External Factors Determining the Electoral Strategies of Political Parties in Multi-Level Systems

Abstract

This article identifies the factors which determine the electoral strategies of political parties in multi-level systems and describes how they can influence these strategies. It particularly focuses on the two aspects: regionalisation and “nationalisation” (centralisation) of the strategies. In the first case, state-wide parties allow their regional branches to develop their own strategies, in the second one – the regional strategies are dominated by the strategies of statewide parties. The article shows the features of political systems that foster each of these cases, especially the way in which a multi-layered system is created (bottom-up, top-down), the relations between the state authorities at central and regional levels (connected, separated), electoral systems and cycles.