Green parties: from protest to power

A decade ago, it appeared that Green parties might fade as quickly as they had bloomed. Now, how ever, Green parties appear to have become fixtures in the party systems of most Western democracies, and the Greens participate in coalition governments at the national level in Germany, France, Belgium, and Finland, as well as at the regional and local level in most European states. The green challenge has entered a new phase.

The rise of the Greens as a political force was sustained by the unprecedented increase in concern for the environment. Environmentalism has been seen as one enduring manifestation of the "post-materialist" revolution in values that swept the Western ...