ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the determinants of factional breakaways in Italy, France and Germany. The results confirm the expectations of the theoretical model showing that office, policy and electoral motives influence the factions’ decision to break away. In view of that, consensual dynamics can reduce the likelihood of a party’s split. Other elements, such as intra-party democracy, the electoral system and party system competitiveness (in Italy) or the direct election of the party leader (in France), alter the likelihood of a split by affecting the leaders’ interests in unity or cohesion and therefore his attitudes toward compromising. Based on the model presented herein, this chapter also performs a postdiction to predict recent party fissions using out-of-sample data related to the People of Freedom party, in 2010–2011, and to the Italian Democratic Party in 2015 and 2017. Analogously, the chapter sheds light on the recent wave of splits involving the French Socialist Party in 2017–2018. Additionally, the future perspectives on party unity in the German Christian Democratic Union and the Social–Democratic Party are also discussed.
