РЕГИОНАЛИСТСКИЕ ПАРТИИ В СТРАНАХ ЕВРОПЫ: ФАКТОРЫ УСПЕХА

Abstract

At the end of the XX - beginning of the XXI centuries, regionalist parties have become reputable and influential political players in the European political landscape, however, the unevenness of their development in the cross-regional dimension raises the question of the factors that impact their success. The article aims to test the hypothesis developed in previous works based on other empirical data and using different ways of operationalizing variables. The study is carried out by the method of multiple linear regression on the empirical material of all 313 administrative-territorial units of European countries that fully correspond to the concept of "region". As a result of the analysis, it was found that the socio-cultural and historical specificity of the region has the most stable influence on the success of regionalist parties, while the socio-cultural one is of utmost importance. The level of economic development of the region is also statistically significant, but its effects are multidirectional. In the countries of "old" Europe, more developed regions tend to have regionalism, while in "new" Europe, on the contrary, regionalist parties are more successful in underdeveloped regions. The hypothesis regarding the positive impact of decentralization on the development of regionalist parties is not confirmed.