To what extent does Europeanization affect national political parties?

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The aim of the following paper is to analyse to which extent Europeanisation affects national parties at the example of the Italian 'Northern League', and to examine to which degree the impact of European integration has led to an organisational adaptation within the party. The analysis will be based on a set of hypotheses derived from recent research on the topic (cf. Carter et al. 2007, Poguntke et al. 2007). In the first part, I will provide a theoretical background on the meaning of 'Europeanisation' (chapter 2.1), on its significance for the Italian government system (chapter 2.2) and on its implication for national parties (chapter 2.3) in order to conceptualise the use of the term in the present paper. Subsequently, I will briefly describe the principal features of the party chosen for the case study with reference to its origin, development, electoral evolution, organisation and political discourse (chapter 3). In the fourth chapter, I will come to the analysis of the programmatic and organisational change of the party, examining its stance towards the European Union, the role of party leadership and EU-specialists, and the significance of collateral organisations. In the conclusion, I will summarize the findings of the analysis to discuss the viability of the hypotheses. After all, I will try to offer an outlook concerning the principal problems encountered during the analysis and offering consequently a critical evaluation on the sense of Europeanization of national political parties as a new research agenda.