Christian Democratic Parties

Piero Ignazi

Political families can be identified, following Maurice Duverger's approach of familles spirituelles , as parties that share the same ideological inspiration, by adopting Stein Rokkan's structural approach, which identifies parties according to their roots in social cleavages or in terms of institutional international networks, which connect ideologically similar parties in various countries. In the case of the Christian Democratic parties (hereafter CDPs), all these approaches provide fruitful hints in assessing the profile of this political family across countries, since the evolution of the ideological and social orientations coincided with changes in the international organization. This entry discusses some specific features of CDPs, their origins and their evolution over time, and their role in the present world. CDP is a specific label that implies a rather narrow focus—parties sharing the “Christian-democratic ideology.” However, the acronym CDP is often used more loosely. If we were to follow the structuralist and ideological However, ...

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