Regional party
A regional party is understood to be parties that compete exclusively in a certain region or district of a country and are accordingly programmatically oriented. The main reason for the emergence of regional parties lies in the influence of historically grown socio-cultural traditions in the regions ( cultural space ).
Germany
Already in the Weimar Republic there was a large number of regional parties , for example the Bavarian People's Party , which became the strongest political force in Bavaria in all free state elections, the German-Hanoverian Party , the Saxon Landvolk or the Bavarian Farmers' Union . Shortly after the end of the Second World War, regional parties were founded again on the territory of the Federal Republic. The most important to this day are the Bavarian Party and the South Schleswig voter association . The latter was founded as a party of the Danish minority and the national Frisians in the part of Schleswig (southern Schleswig).
The CSU represents a special case , which, in contrast to the other regional Christian Democratic predecessor parties, did not join the CDU due to the strong Bavarian patriotic forces. In the 1960s, regional patriotic movements, especially in southwest Germany, received a new impetus, which at the same time offered the Catholic working people a Christian-social alternative to the CDU, which was considered too business-friendly. The Baden People's Party acted on this line in Baden , the re-established Württemberg Farmers and Vineyards Association in Württemberg and the Saarland People's Party in Saarland .
At the beginning of the 21st century there was a new phase in which further regional parties were founded. Among others there are the Lusatian Alliance in Brandenburg and Saxony and the party The Frisians in Lower Saxony, which are also parties of a national minority. During this period, first the Bavarian party, then the Friesians, the SSW and the Lusatian Alliance joined the European Free Alliance . Since then there has been increased cooperation between these four parties.
Europe
Regional parties exist in almost all European countries. The most important are in Spain, Great Britain and Italy. The party landscape in Belgium is even structured exclusively on a regional basis. Many of these are organized in the European Free Alliance and together with the European Green Party to form the European Parliament , the Group of the Greens / European Free Alliance in the European Parliament . Other regional parties work nationally and internationally in parliamentary groups there (e.g. CSU and SVP in the EPP). Some regional parties such as the SNP in Scotland (Great Britain), the ERC in Catalonia (Spain), the PNC in Corsica (France), the STF in South Tyrol (Italy) and the PNV, EA and the Aralar in the Basque Country (Spain) join with open separatist programs. In Germany this only applies to the Bavarian party.
literature
- Lieven de Winter et al. a. (Ed.): Non-state wide parties in Europe. Barcelona 1995.
Individual evidence
- ^ Rudolf Heberle: Social Movements. An Introduction to Political Sociology. (1951), 2nd edition 1970. Chap. 15: The Totalitarian Movements and the New Political 'Orders'. P. 331 ff. (German: Main Problems of Political Sociology , 1967).