In the past, European election campaigns have been fought primarily at national level, organized and led by national parties. The European political parties had neither the financial nor the organizational means to lead pan‐European election campaigns. The June 2009 elections, however, highlighted a different and potentially significant trend: new EU regulations provided for the direct financing of European political parties, allowing them to campaign directly in the elections. It is argued that these developments could lead to the Europeanization of European elections campaigns. This article applies the concept of Europeanization to the election campaigns of the Party of European Socialists and three of its member parties: the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party and the German Social Democrats, creating an ideal‐type model of Europeanization. It concludes that in the three cases Europeanization is still in its infancy.

This article analyzes and compares the politics of European policy-making within the British Labour Party, the Parti Socialiste (PS) and the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) between 1997 and 2012. We know that party leaders have assumed much autonomy in the making of European policy, but, as with policy-making in any area, their autonomy is constrained and sometimes even questioned by other parts of the party. In order to establish how they are constrained, and what factors increase the level of constraint, this study explores the roles played by four party actors in the making of European policy: conferences, national executive committees, Members of Parliament and Members of the European Parliament. This article, which is based on over 35 interviews with EU experts from the three parties, confirms that European policy was generally made by the party leadership. Other party actors, however, were able to influence the leadership on a small number of occasions. The extent of their influence depended upon the polity, party, policy and politics.

The term ‘toxic masculinity’ (TM) was coined in the 1990s by sociologists and psychologists. It has since been appropriated by scholars and commentators interested in gendered behaviours, policies and outcomes in politics. However, despite the attention belatedly being paid to masculinities as part of that research, the analysis of, specifically, TM’s part in shaping political practices remains underdeveloped. This article proposes a move in this direction by designing a conceptual framework for exploring TM inside political parties. We adapt findings from the original TM literature to generate a series of indicators of TM spanning the vital realms of party political activity: its policy positions, accompanying discourse and the formal and informal practices – often behind the scenes – that express the party’s values broader ethos and outlook. We then test the framework using a paired comparison of two parties of the populist right where we might expect to see relatively high levels of TM: the Alternative for Germany and the UK Independence Party. Our empirical findings give us confidence that drawing on the concept of TM can provide us with novel insights into the interplay between masculinity and political party cultures. We also hope that it will inspire a significant body of new research into TM in political parties from across the party spectrum as well as globally.

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