Does the Type of Federalism Make a Difference for Electoral Behavior? Comparing Spain and Germany

Abstract

In multi-level systems, voters have several opportunities to cast their ballots. This paper focuses on the relationship between electoral behavior at the regional and state levels. The paper assesses the ramifications of the way in which state-level and regional-level elections are linked for electoral behavior analyzing the cases of Germany and Spain. In Germany, regional (Lander) level elections are directly linked to state-level policy making as the parties composing the Lander governments constitute the upper house (Bundesrat), which has considerable policy-making powers. Thus, regional elections are more than just “second-order” elections, but have direct and explicit ramifications for state-level governance. In contrast, Spain lacks a powerful upper house representing the regional governments; regional-level elections are thus of less immediate consequence for state-level governance. This paper explores whether these institutional differences are reflected in voting behavior. In particular, the paper analyzes whether differences in electoral turnout in regional and statewide elections exist across the two cases. We hypothesize that given the higher significance of regional elections for state-level policymaking in Germany, voter turnout at regional-level elections should be more closely linked to voter turnout in statewide elections compared to Spain, where regional elections are of less import for state-level politics than in Germany. Our initial findings confirm this hypothesis.