Andrea B. Haupt, "Parties' Responses to Economic Globalization: What is Left for the Left and Right for the Right?" Party Politics, 16 (January, 2010), 5-27. [Available at http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/vol16/issue1/.]

First paragraph:
Macro-economic instability during the 1930s produced a broad consensus during the post-World War II decades that favoured state involvement in the economy. Keynesian policies promoted redistributive, managed capitalism and generous welfare-state arrangements. In the international arena, the Bretton Woods institutions were designed to foster a stable and free-flowing international trading environment. For several decades, as rapid economic growth created the necessary economic resources for welfare-state expansion, the Keynesian welfare-state model was highly successful in combining economic efficiency with equity and solidarity (Lindbeck, 2001). Growing welfare-state entitlements, high rates of growth and seemingly 'frozen' party systems constituted the defining features of many advanced democracies (Kitschelt et al., 1999). However, these circumstances have changed considerably in recent decades, as the 1970s witnessed slowed growth and the rise of economic globalization. For example, in Western Europe, trade openness - the share of imports and exports as a percentage of GDP - rose from 35 percent in the early post-war period to almost 50 percent by 1990 (Oatley, 2004: 52). Economic globalization, which is typically conceptualized as increased volumes of trade, direct foreign investment and capital mobility, has changed the degree to which domestic economies are insulated from international economic developments. A larger segment of society, in particular labour, has become vulnerable to the competitive terms of an interdependent international economy. In addition, within international institutions like the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an ideological shift towards neoliberalism arguably has made managed capitalism less acceptable.

Figures and Tables:

Table 1. All parties' ideological shifts in response to the international economy. Results for two alternative measures are presented: A. 'left-right shifts on economic policy' and B. 'left-right shifts overall'

Table 2. Left-wing versus right-wing parties' ideological shifts in response to the international economy

Last Paragraph:
In summary, these research results lend support to the more recent literature on the effects of globalization (e.g. Burgoon, 2001; Garrett, 1998; Swank, 2002), which points to complex and variegated responses to globalization. The findings also invite further inquiries; for example, into the relationship between parties' ideological positioning and national politicaleconomic institutions. Furthermore, qualitative studies of the decisionmaking processes of party elites are likely to provide further insight into parties' responses to globalization. In the interim, the research results reported in this article facilitate an improved understanding of the linkages between the growing economic openness and party behaviour.