Politiikan pitkät syklit ja poliittisen kentän uusjako

Kirjoittajat

• Heikki Paloheimo

Abstrakti

In political life, there are waves that are much longer than electoral terms. From the 1950s to the 1970s there was a social democratic conjuncture in Western Europe. In most Western European countries, support for social democratic parties increased and social democratic parties got a stronger hold in governments of their countries. From the 1980s on, support for social democratic parties has been in decline in most Western European countries. Conventional centre-right parties have not much benefited from the decline of social democracy. In the present conjuncture, from the 1980s on, cleavages based on open international co-operation versus national orientation, multiculturalism versus monoculturalism, and environmentalism versus traditional economic growth, have been in rise. Internationalization of economic life has blurred the traditional cleavage between left and right. In a situation like this, support for environmental parties has gradually increased, new national and monocultural populist parties have been established in most Western European countries and support for these parties has boomed.