Länder Elections in German Federalism: Does Federal or Land-Level Influence Predominate?

Abstract

Elections take place in particular institutional contexts. In Germany, this institutional context is defined by the principles of federalism, more specifically, by those of cooperative federalism. Therefore the question arises what relative weight political factors at the federal and Land level have for citizens' electoral choices in Länder elections. This article examines this question by using a pooled dataset of Land election surveys conducted between 1990 and 2013. Logistic regressions of Land voting behaviour shows that party composition of the federal and Länder governments is an important context variable for the determination of the level-specific effects referring to both the federal and the Land level, following the logic of reward and punishment. In addition, the results show that the explanatory power of the federal and Land influence on Land voting decisions depends on the existence of a party identification, regional origin and the direction of the voting intention.