mension in party-government relations; or new linkages with European actors beyond the national political system. Parties adapt to their environments, just as most organizations when presented with institutional change. The nature of the environmental change, in this case, external inputs into domestic political systems, provokes a variety of reconfigurations in structure and behavior. These range from allowing national executives less scrutiny from parliaments, sharing responsibility over different policy areas, and relinquishing aspects of economic policy to supranational actors such as the European Central Bank. All of these alter to some extent the terrain upon which political parties operate, though in usually subtle rather than dramatic fashion. Nevertheless, the deepening of the EU is increasingly presenting parties with a governmental vocation a challenge in terms of conceptualizing government policy as purely a self-contained national exercise. Mair s remarks concerning the apparent growing lack of competition between parties may contribute to the overall de-politicization of national politics. So the EU matters in national party politics, although this varies across member state Assuming that parties-as-organizations respond to changes in their environments, we should expect to witness varied responses to the impact of the EU on domestic politics, ie, Europeanization. By presenting five areas for investigation, with many of them inextricably linked, one ought to be able to systematically compare party responses across political systems, bearing in mind of course that each political system represents a bundle of national-specific factors that condition party responses. These responses may range from referenda traditions, two-party or multi-party systems, the presence of Euro-sceptic public opinion, the level of economic development of the member state, coalition dynamics, etc. Yet these are the very factors that comparativists must always pay close attention to when engaging in the comparative enterprise. The Europeanization of political parties should not present an insurmountable obstacle in this respect.
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