edia, by partisans, and by scholars, attention described as disproportionate. The media has described the rise of the Greens as occurring because of changing social structures and shifting value priorities:
From this viewpoint, a new educated middle class has been emerging throughout Western Europe, that has been socialized under conditions of relative peace and prosperity. Its value orientations no longer fit the traditional left-right continuum (3).
Frankland and Schoonmaker cite a number of reasons for the growth of the Green Party in West Germany. Some scholars see the Greens as a protest party, they note, while others have seen the Greens as a generational phenomenon, and in this view the core supporters are a new educated class following its own material self-interest. Another view combines the first two and holds the Greens as representing a narrow constituency
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