Page 78 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Concepts and Models

Table 3.2 Effective Number of Political Parties
and Index of Polarization, Average Figures
for 1945–89

Polarization Parties

France 5.1 4.8
Portugal ∗ 4.7 3.6
Finland 3.9 5.5
Italy 3.7 4
Greece ∗ 3.7 3.2
Netherlands 3.6 4.9
Germany 3.6 2.9
Spain ∗ 3.4 4
United Kingdom 3.3 2.7
Norway 3.2 3.9
Sweden 3.2 3.4
Austria 2.4 2.5
Denmark 2.4 4.8
Belgium 2.1 5
Switzerland 1.6 5.6
Ireland 0.9 3.1

Source: Lane and Ersson 1991: 184–5.
Democratic periods only.
∗
distance. ...” Polarized pluralism is characterized by the existence of sig-
nificant antisystem political parties. In Italy, for example, both Fascist
andCommunistpartieshavebeenimportantthroughoutthedemocratic
period, with the Communists typically getting 25 to 30 percent of the
vote. The political spectrum is wide, and parties tend to have distinct
and sharply opposed ideologies. In moderate pluralism tendencies to-
ward the center are stronger, ideological differences among the parties
are less great and often less distinct, and there is greater acceptance of
the fundamental shape of the political order.
The classic pattern of polarized pluralism to which Sartori referred
has existed only in a limited number of cases: Italy (in the period when
he developed the term), Fourth Republic France, and Weimar Germany
among them. But the underlying distinction between systems in which
ideological polarization and diversity are relatively great or more limited
is much more broadly useful, we believe, for understanding the devel-
opment of media systems. Table 3.2 shows differences among European

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