Integrative Institutions and Mainstream Party Collapse

The comparative politics literature on parties in the rich democracies has long posited that integrative institutions like unions, churches, business associations, and social clubs play a protective role for participatory democracy. Jane Gingrich examines empirically whether the local-level organizational infrastructure that once linked voters to mainstream parties in Europe has changed since the 1990s. She further asks whether the presence of integrative institutions moderates the effect of the global financial crisis on the fate of center-left and center-right parties.

Jane Gingrich is Associate Professor of Comparative Political Economy at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow at Magdalen College. Her research focuses broadly on structural reforms to welfare and education systems. She is currently working on two large projects: The first examines the changing fates of social democratic parties, with a particular focus on the policy and political effects of attention to education as a political strategy. The second is a project which looks at the development of education systems in 22 countries in the post-war period.