Are green political parties more post-materialist than other parties?

Abstract

Among other social and political changes, post-materialist theory anticipated the need to strengthen democracy in political institutions in post-industrial societies. This change in political values would mean that in addition to growth in post-materialist values, parties would be pushed to take an alternative view of politics that would entail greater assimilation of democratic procedures. This paper partially and empirically tests the validity of this explanation in four European party systems. The Greens are the focus, since they are considered the parties that best fit the post-materialist profile. In particular, the paper aims to ascertain whether the Greens display a significantly better positioning in respect to support for democracy and the congruence of their voters than other parties, as theory leads us to believe. The explanation of higher levels of party congruence is also expected to be related to post-materialist party features. The findings of this research did not show enough evidence to validate our theoretical expectations.