[Review] Simon Lightfoot (2005) Europeanizing social democracy?: the rise of the party of European Socialists

The Europeanization of political parties has been mooted but not as yet proven. Robert Ladrech set out some time ago what we should look out for. Peter Mair took a good look at the evidence a while back and did not find much to write home about, even if a more recent review article penned by him indicates he remains more than open to persuasion. And a team based at Keele University in the UK has been working on the detail for some time. Simon Lightfoot’s full length empirical study of social democratic attempts to transcend the national suggests that the search may not be wholly in vain, but that the holy grail – a party family that is truly integrated from top to bottom – is still a very, very long way off.