Europeanization and Political Parties in Accession Countries: The Political Parties of Cyprus

The process of what has been labeled Europeanisation has been considered by many scholars as one of the major challenges posed by the external environment on domestic politics. Political parties are forced to deal with it as one that constitutes a fundamental change to their operational context. Duverger sees the development of the EU as a factor that pushes parties at the national level to undertake a genuine revolution similar to the one that "transformed clubs of notables into mass organisations at the turn of the century". The purpose of this paper is to present some insights into how the Europeanisation process has influenced the four main political parties of Cyprus. The first part of this paper looks at patterns of change between continuity and innovation regarding the effect on programmatic policies and organisational structures. The second part addresses the cohesive impact that the process has had on the parties.