Abstract
Why do political parties set an extreme or a more moderate position on the territorial dimension? Despite previous works have paid recent interest on the dynamics of the political competition on the territorial dimension, we know much less about the factors that lead to a centrifugal or a centripetal party competition on the same dimension. In this article, we offer a new way of understanding it: we argue that parties’ policy position on the decentralization continuum not only depends on the level of territorial decentralization, but also on the credibility of the institutional agreement established through the country’s constitutional rigidity. If the original territorial pact does not guarantee that the majority group will have its “hands tied” so that it does not reverse the territorial agreement, political parties will have incentives to adopt more extreme positions on the territorial dimension. We test this argument with a dataset covering around 460 political parties clustered in 28 European countries from 1999 to 2019 and by exploiting the fact that the 2008 economic crisis unleashed a shock on the territorial design. Our results confirm our expectations. We show that both the federal deal and the credibility of the institutional arrangement through constitutional rigidity are necessary conditions to appease parties’ demands on the territorial dimension. Our results have important implications for our understanding of how institutions shape political competition along the territorial dimension.
Highlights
Under what conditions political parties, regional and national, are in favour or against decentralization? Do institutions play a role in explaining why some regional and national political parties often set a policy position on the extreme of the territorial continuum, and others set a more moderate one? The conditions under which a country’s institutional design affects the behaviour of regional parties’ has been a traditional topic in the political science literature
The negative and statistically significant coefficient means that political parties, and especially regional political parties, moderate their demands on political decentralization when an economic shock occurs and the commitment problem is sealed
A low constitutional rigidity in countries with high levels of federalism is associated with more extreme policy positions on the territorial dimension
Summary
Under what conditions political parties, regional and national, are in favour or against decentralization? Do institutions play a role in explaining why some regional and national political parties often set a policy position on the extreme of the territorial continuum, and others set a more moderate one? The conditions under which a country’s institutional design affects the behaviour of regional parties’ has been a traditional topic in the political science literature. We know much less about what factors lead regional parties to adopt a more extreme or moderate position on the centralization-decentralization dimension–the territorial dimension. This article aims at making a contribution to the literature on party competition by putting forward a new way of understanding why political parties decide to (de)emphasize their position on Negative Shocks and Parties’ Territorial Demands the territorial dimension. A country can decide to distribute the power as much as possible (advanced federalism) or concentrate it on a single or a few poles (complete centralization). The particular form it takes is set in the territorial agreement (agreed by the parts or imposed by one/some of them). The majority group wishes to reach a stable agreement that seals off territorial demands, especially any secessionist attempt
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
