Ethnic and Regionalist Parties in Western Europe: A Party Family?

Parties that defend the interest of one or a few ethnic groups and/or regions are, despite their differences, recurrently grouped together into a single party family. This article systematically applies the multidimensional framework offered by Mair and Mudde in order to provide an up-to-date inventory of the universe of ethnic and regionalist parties in Western Europe and assess whether they form a family. The evidence indicates that although the ethnic and regionalist family appears to be somewhat less coherent than more established families, there are clear similarities between the proposed (core) member parties. More specifically, the common denominators that distinguish the members of the ethnic and regionalist party family are their rather similar origins, sociologies, and policy orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]