The Development of Dutch Christian Democracy

The European People’s Party (EPP) examined its values at the Bucharest Congress in October 2012. The result of this reassessment, the Bucharest Party Platform, affirmed the six core values of the EPP: the dignity of human life in every stage of its existence, freedom and responsibility, equality and justice, truth, solidarity and subsidiarity. These values are inspired by the Christian Democratic philosophy. Although today’s EPP includes also parties that do not consider themselves Christian Democratic, all member parties of the EPP draw inspiration from these values. After an exploration of the foundation of the EPP, this paper examines the party’s core values, tracing their origins to religious writings. The paper outlines how these values translate into the practical policies of the EPP: the party’s response to Europe’s economic crisis and addressing issues around free movement and access to social benefits in the EU. The paper demonstrates that values underpin the party’s policies but also that practical politics leaves room for interpretation.

While numerous studies demonstrate the critical role Christian Democratic Parties (CDPs) played in the development of the European Union (EU), a less-studied factor is the influence of CDPs on the domestic legislative response to European integration. 1 As more policy decisions take place at the European level rather than the national level, domestic legislatures have adjusted their oversight activities to encompass the European decision-making process. One of the ways domestic parliaments have responded to this challenge is by establishing new legislative committees that coordinate the oversight of European affairs (EACs). 2 Research has revealed a strong negative correlation between the percentage of a country's population that belongs to the Catholic

Historisch-Politische Mitteilungen, 2014

Democratization, 2013

The role of religion in politics is still understudied as a consequence of the so-called "secularization paradigm", which has been hegemonic in twentieth-century social sciences. Particularly, the role of religiosity within political parties has often been neglected for two reasons. First, there is a widespread normative prejudice about the role of religions in democratic and democratizing systems, where they are perceived to be illiberal and potentially anti-democratic actors. Second, there is the methodological difficulty of defining them with precision. This introduction to the special issue proposes the concept of the "religiously oriented party". This is a party whose policies are openly based on a specific interpretation of religious precepts, but it can also be a formally secular one with relevant sections of its manifesto dedicated to religious values, explicitly appealing to religious constituencies, and/or a party including significant religious factions. With this definition in mind, the introduction explores the relationship between religiously oriented parties and democratization. Finally, the introduction presents the articles included in the special issue.

Hans Kelsen was one of the most important legal thinkers of the twentieth century, and he is known for mounting an elaborate defence of liberal party democracy at a time when the latter was hardly the most popular form of regime. This article examines how Kelsen responded to two major political movements he experienced in his intellectual prime: political Catholicism, which he was confronted with in interwar Austria, and Christian Democracy, which became a hegemonic political force in Western Europe after World War II, when Kelsen was already in exile. The article reconstructs Kelsen's complex critique of these two religious movements and reflects on what we can learn from his arguments about current attempts to revive Christian political thought.

Since 1949, the CDU/CSU has been the dominant party grouping in the German party system yet has rarely occupied the political centre ground, as represented by the so-called median legislator within the Bundestag. This article seeks to explain the paradox of how a right of centre party faction came to dominate what has historically been seen as a consensual and centrist party system by drawing upon the conceptual tools of (1) formal coalition theory and (2) the notions of path-dependence, rules, norms, beliefs and standard operating procedures. The article argues there is little reason to believe that the pattern of dominance established over the last six decades is in any immediate danger.

democratization - special issue

Scholars of morality politics have argued that while secular parties politicise value-driven issues, Christian Democrats are more reluctant to do so. By investigating the individual cosponsoring of proposals on conscience issues in the German Bundestag between 2005 and 2009, we show that Christian Democrats use their freedom in this context and engage more frequently in politicising moral issues than deputies of secular parties. However, MP's engagement is also shaped by their religious denomination and the policy-specific issue salience. These findings enrich our understanding of the 'Christian-Democratic Phoenix' in modern times and shed new light on the motives that drive agenda setting of morality issues in the parliamentary arena.

Democratization, 2009

One of John Cornwall's contentions in his highly controversial book Hitler's Pope is that the Vatican conspired to remove any and all obstacles to the rise of the National Socialist regime, including the dismantling of the Catholic Center Party under Ludwig Kaas after attempts to arrive at a governing coalition with the National Socialists failed disastrously in July 1932. This paper will seek to address this claim, demonstrating that the Catholic Center Party was no puppet of the Vatican. Instead, a combination of events led to the ultimate internal collapse and external strangulation of the Center Party, both as the Nazi regime took hold and Catholic interests moved away from a politically-driven assertiveness in the public square even as the Vatican moved towards a more defensive and protective posture with regards to temporal power in the wake of the 1929 Lateran Treaty.