IKV, and the party’s repeated postponement of its final decision concerning the NATO missiles are best interpreted in the light of this high degree of member involvement. Patterns of cumulative involvement and internal membership mobilization around environmental issues were instead absent in the party itself, corresponding to the pattern of limited responses by the CDA to the ecology movement discussed in Chapter 3. Similar low levels of membership mobilization emerged from the analysis of the Italian Christian Democratic party, in particular on environmental issues. Not only were there no patterns of cumulative involvement in the initiatives of the ecology movement, but there was no relevant internal pressure from party members either. The ‘Office for Environmental Problems’, established in 1982, lacked membership participation as well as logistical and organizational resources. In fact, it was on the initiative of an

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outsider to the party that a page on environmental issues was included in the party journal in 1982. A very different situation emerged from the analysis of the impact of the feminist movement on the women of the Christian Democratic party. Although overtly anti-feminist, DC women reinterpreted the feminist slogans of personal realization, autonomy and self-determination, and exerted pressure for greater women’s representation both in the parliament and in the party itself. Yet, no substantive changes were found to have taken place in the DC in terms of women’s descriptive representation, nor in terms of the cultural framing of women within the party. The mobilization of the DC women therefore remained a minority action, with little effect on the political party’s discourse or organization. The analysis conducted shows how those parties in which members mobilized most around social movement issues, exerting pressure for changes in a party’s established positions, were indeed those where there was a higher degree of response to the social movements. However, membership mobilization seems to make parties supportive of social movements only to the extent that a degree of cultural and ideological affinity between the party and the movement also exists. Where such an affinity is missing, membership mobilization not only takes place to a more limited degree, but it also fails to make the political party actually change in support of social movement goals.

Social Movement Attitudes to Representative Institutions It is not only the parties’ characteristics that are relevant for explaining the way in which parties respond to movements. Depending on the type of movement and the type of demands they raise, parties act differently.7 The literature on social movements has underlined that political institutions tend to be more open to those movements that seek to provoke policy changes and whose action repertoires are moderate. The analysis of the parties’ responses does not suggest any univocal answers to this question. In fact, party responses seem to be shaped primarily based on other factors, above all ideological affinity between the individual movement and the political party. It proved to be the case, however, that where organizational contacts between a party and a social movement were established, these took place mainly with the more moderate groups of the social movements. The case of the PvdA, which could be traced in great detail thanks to the rich archival documentation on the social movements in question and the way in which the party intended to respond to them, showed a clear demarcation of this type. The organizations that the PvdA related to most formed the moderate branches of the movements, while no support was granted to, and no common initiatives were established with, the radical branches.

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Overall, of the three propositions advanced, it is the first one, that of the path-dependent role of partisan identity, that seems to explain best the differences in political party responses to movements. The mobilization of members and the attitudes of the movements to representative institutions, although they may function as facilitating factors, do not seem to play a role in shaping party responses if there is no concomitant presence of some degree of political affinity between the party and the social movement.

Trajectories of Party Responses to Movements A crude way of depicting the empirical research outcomes of this book is that parties on the left were more open to social movements when compared to centre parties. The latter did not support social movements’ core demands, nor did they establish organizational contacts with social movement actors (except for the sporadic contacts that took place between the peace movement activists and the CDA). This is in line with previous research that has emphasized the ideological connotation of the party–movement relationship, and has depicted parties on the left as traditional allies of social movements.8 At the same time, the research findings offered in this book allow for a more nuanced analysis. A careful scrutiny of original party documents (election manifestos, congress acts, party journals, booklets and reports), party archives and interviews with a select number of prominent personalities from the 1970s, show a twofold pattern. First, it can be seen that centre parties did not remain unaffected by the emergence of social movements, as the movements were echoed within these parties and provoked the necessity for them to adapt. Second, the analysis also shows that even in the case of the supportive left-wing parties, a total adherence to the demands of social movements did not take place. No cases were found in which a movement’s demands remained the same as when it had originally formulated them. In other words, parties adapted to the movement’s demands through their internal political language. These arguments can be formalized by adopting Sjöblom’s classification of the possible options available to political parties when dealing with emerging political demands. Drawing on Easton’s demand flow pattern, Sjöblom suggested four possible alternatives for parties: (a) As soon as the demand enters the party it disappears; no further measures are taken on this demand; the demand is rejected without internal elaboration.

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(b) The demand enters the party, is internally elaborated and then disappears without any further measures being taken; the demand is rejected after internal elaboration. (c) The demand enters the party, is internally elaborated, and forms the basis for mediated/translated output; the demand is accepted after internal elaboration. (d) The demand enters the party and remains unchanged as the basis for output without any mediation; the demand is accepted without internal elaboration.9 Two main distinctions can be drawn among these four possible alternatives. The first distinction concerns internal elaboration processes. Demands can either become subjects of internal elaboration for political parties, as in cases (b) and (c), or they may not, as in cases (a) and (d). Internal elaboration processes are those that transform, through internal politicization, ‘demands’ into ‘issues’.10 By internal elaboration, therefore, demands become the subject of discussion or analysis within parties, forcing parties to take a position on them and adopt an interpretation of the demand in question. The second distinction concerns the outputs that political parties produce with respect to societal demands. Outputs can be categorized as ‘rejection’ when demands do not receive support from a party, as in cases (a) and (b), or as ‘acceptance’ when demands receive support and become part of a party’s political discourse and practices, as in cases (c) and (d). Figure 4.1 is a stylized view of the four different alternatives available to parties.

Figure 4.1 Party responses trajectories

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By linking the possible alternatives available to political parties to the main outcomes of the party–movement relations examined in this book, a number of considerations can be made. First, social movements did not go unnoticed. The case of rejection without internal elaboration, as in alternative (a), did not take place in any of the four political parties. Even when taking two irreconcilable worlds, such as the Italian Christian Democratic party and the feminist movement, or the CDA and the ecology movement, the analysis of the parties’ documents has demonstrated that the issues at the core of those movements were discussed, interpreted and elaborated on internally. This does not imply the acceptance of the movement’s demands, nor support to the movement itself. It does however imply that the movement did not go unnoticed by the parties, and indeed that it also provoked a certain degree of internal change. Overall, whether the final outcome of the parties’ internal elaboration on the movements was rejection or acceptance, the social movements observed in this study succeeded in becoming the subjects of internal discussion within political parties, forcing them to interpret and elaborate on their presence in the social arena. Secondly, social movements are not accepted by parties without prior processes of internal mediation. Indeed, ‘unfiltered’ acceptance, as in alternative (d), did not occur in any of the four cases. Taking here one of the closest party–movement relationships observed, namely that of the PvdA and the peace movement, the issues raised by the movement were subjected to internal processes of elaboration and mediation which transformed and distorted the social movement’s demands through the party’s own interpretation of them. The options followed in order to respond to the social movements therefore seem to be concentrated within the two intermediary sets of alternatives. In the case of the centre parties, the elaboration processes led to the ultimate rejection of the core demands of the social movements, as in alternative (b). Although they opened up to the general issues around which the movements mobilized, the centre parties did not support the movements’ specific goals, and often overtly criticized social movement actors. In the case of the leftwing parties, the elaboration processes led instead to the ultimate acceptance of social movement demands, as in alternative (c). The acceptance of social movement demands by the left-wing parties was manifested in their bringing to the fore the core demands of the social movements in their political discourses, in supporting their protest actions, or in the establishment of interorganizational contacts with social movement actors. The concentration of the four parties’ trajectories of responses to the social movements around the two intermediary options, and the fact that neither option (a) – rejection with no further consideration of the demand – nor option (d) – unfiltered acceptance of a social movement’s demands – took place leads to some con-

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cluding considerations on the theoretical implications of this research for the broader literature on parties, social movements and democracy.

Movements, Parties and the Representative Linkage The empirical side of this study focuses on the way in which political parties have responded to social movements. Theoretically, it focuses on the theme of political representation through political parties, the crisis of which has become one of the major political problems of our time.11 What is nowadays considered as a datum in the political science literature is that a gap has formed between political parties and citizens, and that this gap is increasing. Many scholars have pointed to a decline in the ability of parties to connect with the citizenry, and a decline of the parties’ representative performances.12 In the common scholarly perception, a crisis of political representation is ongoing, to the extent that it is even questioned why political parties still hold the key position of social representatives in modern democracies. It may well be, in contemporary democracies, that other agents of political representation can take their place and better perform the function of political representation than parties do.13 If nowadays the relationship between civil society and political parties is acknowledged to be in crisis, the first symptoms of this trend started to become visible at the end of the 1960s. Although the quantity as well as the quality of the symptoms of this crisis of representation were still limited at that time, changes were acknowledged both within political parties and in citizens’ commitment to them. Around this time, Otto Kirchheimer wrote his influential chapter on the emergence of a new party model, the catch-all people’s party. According to Kirchheimer, something had been changing in political parties, since they seemed to have abandoned their original mission of social representation, turning to an election-driven logic.14 But some things had also been changing among the citizenry. In Italy as well as in the Netherlands, the two national contexts that this study focuses on, we see from the end of the 1960s that the sense of loyalty to traditional parties had started declining. As I underlined in Chapter 1, the Netherlands experienced the effects of these transformations in terms of election outcomes. The 1967 national parliamentary elections saw the decline of the traditional political parties and the emergence of new parties, indicating a crucial benchmark in Dutch political history of a shift from elections with predictable outcomes to truly open competitions.15 In Italy, while election outcomes remained almost unchanged until the 1980s, qualitative changes had been taking place in the meaning and intensity of citizens’ political commitment to parties: an in-

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creasing number of Italian voters, Parisi and Pasquino argue, no longer made a ‘vote of belonging’, which had traditionally characterized Italian voters, but rather a ‘vote of opinion’.16 In both countries a more critical and independent attitude to political parties emerged, which contributed to the formation of new forms of political representation and political engagement as alternatives to political parties’ organizations. This book is therefore situated in a historical period of particular interest, because the emergence of independent social movements changed the scenario of political representation, with the latter no longer under the exclusive control of political parties.17 Besides constituting a novelty for political parties, the emergence of social movements also implied a broader change in the overall dynamics of representative democracies. The two national contexts observed in this work were characterized by a very limited degree of independent political participation among the citizenry before the 1960s, when political parties were the main channel through which political concerns were articulated. The moment that this changed, and the monopoly of political parties was snatched away from them by the emergence of new political actors, offers us an opportunity to ‘test’ the actual functioning of the representative democratic linkage in which political parties are central. The emergence of social movements has led a number of scholars to declare the failure of political parties in terms of their representative capacity. When Parties Fail is the title of Lawson and Merkl’s book on what they called ‘emerging alternative organizations’ in civil society.18 Parties failed, in their view, because they had been unable to anticipate, interpret or represent new lines of conflict, which were expressed instead through the emergence of these ‘alternative organizations’.19 Similarly, Rohrschneider argued that ‘the evolution of the new social movements suggests that the parties’ control over the political process has loosened’.20 In this perspective, the expansion of the activities of social movements and the ‘failure’ of political parties are related phenomena. Social movements are perceived as rivals to political parties and to the system of political representation based on elections. From a different perspective, however, movements and parties do not act in opposition to each other. They may operate in a complementary fashion, the former giving voice to latent citizens’ demands, and the latter incorporating these demands into their political and institutional agendas. Such a perspective, of course, requires a positive recognition of social movements’ participatory inputs in representative democracies. This has not always been the case, as demonstrated by the classic theory of democracy, modelled around the Greek city-state, which was abandoned in the 1950s in favour of more ‘realist’ conceptions. A number of scholars pointed to the need to consider democracy by starting from the empirical evidence,

170 | Party Responses to Social Movements

from the very properties of democratic regimes. Consequently, democracy came to be considered as a ‘political method’, where citizens’ participation was mainly considered in terms of electoral procedures, and the acceptance (or rejection) of their leaders by electoral means.21 As Sartori argued, when talking about democracy ‘we should not twist reality to fit the word’: the prescriptive element of democracy, which coincides with its etymological meaning of power of the people, should be separated from the descriptive element, corresponding instead to democratic realities.22 This later led scholars to argue critically that the thesis that had dominated political science since the mid-1950s saw apathy and restraints on popular participation as conducive to stable democracies.23 From the mid-1960s, alongside the emergence of the ‘participatory wave’, the role of participation in democratic theory was restored, and was once again considered a desirable goal.24 Scholars came to recognize movements as the manifestation of political pluralism, as an increase in the number of societal ‘voices’, and as a positive expression of active citizenship.25 In the words of Almond and Verba, ‘active participants in the political input process’, as opposed to mere ‘subjects’ or delegators, ‘will not attempt to influence the decisions of his government, but will try to see that [they are] treated properly once the decision is made’.26 More recently, Rosanvallon referred to movements as among the ‘counter powers’ – that is, indirect powers disseminated through society that resist the ‘powers that be’ and reinforce and complement ‘the episodic democracy of the usual representative system’.27 Similarly, Norris pointed to social movements as forms of ‘active citizenship’ which deepen and sustain the democratic processes, contributing to the identification of a number of themes and issues that the representative institutions do not seem to be able to channel adequately.28 Overall, political participation beyond elections has received growing recognition and now has a recognized legitimate status, to the extent that it is considered among the ‘engines’ of the quality of democracy.29 In this perspective, the emergence of social movements does not seem to indicate a crisis of representative democracies, and is not thus seen as a crisis of political parties as such. By challenging democracy, social movements do in fact maintain it. Parties do not fail because of the emergence of social movements. They fail to the extent that they do not respond to the emergence of movements or to the demands that they raise. This book suggests that parties did not fail. They functioned as intermediary organizations between civil society and the state, as the most common normative assessments of their primary function maintain. The movements stimulated internal processes of elaboration, thus signalling, if not the endorsement of their claims, at least signs of responsive adaptation.

Conclusion | 171

The ‘Small Margins of Democratic Politics’ At the same time, social movement demands seem to encounter some crucial obstacles throughout the process of political representation through parties. Two different types of obstacles were found, both of which lie at the core of the system of representative government and appear as intrinsically associated with the relational dynamics of movements and parties. The first type is found at the party level itself. In the previous section it was argued that not only was the option of rejection without internal elaboration shown to be irrelevant, as in option (a), but the case of unfiltered acceptance, as in option (d), also went unrecorded for all of the cases observed. ‘That parties add a new adjective is not the point. What is needed is a whole new vocabulary’, as one ecologist underlined.30 Based on the arguments discussed so far, it seems that the option where a social movement’s vocabulary is taken up by a political party and mirrored in its outputs, as these were formulated in the original movement demands, is to be excluded. Indeed, the fact that this proved not to take place, and the fact that in all cases internal mediation processes shaped the parties’ responses, implies that even when the political demands of movements enter the parties, the nature of the original demands will unavoidably be transformed. Internal partisan processes, therefore, modify the movements’ original demands, and possibly even to the extent that ‘the person or the structures that have made the demand believe it to be in fact rejected’.31 Once different actors filter and adapt demands coming from a different arena through their internal logics and identities, distortion seems an unavoidable consequence.32 Besides such individual-level obstacles, fundamental reasons for the impossibility of a perfect correspondence between movement demands and party responses are to be found in the very structures of representative democracies. In the Introduction, I referred to the party–movement relationship as being unavoidably shaped by the two actors’ different positions with respect to the institutional environment, with movements acting outside institutions and parties acting at both the societal and the institutional level. This has important implications. Movements are free of the specifically institutional constraints that limit the activities of political parties. To cite Joop den Uyl, PvdA secretary and prime minister of the Netherlands from 1973 to 1977, ‘democratic politics has small margins, and parties have limited room of manoeuvre’.33 Societal actions are an important stimulus for keeping democracy functioning. Yet, he argued in the early 1970s, parliament is the ultimate decision-making body in representative democracies. As the following citation also shows, parties appear to be well aware of such constraints:

172  |  Party Responses to Social Movements

I believe that we, as the CDA, certainly need to listen [to the peace movement] with attention. At the same time, as politicians, we have an additional task compared with members of the church: we need to decide, on the basis of real-world criteria and on the basis of our electoral manifesto. I think that political decisions should be left to us first. This is why we were chosen after all, and this is what we work for. This concretely implies that there will be some unavoidable contrasts with what the peace movement is asking us to do.34 Hence, a movement’s demands are not only filtered through partisan politicization processes; they also require further mediation and compromise within parliaments. Both of the obstacles that prevent social movement demands from be-  ing ‘mirrored’ at the level of representative institutions appear unavoidable, and this potentially explains why, as Tarrow noted, ‘individual movements almost never satisfy their largest ambitions’.35 This book has shown that parties and movements interact and relate to each other to an unexpected extent. When ‘the party is no longer everything’, parties proved willing to adapt to the reality of the new social movements. The demands raised by the movements entered the parties’ political discourses and stimulated processes of internal change. The boundaries between institutionalized and non- 

Figure 4.2  The disjunction between parties and movements (protest sign on the left: ‘Partij van de Arbeid [political party]’; sign on the right: ‘protest group’) Source: Voorwaarts, 6 July 1983 (Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Partijen, Groningen).

Conclusion | 173

institutionalized politics are indeed ‘fuzzy and permeable’, as Goldstone argued.36 At the same time, the inherent constraints of representative government only allow parties to bring forward social movement demands in a mediated form, distant from the movements’ original demands. The political parties did not adopt the social movements’ language, and nor did they adopt their way of doing and conceiving politics. Ultimately, the ‘challengers’ and the ‘polity members’, to use the vocabulary of Tilly’s polity model,37 remained separate realities. To what extent similar processes are expected to be found in contemporary democracies is a question that remains open. Not only have forms of political activism beyond parties further expanded to the extent that they have become a normal feature of a ‘social movement society’,38 but repertoires of political participation within the very political parties have also become more fluid, dynamic and possibly irrelevant.39 Parties themselves changed significantly with regard to their ideological references and orientations and their organization, and have become increasingly more market oriented.40 Should we expect similar patterns of incorporation? Are parties still fulfilling their functions of political linkage? As parties have increasingly intensified their relations with the state,41 it may well be that there is no longer any reason to believe that parties emphasize links with society. Surely, if the interaction between social movements and political parties is central to the healthy functioning of democracy at any time, the presence of such an interaction becomes particularly crucial in the current ‘age of mistrust’,42 party disenchantment, and decline in conventional forms of political participation. Whether this will happen remains a question for future research.

Notes 1. S. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); M. Giugni, ‘Was It Worth the Effort? The Outcomes and Consequences of Social Movements’, Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998), 371–93. 2. Tarrow, Power in Movement, 227. 3. W.C. Müller and K. Strøm (eds), Policy, Office, or Votes? How Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 1. 4. H. Kriesi, ‘Party Systems, Electoral Systems, and Social Movements’, in D. Della Porta and M. Diani (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 667. 5. I refer to Marco Giugni’s influential article, ‘Was It Worth the Effort?’ (see note 1), which provided an important review on the studies on social movement consequences, and set the agenda for future research in this field. 6. D. Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: Wiley, 1965), 81.

174 | Party Responses to Social Movements

7. H. Kriesi, R. Koopmans, J.W. Duyvendak and M. Giugni, New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). 8. D. Maguire, ‘Opposition Movements and Opposition Parties’, in J.C. Jenkins and B. Klandermans (eds), The Politics of Social Protest (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 1995), 7–17; S. Hutter and R. Vliegenthart, ‘Who Responds to Protest? Protest Politics and Party Responsiveness in Western Europe’, Party Politics (2016), 1–12. 9. G. Sjöblom, Party Strategies in a Multiparty System (Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur, 1968), 139–43. 10. Ibid., 142. 11. P. Rosanvallon, Counter-Democracy: Politics in an Age of Distrust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 12. P. Mair, ‘Representation and Participation in the Changing World of Party Politics’, European Review 6(2) (1998), 161–74; R.S. Katz and P. Mair, ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’, Party Politics 1(1) (1995), 5–28; S. Bartolini and P. Mair, ‘Challenges to Contemporary Political Parties’, in L. Diamond and R. Gunther (eds), Political Parties and Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 327–43; R.J. Dalton and M.P. Wattenberg, ‘Unthinkable Democracy: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies’, in R.J. Dalton and M.P. Wattenberg (eds), Parties without Partisans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 2–18. 13. P. Schmitter, ‘Parties Are Not What They Once Were’, in L. Diamond and R. Gunther (eds), Parties and Democracy (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 68–89. 14. O. Kirchheimer, ‘The Transformation of the Western European Party System’, in J. Palombara and M. Weiner (eds), Political Parties and Political Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966), 177–200. 15. G.A. Irwin and J.J.M. van Holsteyn, ‘Decline of the Structured Model of Electoral Competition’, in H. Daalder and G.A. Irwin (eds), Politics in the Netherlands: How Much Change? (London: Frank Cass, 1989). 16. A. Parisi and G. Pasquino, ‘Changes in Italian Electorate Behaviour: The Relationship between Parties and Voters’, West European Politics 2(3) (1979), 6–30. 17. S. Tarrow, ‘Italy: Crisis, Crises or Transition?’, in P. Lange and S. Tarrow (eds), Italy in Transition: Conflict and Consensus (London: Frank Cass, 1980), 166–86; M. Kaase, ‘The Challenge of the “Participatory Revolution” in Pluralist Democracies’, International Political Science Review 5(3) (1984), 299–318; R.S. Katz, ‘Party Government: A Rationalistic Conception’, in F.G. Castles and R. Wildenmann (eds), Visions and Realities of Party Government (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1986), 31–71. 18. K. Lawson and P.H. Merkl (eds), When Parties Fail: Emerging Alternative Organisations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988). 19. See G. Pasquino, Crisi dei partiti e governabilità (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1980); P. Scoppola, ‘Parlamento e governo da De Gasperi a Moro’, in L. Violante (ed.), Storia d’Italia. Annali 17, Il parlamento (Turin: Einaudi, 2001); C. Offe, ‘New Social Movements: Changing Boundaries of the Political’, Social Research 52(4) (1985), 817–68. 20. R. Rohrschneider, ‘Impact of Social Movements on European Party Systems’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 528(1) (1993), 159.

Conclusion | 175

21. Cf. Shumpeter, who famously defined democracy as an ‘institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote’. J.A. Shumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1962), 269. 22. G. Sartori, Democratic Theory (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1962), 24. 23. D. Kavanagh, ‘Political Behavior and Political Participation’, in G. Parry (ed.), Participation in Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1972), 112–21. 24. P. Bachrach, The Theory of Democratic Elitism: A Critique (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1967); C. Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). 25. A.O. Hirschmann, Exit, Voice and Loyalty (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1970). 26. G.A. Almond and S. Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company 1965), 117–18 27. Rosanvallon, Counter-Democracy, 4, 8. 28. P. Norris, Democratic Phoenix: Agencies, Repertoires, & Targets of Political Activism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 29. L. Diamond and L. Morlino, Assessing the Quality of Democracy (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). 30. S. Gentili, Ecologia e Sinistra, un incontro difficile (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 2002), 6. 31. Sjöblom, Party Strategies in a Multiparty System, 144. 32. J. Outshoorn, ‘The Women’s Movement and the Abortion Policy in the Netherlands’, European Consortium for Political Research, 20–25 March 1983, University of Freiburg; M. Revelli, ‘Movimenti sociali e spazio politico’, in F. Barbagallo (ed.), Storia dell’Italia repubblicana: II. La trasformazione dell’Italia: sviluppo e squilibri: 2. Istituzioni, movimenti, culture (Turin: Einaudi, 1995), 385–476. 33. J. den Uyl, ‘De smalle marge van democratische politiek’, Socialisme en Democratie 7 (1970). 34. Editorial, ‘Blijven zoeken naar wegen die we samen kunnen bewandelen’, CD/ Actueel, 17 September 1983. 35. Tarrow, Power in Movement, 34. 36. J.A. Goldstone, ‘Introduction: Bridging Institutionalized and Noninstitutionalized Politics’, in J.A. Goldstone (ed.), State, Parties and Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 2. 37. C. Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1978). 38. D.S. Meyer and S. Tarrow (eds), The Social Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1988). 39. S. Scarrow, Beyond Party Members: Changing Approaches to Partisan Mobilization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 40. A. Panebianco, Political Parties: Organization and Power (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 41. P. Mair, ‘Party Organizations: From Civil Society to the State’, in R.S. Katz and P. Mair (eds), How Parties Organize: Change and Adaptation in Western Democracies (London: Sage, 1994), 1–22; Katz and Mair, ‘Changing Models’, 5–28. 42. Rosanvallon, Counter-Democracy.

Appendix 1

Election Outcomes and Government Coalitions Table A.1 Election outcomes in the Netherlands, 1963–1989 National elections

1963 1967

KVP/CDA

31.88

ARP/CDA

8.72

9.9

8.59

8.84 31.89 30.81 29.39 34.59 35.32

CHU/CDA

8.58

8.15

6.32

4.79

PvdA

28.1 23.55

VVD

1971

1972

1977

1981

1982

1986

1989

26.5 21.84 17.65

24.6 27.34 33.83 28.29

30.4 33.27 31.91

10.29 10.73 10.34 14.45 17.95 17.32

17.41 14.54

PSP

3.03

2.87

CPN

2.77

3.61

3.9

4.47

SGP

2.29

2.01

2.35

2.21

2.13

BP

2.13

4.77 6.77

4.15

5.44 11.06

*5.44

4.12

D’66

*4.48

DS70

2.12

PPR

2.28

2.05

4.26

6.13

7.89

*4.8

GL

*4.07

Notes: * = New party. Only vote percentages above 2% are included. Source: Kiesraad (author’s elaboration).

Table A.2 Government coalitions in the Netherlands, 1967–1989 1967– 1971

1971– 1972

1972– 1973

1973– 1977

1977– 1981

1981– 1982

1982– 1982

1982– 1986

1986– 1989

KVP

KVP

KVP

KVP

CDA

CDA

CDA

CDA

CDA

ARP

ARP

ARP

PvdA

VVD

PvdA

D66

VVD

VVD

CHU

CHU

CHU

D66

VVD

VVD

VVD

PPR

DS70

D’66

ARP

Source: R. B Andeweg and G. Irwin, Governance and Politics of the Netherlands (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 110.

Appendix 1

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177

Table A.3 Election outcomes in Italy, 1963–1989 National elections

1963

1968

1972

1976

1979

1983

1987

DC

38.28

39.12

38.66

38.71

38.3

32.93

34.31

PCI

25.26

26.9

27.15

34.37

30.38

29.89

26.58

PSI

13.84

9.61

9.64

9.81

11.44

14.26

PSDI

6.10

5.14

3.38

3.85

PLI

6.97

PSIUP MSI PRI

14.48** 5.82

3.89

4.09

2.96

2.89

2.1

*4.45 5.11

4.45

8.67

6.1

5.26

6.81

5.91

1.97

2.86

3.09

3.03

5.08

3.7

*3.45

2.19

2.56

PR Verdi

*2.51

Notes: * = New party. Only vote percentages above 2% are included. ** PSI and PSDI joined forces for the 1968 election forming the short-lived Partito Socialista Unitario (PSU). Source: Ministero dell’Interno (author’s elaboration).

Figure A.1 Government coalitions in Italy, 1968–1989 Source: Ministero dell’Interno (author’s elaboration).

Appendix 2

Social Movements’ Themes in Party Manifestos A quantitative content analysis was carried out for the electoral manifestos of the four parties under consideration, counting the number of positive frequencies whereby the single issues raised by the social movements were referred to across the different documents over time. The single items selected for the analysis of the party documents reflect the main themes of mobilization of the social movements. These were deducted from primary sources (see Bibliography), from a selection of national daily newspapers and secondary academic literature. The reduction of the major themes of the social movement mobilizations into specific items has been carried out inductively, by grouping together themes with conceptually close meanings and similar connotations.1 The lists of items of the four coding schemes are not intended to reflect the whole range of demands raised by the individual movements. The coding includes only those themes that the political parties mentioned in their manifestos. This implies that the party responses that emerge from the present analysis are already filtered by the parties’ consideration of the movements’ issues. The feminist critique of the patriarchal system, for example, does not appear among the selected items, despite the fact that it was a highly salient issue for the feminist movement, because no reference was ever made to it in any of the party documents. A code–recode strategy was employed to ensure the reliability of the findings.

Coding Dictionary Italian Feminist Movement’s Items 1. Women’s equality: References to general principles of women’s equality, emancipation, equal dignity, or mentioning the importance of women’s issues. Example: ‘We need to make the Constitutional principle of equality between the two sexes concrete’ (DC manifesto, 1976).

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179

2. Reform of Family Right Law: Statements that refer to the reform of the Family Right law (regulating the legal relationship between husband and wife), and/or statements supporting equality in the family. Example: ‘A crucial target is to reach is the reform of the Family Right’ (DC manifesto, 1972). Note: the reform of the Family Right was implemented in 1975. The previous regulation was based on the principle of patria potestas (father’s authority). It implied that the education of children, the choice of domicile, and the control over the family finances pertained to the husband only. 3. Equal treatment in the labour market: Statements referring to women and the labour market, such as equal treatment, equal access, equal salary, full employment of women, protection of working mothers, etc. Example: ‘A particular commitment needs to be made on the professional qualification of women, as an essential condition for the expansion and for the stability of women’s employment’ (DC manifesto, 1976). 4. Women’s representation in politics: Statements referring to the representation of women in political life. Statements therefore include references to the underrepresentation of women, to women’s decision-making responsibilities and the recognition of women’s contributions within the respective parties. Example: ‘There is an undoubted delay from the DC. A serious confrontation within the party is needed, as changes in Italian society are not reflected in an adequate transformation of the party. We are not asking for a leadership turnover, but for the internal restructuring in the composition of the national leading organs, to make them more open to the participation of women’ (in La Discussione, 6 July 1981). 5. State services: Statements referring to state services benefitting, either directly or indirectly, women, such as the creation of nurseries, and of assistance centres for women who need medical or psychological help. Example: ‘In order to guarantee to women the possibility of harmonizing their family responsibilities with their participation in economic and social life, further progress needs to be made in the field of legislation and social

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structures – services for the family, for children, for elderly people. (DC manifesto, 1976). 6. Divorce: Statements that refer to divorce. Example: ‘The PCI gave its support to the introduction of divorce’ (PCI manifesto, 1972). 7. Abortion: Statements referring to legislation on abortion and to a conscious choice for women over maternity. Also included are references to contraception and birth control. Example: ‘A law that stops the practice of clandestine abortions . . . needs to be rapidly defined (PCI manifesto, 1976). 8. Women’s issues in school education: Statements that refer to reforms in school education, such as the introduction of sex education, and the abolition of differentiated syllabi between boys and girls. Example: ‘A commitment aimed at the elimination from the laws of the country as well as from daily practices of each residual form of discrimination towards women . . . in the field of the scholarly education (PCI manifesto, 1976). 9. Women’s liberation: Statements that refer to women’s liberation, gender oppression, sexual freedom, changes in the man–woman relationship. Example: ‘The working class and our party need to get involved and to fight today fully for a full development of emancipation and liberation of women’ (Party secretary’s speech to the 15th Congress of the PCI). 10. Women’s movement: Statements referring to the feminist movement or to feminist groups and/ or organizations. Example: ‘New, substantial steps need to be made first in the field for the most ample recognition and acceptance of the instances of the movement for the emancipation and the liberation of women’ (PCI manifesto, 1976).

Appendix 2

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181

Italian Ecology Movements’ Items 1. Environmental protection: Statements mentioning the environment and the preservation, protection and valorization of the natural environment and defence of the territory. Also included are statements calling for the promotion of environmental legislation and referring to the constitution of institutional commissions, ministries or agencies aimed at the protection of the natural environment. Example: ‘An immense heritage of historical, cultural and environmental properties has been abandoned to negligence and decay’ (PCI manifesto, 1976). 2. Pollution: Statements that refer to pollution (of the soil, territory, waters, and noise pollution) and alteration of the natural environment. Example: ‘We urgently need to give the regional committees for environmental pollution problems, who have the duty to control the pollution emitted by the factories, the power to function’ (DC manifesto, 1987) 3. Waste reduction: Statements that refer to the reduction of waste as a means of environmental protection. Included here are statements that specifically refer to the waste of natural resources, rational use of resources, energy waste, energy saving, and recycling. Example: ‘The incapacity to utilize our own natural resources, the waste of raw materials (Speech to the DC Congress, 1980). Note: Not coded are those statements that refer to the reduction of waste in other fields that do not relate to the environment, such as public administration, social resources, expenditure and financial investments. 4. Quality of life: Statements that specifically link quality of life with the quality of the environment. Example: ‘The DC considers that an important engagement needs to be taken in a field of a growing attention to the problems of ecological balance, with a decided action directed . . . to guaranteeing improvements to the quality of life, to the preservation of the environment and to the protection of the landscape’ (DC manifesto, 1983). Note: Statements that refer to quality of life in the context of cultural, social or economic development are not coded.

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5. Limitation of natural resources: Statements that refer to the scarcity of energy and natural resources in general. Example: ‘We have seen . . . the illusion of never-ending economic development, based on an unlimited availability of energy resources abruptly falling’ (Secretary speech to the Congress, DC, 1980) 6. Environmentally aware production: Statements that link environmental concerns to the productive sector, including environmentally friendly production methods, and limitations in the construction of infrastructure and productive areas (roads, industrial estates, airports). Example: ‘The single decisions need to be taken, taking as reference the public interest in environmental protection, and this factor should influence from the start those planning a factory, a street, a harbour, or an incinerator’ (DC manifesto, 1987). 7. Promotion of sustainable energy resources: Statements that refer to the promotion, usage and/or stimulation of research into sustainable energy production, alternatives to nuclear energy (wind, sun, geothermic). Example: ‘To differentiate energy resources as much as possible . . . and to privilege, where possible, renewable resources of energy – sun, water, geothermic’ (PCI manifesto, 1979). 8. Alternative models of growth: Statements that refer to a need for different types of economic development and growth or that advocate limitations on economic growth. Example: ‘Let’s start thinking . . . about the limitations that the current type of development has started to face as the consequence of the robbery and the waste of natural resources environmental degradation, and as the consequence of the new needs that that same development created and is no longer able to satisfy (PCI manifesto, 1983). 9. Stop nuclear energy: Statements against the use of nuclear energy. Example: ‘As far as the production of energy is concerned, it is necessary to start the construction of the first four nuclear power stations’ (PCI manifesto, 1976).

Appendix 2

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183

10. Ecology movement: Statements that refer, either directly or indirectly, to the ecology movement or to ecology groups and/or organizations. Example: ‘The PCI favours the development of an autonomous mass movement that directly acts in the field of the ecological battle’ (PCI manifesto, 1983).

Dutch Ecology Movement’s Items 1. Environmental protection: Statements favouring environmental protection, the defence of the territory, the maintenance of protected areas and/or natural resources, and the promotion of environmental legislation. Example: ‘A coordinative ministry responsible for environmental policy shall prepare new laws for the protection of the coasts from pollution’ (PvdA manifesto, 1971). 2. Pollution: Statements that refer to the problems of pollution (of the territory, water, soil, and noise pollution), the alteration of the natural environment, and/ or statements for the introduction of specific legislation against pollution. Example: ‘The increasing threat to human health and the disruption of the biological equilibrium in our environment from the increasing pollution of air, water and soil needs to be halted’ (KVP, CHU, ARP manifesto, 1971). 3. Limited natural resources: Statements referring to the scarcity of energy and natural resources. Example: ‘Raw materials and energy are increasingly scarce’ (CDA manifesto, 1977) 4. Quality of life: Statements referring to the quality of life as linked to the environment. Example: ‘The development of traffic becomes a peril for certain values in society: security, quality of life in the cities, the protection of nature and the environment, a responsible usage of raw materials’ (CDA manifesto, 1982). 5. Environmentally aware production: Statements in favour of and/or stimulating environmentally friendly production methods (and banning polluting means of production). Also included

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in this category are statements favouring limits in the construction of infrastructure (such as roads, industrial areas, airports). Example: ‘Priority shall be given to those initiatives that make a positive contribution in the fields of environmental purification, energy saving and recycling of materials’ (CDA manifesto, 1977). 6. Alternative models of economic growth: Statements criticizing quantitatively oriented economic development framed with reference to the damage this provokes to the environment. Example: ‘The growing production and consumption in the rich countries leads to unacceptable damages to nature and to living environments’ (PvdA Declaration of Principles, 1977). 7. Stop nuclear energy plans: Statements against the further implementation of nuclear energy in the Netherlands. Example: ‘No new nuclear power stations shall be built’ (PvdA manifesto, 1977). 8. Closure of nuclear energy facilities: Statements favouring the closure of existing nuclear power stations in the Netherlands, and statements against further cooperation with ongoing national and international nuclear energy programmes (URENCO, Kalkar). Example: ‘The existing nuclear power plants in the Netherlands shall be closed as soon as technically feasible’ (PvdA manifesto, 1981). 9. Promotion of alternative sources of energy: Statements in favour of the promotion, use and/or stimulation of research into renewable sources of energy (wind, sun, geothermic). Example: ‘Research, development and use of renewable energy (wind, solar) will be strongly supported’ (PvdA manifesto, 1981). 10. Ecology movement: Statements referring to the ecology movement and/or groups, formulated either directly or indirectly. Example: ‘Besides exerting its influence on government decision making, a Social Democratic politics must be oriented towards uniting and strengthening those forces in the society, such as unions, cooperatives, the women’s movement and ecology action groups’ (PvdA Declaration of principles, 1977).

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Dutch Peace Movement’s Items 1. Politics of peace: Statements in favour of the promotion of peace at the international level. Example: ‘Peace and security policies constitute a crucial instrument to promote international justice’ (CDA manifesto, 1986). 2. Diminishing nuclear weapons: Statements in favour of banning or diminishing nuclear weapons in the world, or against the modernization of nuclear weapon arsenals (such as the N-bomb or the NATO modernization plans of 1979). Example: ‘In the general context of an overall reduction of nuclear armaments, all types of nuclear weapons shall be subject to discussions focused on their containment and disarmament’ (PvdA manifesto, 1981). 3. Normalization of East–West relations: Statements in favour of the normalization of the East–West relationship, or statements that favour specific initiatives in this direction (such as promoting greater cooperation between NATO and Warsaw Pact countries). Example: ‘The current stability in the East–West relationship should be strengthened’ (CDA manifesto, 1986). 4. Banning chemical weapons: Statements in favour of the abolition of chemical weapons, and of weapons of mass destruction. Example: ‘The Netherlands takes the initiative to conclude a treaty that forbids weapons of mass destruction’ (CDA manifesto, 1986). 5. European cooperation: Statements in favour of greater cooperation between West European countries at the level of international relations and foreign policy. Also included here are statements that refer to specific initiatives and meetings on peace and security to be held between those countries, and that call for a more independent European position on the international scene. Example: ‘The Netherlands is committed to clear common European action within NATO’ (CDA manifesto, 1986). 6. ‘Critical’ NATO membership: Statements in favour of a ‘critical’, autonomous and more independent position of the Netherlands within NATO.

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Example: ‘The Netherlands must be a critical NATO member’ (PvdA manifesto, 1982). 7. ‘No’ to the stationing of nuclear weapons: Statements referring specifically to the issue of the deployment of NATO missiles on Dutch or European territory. Example: ‘No stationing of NATO mid-range systems (cruise missiles and Pershing II) on the Dutch territory’ (PvdA manifesto, 1982). 8. Unilateral denuclearization: Statements that favour unilateral initiatives by the Netherlands to embark on policies of disarmament. Also included are statements referring to the reduction or abolition of nuclear tasks for the Dutch army. Example: ‘Unilateral steps can facilitate the process of nuclear disarmament and even be necessary’ (PvdA manifesto, 1982). 9. Peace movement actions: Statements in favour of social actions initiated by the peace movement and/ or peace groups. Example: ‘The CDJA will participate in the next peace demonstration on 29 October’ (CD/Actueel, 3 September 1983). 10. Peace movement: Statements in favour of the peace movement. Example: ‘The CDA, in determining its policies, shall take into account the diversity of views in the party and shall remain in dialogue with churches and peace movements’ (CDA manifesto, 1982).

Note 1. R.F. Weber, Basic Content Analysis (London: Sage Publications, 1990).

Bibliography Primary Sources PARTIJ VAN DE ARBEID (PvdA) Party Archive Archief Partij van de Arbeid, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IISG), Amsterdam. Election Manifestos and Declaration of Principles 1971: ‘Hoofdlijnen van een regeringsprogram 1971–1975’ (with D’66 and PPR). 1971: ‘Verkiezingsprogramma 1971–1975’. 1977: ‘Voorwaarts, en niet vergeten’. 1977: ‘Beginselprogramma Partij van de Arbeid’. 1981: ‘Weerwerk’. 1982: ‘Eerlijk delen’. 1986: ‘De toekomst is van iedereen’. Reports Delivered by the Party Executive and by the Parliamentary Factions (Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Parijen, Groningen) ‘Verslagen Partij van de Arbeid’, 1970–1984. – van het partijbestuur over de periode 1 oktober 1970 – 31 maart 1973, van de kamerfracties over de periode 1970–1972; – van het partijbestuur over de periode 1 april 1973 – 30 september 1974, van de kamerfracties over de periode 1972–1974; – van het partijbestuur over de periode 1 oktober 1974 – 31 maart 1977, van de kamerfracties over de periode 1974–1976; – van het partijbestuur en van kamerfracties over de periode 1978–1980; – verslagen van het partijbestuur en van de Eerste kamerfractie over de periode 1980–1982; – verslagen van het partijbestuur en van kamerfracties over de periode 1982–1984; – verslagen van het partijbestuur en van kamerfracties over de periode 1984–1986; – verslagen van het partijbestuur en van kamerfracties over de periode 1986–1988. PvdA Dossiers and Internal Publications Om de kwaliteit van het bestaan: I – ‘de besteding van groei van het nationaal inkomen’ (1963); III – Beter wonen (1963); IV – Luchtverontreiniging (1965). Wiardi Beckman Stichting. Amsterdam: N.V. De Arbeiderspers. Tien over rood. Uitdaging van nieuw links aan de PvdA (1966). Amsterdam: Polak & Van Vennep. Democratie in Problemen: Participatie En Besluitvorming in De Partij Van De Arbeid (1982). WBS-Cahiers. Amsterdam: Kluwer. De meeste mensen willen meer (1967). Amsterdam: Polak & Van Gennep.

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DEMOCRAZIA CRISTIANA (DC) Party Archive Archivio della Democrazia Cristiana, Istituto Luigi Sturzo, Rome. Election Manifestos 1968: ‘Il programma della DC a servizio del paese’. Il Popolo, 19 April. 1972: ‘Gli impegni programmatici della Democrazia Cristiana’. Il Popolo, 1 April. 1979: ‘La DC chiede maggiori consensi per un’Italia libera e stabile’. Il Popolo, 12 May. 1983: ‘Un programma per garantire lo sviluppo’. Il Popolo, 5 May. 1987: ‘Un programma per l’Italia’. Il Popolo, 24 April. Congress Acts Atti del XI Congresso nazionale della Democrazia Cristiana. Edizioni Cinque Rome, 1972. Atti del XII Congresso nazionale della Democrazia Cristiana. Edizioni Cinque Rome, 1976. Atti del XIII Congresso nazionale della Democrazia Cristiana. Edizioni Cinque Rome, 1980. Atti del XIV Congresso nazionale della Democrazia Cristiana. Edizioni Cinque Rome, 1982. Atti del XV Congresso nazionale della Democrazia Cristiana. Edizioni Cinque Rome, 1984. Atti del XVII Congresso nazionale della Democrazia Cristiana. Edizioni Cinque Rome, 1988.

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Index

abortion DC and, 129–130, 160 feminist movement and, 39, 41–42, 82, 162 legislation, 41, 75, 82, 161–162 PCI and, 75 Radical Party and, 8 Andreotti, Giulio, 116 Associazione Ricreativa Culturale Italiana (ARCI), 47, 90, 163 Berg, Max van der, 97, 104 Berlinguer, Enrico, 6–7, 68, 75, 89 Berlinguer, Giovanni, 89 Borssele (nuclear factory), 96, 140 Brede Maatschappelijk Discussie (Wide Social Discussion). See nuclear energy: in the Netherlands Broek, Hans van der, 151 Calvinists party (ARP), 5, 25, 49 Caorso (nuclear factory), 87 Catholic party (KVP), 5, 7, 24–25, 49, 117–118, 137, 139 CDA. See Christen Democratisch Appèl Centro Italiano Femminile (Female Italian Centre, CIF), 38–39, 120, 126 relations with DC, 38, 119 Christen Democratisch Appèl (Christian Democratic Party, CDA) ecology movement and, 137–143 formation of, 117–118 internal dissent, 146–148, 151, 163 intra-party organization, 118 peace movement and, 143–151 CIF. See Centro Italiano Femminile Club of Rome report (1972), 83, 92

coalition governments in Italy, 6–7 in the Netherlands, 7–8 Comitato Nazionale di Controllo sulle Scelte Energetiche (National Committee on Energy Policies, CCSE). See ecology movement: in Italy Commoner, Barry, 93 Communistische Partij van Nederland (CPN), 9, 49, 52, 95, 101, 105 Conventio ad excludendum. See Partito Comunista Italiano: exclusion from government co-optation of social movements’ activists, 13, 76, 78–80, 88 Craxi, Bettino, 68 cumulative involvement, 11, 16, 34–36, 42, 98–99, 101, 162–163 DC. See Democrazia Cristiana De Gasperi, Alcide, 119 democracy conceptions of, 27–28, 169–170 direct, 28 electoral, 4, 11, 169 participatory, 28 representative, 26, 50–51, 56, 171 Democraten ’66 (D’66), 7, 25, 49, 92–93, 95–97, 101, 139, 144 Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democratic Party, DC) ecology movement and, 129–137 feminist movement and, 119–129 internal dissent, 115–117 intra-party organization, 116–117 Democrazia Proletaria (DP), 8

Index

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203

Den Uyl, Joop, 94, 171 divorce DC and, 116, 121, 125 feminist movement and, 39, 41–42 legislation, 41, 82, 162 PCI and, 82, 162 Radical Party and, 8 referendum on, 41, 73, 80, 116 Dodewaard, 50, 96–99, 140, 142 double militancy. See cumulative involvement Drees, Willem, 7 Dutch Reformed party (CHU), 5, 25, 137

Il Manifesto, 8, 69 Ingrao, Pietro, 69 Inter-Kerkelijk Vredesraad (Peace Council of the Churches, IKV), 52–56, 105–107, 144, 146, 148–151, 160 Italia Nostra, 44–45, 130

ecology movement in Italy life cycle, 44–46 origins, 43–44 political institutions and, 47–48 in the Netherlands life cycle, 48–51 origins, 48 political institutions and, 51–52 Epema-Brugman, Meiny, 95

Landelijk Energie Komité (National Energy Committee, LEK), 49–50 Landelijke Stroomgroep Stop Kalkar (National Stop Kalkar Group), 49 Lega per l’Ambiente, 45–47, 85–90, 161–161 Liberal party (VVD), 5, 7, 56, 144 Limits to Growth. See Club of Rome report Lubbers, Ruud, 118, 151

Faber, Mient Jan, 55–56 Fanfani, Amintore, 116, 130–131 Female Movement (Movimento Femminile) DC’s, 119–120, 124–126 feminist movement life cycle, 39–41 origins of, 38–39 political institutions and, 41–43 UDI and, 41–43, 79, 82 Filippini, Giovanna, 72 Gamson, William, 2, 12–13 Gravamen, 147. See also Christen Democratisch Appèl Greens (Verdi), 133, 161 elections and, 8, 46–47, 74, 91

Kalkar demonstration, 49, 51, 95 international nuclear power station, 49–50, 94, 162 tax, 49, 94–95, 139 Komité Kruisraketten Nee (KKN), 55, 105–107

Montalto di Castro demonstration, 45, 134 nuclear factory, 45, 87 Moro, Aldo, 6–7, 115–117 Movimento di Liberazione della Donna (MLD) Natta, Alessandro, 87 Nebbia, Giorgio, 84 neutron bomb (N-bomb), 53, 103, 105–106, 144, 149–150 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 52, 54–55, 103–7, 143–147 nuclear energy in Italy, 45 DC and, 134–135, 137 mobilization against, 45 PCI and, 86–88–91, 163 referendum, 46, 88, 91

204 | Index

in the Netherlands, 49–50 CDA and, 139–143 decision-making process on, 50–51, 97–99, 102 mobilization against, 50, 100 PvdA and, 51, 93–99, 162 Occhetto, Achille, 76 Pacifistisch Socialistische Partij (PSP), 9, 49, 52, 95, 101, 105, 139 Partij van de Arbeid (Socialist Party, PvdA) ecology movement and, 91–103 election results, 17, 25 internal dissent, 95 intra-party organization, 68–69 new parties’ challenges to, 8 Nieuw Links (New Left), 69–70 peace movement and, 103–108 strategic dilemmas, 70, 102–103 Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian Communist Party, PCI) ecology movement and, 47, 82–91 election results, 6, 17, 24–25 exclusion from government, 6–7, 68 feminist movement and, 71–82 internal dissent, 69, 87 intra-party organization, 68–69 Lega per l’Ambiente and (see Lega per l’Ambiente) new parties’ challenges to, 8, 47 strategic dilemmas of, 17, 67–68 UDI and (see Unione delle Donne Italiane) Partito di Unità Proletaria (PdUP), 8 Partito Radicale (PR), 8 Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI), 8 party system change, 24–25 stability, 23 Paul VI, Pope, 131, 160 Pax Christi, 53, 105–106, 148, 150 PCI. See Partito Comunista Italiano

peace movement churches and, 53, 56, 104, 118, 147–148, 151, 160 life cycle, 53–55 origins of, 52–53 political institutions and, 55–57 Piano Energetico Nazionale (National Energy Plan), 86–88, 134 Piccoli, Flaminio, 116 political culture political parties and, 35, 47, 71, 82, 84, 161, 163 See also political parties: identity political participation new channels of, 1, 25–26, 169–170 in social movements, 9, 34 voting behaviour, 5, 23–25 See also cumulative involvement political parties change, 13, 22, 31–32 31 logics of, 32–37 and social movements (see political parties: responses to movements) identity, 16–17, 35–36, 159–160, 165 party functions, 26 Bartolini and Mair on, 10–11 institutional functions, 17 political linkage, 1–2, 171–173 party members internal mobilization of, 12, 36, 82, 95, 100, 146, 161–165 participation in social movement activities and (see cumulative involvement) responses to movements, 18, 29, 31, 158, 165–168 dimensions of, 13–14 formal and informal ties, 30–31, 158 operational definition, 12, 159 trajectories of, 10, 16, 71, 159, 165–166

Index

political representation crisis of, 11, 168 in parliament, 9 through political parties, 168, 171 political parties’ monopoly over, 2, 9, 28, 30, 169 See also political parties: party functions Politieke Partij Radikalen (PPR), 7, 9, 25, 49, 53, 92–93, 95, 101, 105–106, 119, 139 PvdA. See Partij van de Arbeid Seveso (accident), 44 Sjöblom, Gunnar, 165 social movements conceptions of democracy in, 25–28, 50–51, 55–56, 97, 106

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205

definition of, 15 democracy and, 2, 4, 11, 168–170 heterogeneity of, 37, 43, 45, 53, 90, 137 old, 27 Togliatti, Palmiro, 71 UDI. See Unione delle Donne Italiane Unione delle Donne Italiane (Union of Italian Women) relations with PCI, 38, 41, 72, 79 vote maximization, 16, 32–33, 35 Zaccagnini, Guido, 116–117