Regional Nationalist Parties and Constitutional Change in Parliamentary Democracies: A Framework for Analysis

Abstract

While existing research on the ‘nationalities question’ has focused predominantly on the institutionalization of the territorial cleavage or the structural factors that drive the process of constitutional change, scant attention has been paid to evaluating the influence of regional nationalist parties that voice demands for recognition and self-rule. This article develops a two-stage framework for analysis that focuses on the different avenues through which regional nationalist parties set the agenda and on the process of political bargaining between partisan actors that produce constitutional change. The framework emphasizes the significance of the electoral conjuncture, a political system's institutional arrangements and the ideology of partisan actors in determining the power relationship between regional nationalist and mainstream parties in different arenas, as well as in conditioning the likelihood of constitutional change. While anecdotal evidence from West European states is produced to illustrate the argument, the framework can be exported fruitfully elsewhere.