POLITICAL PARTIES IN MULTI-LAYERED SYSTEMS
★
Kris Deschouwer
Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium
Abstract
The language used to analyse party behaviour is
intrinsically single-level in nature. Recent processes
of institutional reform undertaken across Europe –
prompting the development of meaningful party
competition at the non-statewide level – have had
little influence in altering this discourse. There is
therefore an urgent need to develop nuanced frameworks suitable for understanding party activity in
different electoral arenas. Most of the literature on
party behaviour in multi-layered systems thus far has
been very much case-oriented (one party, one country, one region) or has focused rather superficially
The familiar language to describe and analyse the
behaviour of political parties is – often only
implicitly – a single-level language. That is not too
surprising. Indeed, parties and party systems came
into being as the result of a process of boundary
closure, of the formation of national states and of a
more or less simultaneous territorialization and
democratization of politics. Major boundarycrossing societal conflicts were domesticated and
consequently ‘frozen’ in national systems of partypolitical competition (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967;
Bartolini, 1998; Flora et al., 1999).
The institutional environment in which political
parties have to function today, however, is becoming
to an increasing extent, and in varying ways, multilayered. One of the reasons for this is the
politicization of the European level of policy
making. This has resulted in increased attention to
public attitudes and thus voting behaviour in
elections to the European Parliament. The
increasing importance of the European Union has
led to the labelling of the European system as
‘multi-level’ and to the rapid development of a wide
body of research attempting to understand political
activities and behaviour occurring in a system in
European Urban and Regional Studies 10(3): 213–226
0969-7764[200307]10:3; 213–226;035822
only on the electoral dimension.This article explores
the conceptual problems that arise in analysing such
questions, suggesting some solutions for identifying
the most appropriate unit of analysis and for
identifying and eventually measuring aspects of the
multi-layered political systems where we might
expect to see some direct effects on the functioning
of political parties.
KEY WORDS ★ multi-layered systems ★ political
parties
which levels interact in complex ways. The
literature on multi-level governance is, however,
very much a party-free zone. The focus is on
decision making and on implementation, and
generally on non-party actors. One of the reasons
for this is obviously the lack of real party politics at
the European level. Even if the EU might be treated
theoretically as one single – though multi-layered –
political system (Hix, 1999), the role of political
parties in the EU remains rather limited. Probably
the strongest argument against the idea that the EU
can be seen as a political system that can be
compared with other (national) systems is the
absence of party politics and especially of party
government.
Analysis of European elections has nevertheless
generated a number of interesting concepts and
ideas that can be very useful in the search for a more
general conceptual language for dealing with party
activities in multi-layered systems. The notion of
‘second-order elections’, that was coined in direct
reference to the first European elections, has found
its way into more general and comparative
approaches (Heath et al., 1999).
A second reason for increasing attention to party
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behaviour in multi-layered settings is undoubtedly
the kind of administrative developments taking
place in a number of European national states. The
regionalization processes in Belgium, in Spain and
recently also in the UK have created new multinational and also non-symmetrical regional and/or
federal-type states.1 Parties and party systems differ
between the regions and therefore also between the
regions and the higher state level. Parties in these
states are thus confronted with a very peculiar
structure of opportunities, which has naturally
attracted the attention of a number of scholars.
Regional elections have become an interesting
research area, and the relations between regional
and national elections are generating questions
relating to the strategic behaviour of parties in this
new institutional environment. Most of the work
done here follows a case-study approach, referring
to one country or one region, but this can also be a
good source of inspiration for identifying more
general patterns for theory building and for
comparative analysis.
The latter is indeed the aim of this article. At
this moment in time, we do not possess welldeveloped conceptual language that would allow us
to set refined research questions that might enable
us to systematically analyse political parties in a
multi-layered political system. This article explores
the conceptual problems that arise in this respect,
and suggests some solutions for identifying the
correct unit of analysis and for identifying and
eventually measuring aspects of the multi-layered
political system where we might expect to see some
direct effects on the functioning of political parties.
As was said above, interest in this phenomenon is
increasing. This offers us two related but distinct
sources of inspiration. The developments at the
European level and the national regionalization
processes are indeed two quite different phenomena,
especially in view of the absence of classical party
politics in the EU polity. The kind of dynamics
developing in parties and the way in which they
respond to the multi-layered institutional structure
can be different in both cases. Probably the national
level in regional states is the most interesting and
fruitful area where the changing patterns of party
politics can be explored. One can expect dual
interactions here with the national level influencing
the regional level and vice versa. In the European
story the most interesting focus is on the way in
which the European level (in a broader sense than
only European party politics) is impacting on the
domestic (national and regional) patterns of party
competition (Ladrech, 1994; Guyomarch, 1995;
Mair, 2000).
The (potential) development of party politics in
the regional states will thus be my first and most
important reference point. The article will, however,
also point at dynamics that are more typical for the
interaction between the European and the national
level. For the sake of clarity (and of parsimony) I
will limit my reasoning to the interaction between
only two levels of government. The European
literature on multi-level governance takes as a
starting point the development of a third level – the
region – and concludes from this that a very new
type of polity has seen the light of day (Hooghe,
1996; Marks and Hooghe, 2001). These three-way
interactions are indeed interesting and also highly
relevant for the functioning of political parties. It is,
though, extremely difficult to produce a
parsimonious theoretical framework for dealing with
three levels at once. Limiting the conceptual
exploration to only two levels is of course too easy a
way out of the problem. We should keep in mind
that interactions in practice can occur between more
than two levels, and Europeanization means an
impact on both the national and the regional (and
eventually also lower) levels.
The unit of analysis: parties or party
systems?
The adding of one or more levels to the classic
single-level political systems that have guided our
conceptual language for the analysis of parties and
party systems poses serious conceptual problems.
The first one is the unit of analysis. In a single-level
system it is easy to identify the party system (the
interactions between the parties of that political
system) and easy to identify the party actors within
it. With more than one level, things become very
much more complex.
In Figure 1 I present a simple map of a two-level
political system with four ‘regions’. At both levels
we can imagine parties being active. I have given
them numbers per party or party family. P1 might
for instance refer to the social-democratic party at
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DESCHOUWER: POLITICAL PARTIES
State level
Regional level
P1
P1
P2
P3
|
P1
P2
P2
P4
215
P3
|
P1
P3
P4
|
P1
P2
P5
Figure 1 Parties and party systems over two levels
the state level and to its four regional units. In that
case P1 is a single party. If P1 refers to a party
federation, it consists of four member parties of the
same ideological family, rather than a single party.
This way of presenting the parties actually assumes
that we are able to make these classifications and
that they are meaningful. The problem is not so
much the identification of ‘social democracy’ or of
any other meaningful label, but the implicit choice
that is being made for a unit of analysis. If we say a
party and its ‘units’, we assume that there is indeed
one single party, and that the units are the
composing parts of the national party. Empirical
reality can be very different. We will come back to
this later.
In Figure 1 we can see that there are a number of
possible interactions between party actors. All the
possible interactions should be identified. There are
five different types:
1. Vertical interactions within parties: relations
between P1 at the federal level and all the
regional units of P1.
2. Vertical interactions between parties: the actions
undertaken by P2 at the central level (e.g.
forming a coalition with P3) might have direct
effects on the strategies to be chosen by P1 in one
of the regions. That can of course also be the
other way round. If the Volksunie joins the
regional government in Flanders, in a coalition
with Greens, Socialists and Liberals, while it
stays out of the same coalition at the federal level,
the party is faced with a number of difficult
strategic choices. The federal government might
engage in institutional changes that are criticized
by the Volksunie as being too limited, while their
partners in the regional government support the
institutional reform. This example is not a
virtual one: the Volksunie indeed broke apart in
2001 as a result of exactly this kind of strategic
discussions.
3. Horizontal interactions between parties of one
system: these are the normal or classical
interactions of a party system, that can be
measured with the classical indicators referring
to number of parties, polarization, Left–Right
orientation, volatility, etc.
4. Horizontal interactions within parties between
systems: the actions undertaken by P1 in the first
region might affect the strategies of P1 in one of
the other regions. If the Austrian Christian
Democrats enter a coalition with the populists of
the FPÖ, other Christian Democratic parties in
Europe are facing new challenges and choices
(and the European-level organization is also
affected – another example of Type 2). These
horizontal interactions occur and become
relevant because the higher level is a meaningful
level of decision making, really pulling the
regions together into one political system,
creating some sort of common political
community. European integration is a good
example of the way in which formerly more
isolated national parties and party systems are
being mutually affected by what happens in other
countries. The same should be the case in
countries going through a process of
regionalization, since one can assume that the
existing common political community still
survives. (Variations are of course possible, and
the extreme case of the total breakdown of the
common community is not unthinkable.)
5. Horizontal interactions between parties: since
the party systems belong to one common
political system, this interaction can also be
conceived as becoming more frequent and more
relevant. The relations between Plaid Cymru and
the Labour Party in Wales might for instance
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have an influence on the relations between the
Scottish Labour Party and the SNP.
These five possible types of interactions could be
used to define in general a multi-layered party
system. The characteristics of such a party system
would then be the properties of all these relations,
and also the differences and similarities between the
party systems at one level and between levels. If we
furthermore take into account that these relations
might differ between the electoral, the
parliamentary and the governmental arenas, this
multi-layered party system would probably be the
least parsimonious concept ever produced.
Complexity becomes so huge that nothing
meaningful can be said any more.
There is, however, a way to simplify the model,
or at least to reduce the challenge of trying to say
something about everything. If we look at all these
possible interactions, we realize that some are more
familiar than others. The third category is, as we
said above, the normal category of interactions of
parties in a party system. Differences between these
systems – both horizontally and vertically – do have
to be looked at, however, because they can explain
why parties behave differently on this or on that
level, in this or in that region.
The first and the fourth categories are also a bit
more familiar. They deal in fact with vertical
relations inside political parties. They thus refer to
intra-organizational characteristics of political
parties. Rather than belonging to the party system,
these relations belong to party organization. What
we witness here is in fact a strange and disturbing
blurring of the difference between parties and party
systems. This is, though, a consequence of our
decision to treat a party of the same family being
active at different levels as one single party unit. As
was already said above, this is a theoretical
assumption that needs to be qualified. It strongly
depends on the internal cohesion and vertical
integration of that party family. We would probably
not hesitate to treat a Land section of the German
SPD as belonging to the federal SPD, and analyse its
vertical relations as belonging to the internal
organization of that federal party. Yet the European
level or party organization is much looser (or
ultimately even too loose to qualify as a real party),
which means that the relations between SPD in
Germany and the other Social-Democratic parties
are actually relations between parties rather that
within the European-level Socialist Party. That is
not only because the European Socialists are weakly
integrated (other families have even looser ties), but
because of the nature of the European political
system itself. It is itself less integrated than
‘national’ federal-type systems (though Belgium or
Switzerland might come closer to the European
degree of integration). The unit of analysis can thus
not be defined in an abstract way. It depends on
where we are and on what we look at. We will
therefore need to identify criteria with which we can
make a clear difference between intra-party and
inter-party relations. We will have to search for
indicators that can tell us where the core of a party
can be found.
The second and fifth type of relations that we
identified above are ‘new’, in the sense that they are
typical and unique for multi-layered systems:
interactions between parties are not confined to one
single level of competition. These relations are
theoretically the most challenging. It is here that we
should try to imagine what the relations might look
like and which variables can influence their nature.
The core of the party: the level of
reference
In the previous paragraph we were confronted with
the fact that party and party system were not always
easy to disentangle as the vertical relations between
party units (thus within parties) can also be
interpreted as relations between autonomous party
actors. The fundamental question is: where exactly
is the party? Is it at the federal level or is it at the
regional level? There is obviously, as has already
been pointed out, some empirical variation to be
seen. In what follows I try to imagine a number of
indicators that might allow us to identify the core of
a party, its central headquarters, serving as a
reference for the other sections. We should certainly
not assume that the highest level (in terms of
territory) is naturally the core level. I have already
mentioned the European party federations as actually
less important than the national party organizations,
but other non-typical hierarchies, especially in very
decentralized countries, can certainly occur.
Though it again increases complexity, we should
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DESCHOUWER: POLITICAL PARTIES
not assume that there is one single and unique core
level for a party. For the party system in general it is
clear that there is no unique core level. First, this
core level might be different, depending on the
point one is observing from. If there is a region or a
country with a very distinct nature, its core level
might be the region or the country itself, while for
the other substates of the multi-layered polity the
central level is the most crucial point of reference.
Second, the point of reference in a multi-layered
system might not be the same for all the parties. A
party focusing on only one region and not engaging
in federal politics has a different point of reference
than a party that is present and active in all the
substates. Third, the core level might not be the
same for the electoral, parliamentary and
governmental arena.
Election results
There are many different ways and many different
indicators that could be used to identify the core or
the centre of a political party in multi-layered
systems. The first is the interpretation of election
results. The reading and interpretation of results
gives an idea of the place where the political will of
the people is being aggregated, and as such it tells
something about the societal context in which
parties act and in which they see and place
themselves. In elections for the European
Parliament, the electoral results are always
presented per country and per national party (in
Belgium it is done per language group, as for other
elections). At the European level the votes are never
aggregated. The main reason for that is that it is not
clear which parties can be considered as belonging
to one European core party. At the European level
the results are aggregated in seats, only after the
complex puzzle of putting national parties in
European parliamentary groups has been
completed. This aggregation furthermore always
changes during the term, because of the constant
reshuffling (especially on the conservative and
Christian-Democratic side) of group memberships.
What we have here is an indicator that can tell us
whether the larger territory is a meaningful level of
party competition. The European example is
obvious, but Belgium is another very striking
example. Election results, both for national and
regional elections, are always aggregated at the level
of the language communities. Yet Belgium is a very
particular case, in the sense that parties operate at
only one level: there is actually no Belgium-wide
party system. Unilingual parties compete within
their own community for the seats available in and
for that community in the regional, national and
European parliaments (Deschouwer, 1997). Another
interesting example is Switzerland, where electoral
competition also occurs at the cantonal level and
between cantonal parties. These are, however,
aggregated at the federal level in federal party
organizations. Elections results have meaning at
both levels, but the importance of the lower cantonal
level is evident.
The indicator only works for elections at the
higher level. Then it can tell us whether that higher
level is more meaningful than the regional one. For
regional elections, of course, the results are read and
interpreted at the regional level. Regional results,
though, can have consequences for the higher level:
they can be seen as a test for an upcoming national
election, or even – as in Germany – affect the power
balance in the second house of the parliament. Yet
this is already taking us further in the direction of
the interpretation of party strategies and of the
meaning of the interaction between levels. Both
aspects are, however, closely related, and depend on
other variables. We will also discuss this below, but
we can already note here that when regional (or
local) elections are being held simultaneously (i.e. in
all regions on the same day), the way in which the
results are read can again be meaningful. If the
aggregation matters, the lower level can be seen as a
second-order level, and thus as a confirmation of
the fact that the national party is the core.
Party discipline
A second possible indicator for identifying the core
level is the degree of internal party discipline, or
more concretely voting discipline, in the party
groups (Hadley et al., 1989). We assume here that
discipline will be higher at the core level, because
that is the level where more is at stake. In doing so
we are also measuring – as with the other indicators
– at the same time a characteristic of both the
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political system in general and the political parties in
particular. In the European Parliament party
discipline is lower than at the national level, even if
general patterns of voting behaviour by MEPs can
be identified. The European level, because of its
peculiar role and because of the peculiar (i.e. very
loose) nature of the parties, does not come near the
national level for the degree of party discipline.
The Belgian case is again a bit awkward. Party
discipline is high at both levels, indicating the nonhierarchical relationship between the levels that are
separated but intimately linked. In Switzerland the
level of party discipline is clearly higher at the level
of the cantons. The federal parties lack the central
organization to impose clear discipline on the
behaviour of the MPs. Measuring party discipline
actually also means looking at the level in the party
where the power is, where actions of individual MPs
can be steered and – most importantly – ultimately
also sanctioned. The availability of these sanctions is
thus a very similar indicator of the centrality of a
level. One of these is the selection of candidates.
Selection of candidates
A third indicator of the centrality of a party level
could thus be the place where candidates are
selected for the next election. Again this is an
indicator that can give an idea whether the higher
level is indeed a more central one. If the higher level
interferes in the candidate selection at the lower
level, or if the lower level can dictate its will for
higher-level elections, that level is clearly the core.
The strength and validity of this indicator varies,
unfortunately, with the electoral system. If the
national level functions with national lists (which is
exceptional), the indicator is pretty clear. But if
national elections require the formation of lists at a
lower level, the fact that the constituency level
decides fairly autonomously does not necessarily
mean a loss of centrality for the central party
organization.
The European example is again fairly clear:
candidate selection does not occur at the European
level, since the European parties themselves are not
really participating in the elections. The centrality
of the national level (in the Belgian case the
language group level) is then obvious.
Political careers
Career patterns can offer an interesting insight into
the hierarchies of a political system and of its party
system. Indeed, the analysis of career patterns in
multi-layered political systems is a new and
developing research area (e.g. Stolz, 2001). The
question that might be relevant for us is: which level
is perceived as the highest prize in a political career?
That would then be the core level. We assume that
parties recruit the top personnel from the
hierarchically lower levels to fill up the places at the
higher level (which can of course be the region).
Evidence from federal systems shows quite some
variation in career and recruitment patterns. In
Germany the federal chancellor often comes from
below, while in Belgium there is so far no clear
career pattern to be seen, but a lot of shifting
between levels and in both directions (Deschouwer,
2000; Fiers, 2001).
It does make the matter more complex, but there
can be differences between parliamentary and
governmental careers with respect to the perceived
value of a position at one of the levels. Being a
member of the European Parliament is not a very
high prize, but a position in the European
Commission is very high indeed, and can be put at
least at the same level as membership of a national
government.
Money and staff
A fifth possible indicator is the level where the
financial resources and the staffs of a party are
concentrated (Katz, 1999). Again this is intimately
linked to the nature of the political system itself.
Political parties in most countries are very
dependent on state funding, and one could try to see
where the most important funding flows into the
party. The latter is not just a function of the system
itself, since the parties themselves decide on how
and where they are subsidized by the state. The
decisions they take in this respect can thus be an
indicator of what they perceive as the core level for
their own functioning.
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SYSTEMIC FEATURES
TYPE OF PARTY
PARTY BEHAVIOUR
Figure 2 The framework for analysis
What is at stake?
The framework for analysis
This is the notion used by Reif (1980) to define
second-order elections. European elections are
second-order because there is no government to be
chosen. Therefore the stakes are lower, the election
is less important and gets meaning from the more
important level for which it can be a ‘test’ election.
This approach is, however, somewhat limited, and
only applicable to systems in which elections – even
at the national level – are meaningfully linked to
government formation. That might be the case in
majoritarian or in bipolar systems, but certainly not
in multi-polar multi-party systems. There the
election can be about which will be the biggest
party, which then can choose its coalition partners.
The direct election of the head of the executive – at
the local, regional or national level – might also
determine the stakes of the election. In sum, the
idea that some elections are more important than
others needs further elaboration. Heath et al. (1999)
also suggest that second-order is a matter of degree:
local elections are less second-order than European
elections.
Using these kinds of indicators should at least
help us to identify our units of analysis in a more or
less explicit and informed way. Once we know where
the party actors are – the core level of a party family
– we can move to the analysis of the interactions
between this core level (to be seen as the level of
reference) and the other levels. We did, however, see
that when trying to identify the core of the party,
several of the suggested measurements were directly
affected by the characteristics of the political system
itself. A framework for analysis of party behaviour in
multi-layered systems should therefore take very
explicitly into account that the system – the
institutional environment – both shapes the party
and its potential behaviour.
Parties make choices in their competition with other
parties in the same system. This includes party
actors at different levels (vertical interactions) and
party actors in other party systems at the same level
(horizontal interactions). As a very general way of
looking at these choices, we suggest the framework
in Figure 2.
This means actually that a party choice or
strategy is a function of the interaction of two
variables (or sets of variables). The first is the party
type. Different kinds of parties have different goals
and opt for different strategies. This can be analysed
in a very broad sense (e.g. Müller and Strøm, 2000),
but for our purpose the type of party refers rather to
its position in the multi-layered system. That
explains the double arrow between ‘type of party’
and ‘systemic features’. For the latter, we also
suggest a limited and specific meaning. Not all
aspects of the political system are relevant. Only
those that are directly related to its multi-layered
aspect can provide clues for both the way in which a
party is positioned (on this see further below) and
for the way in which the system itself offers or limits
opportunities for action.
A party typology for multi-level polities
There are many typologies of parties available.
There is no urgent need to develop yet another one.
But for the analysis of parties in a multi-layered
system, a number of characteristics might be
important enough to highlight them explicitly. The
typology or classification of party actors should
allow for a differentiation in the kind of problems
with which it can be confronted and in the ways in
which it can or will deal with it.
Party ideology is a first and important element to
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be looked at. This is rather obvious. Regional parties
especially (see the further classification below) show
some variation in the degree to which they claim
fuller autonomy or even outright independence for
their region. It goes without saying that their
position affects the strategic choices that they will
make, since their position affects also the attitudes
of the other parties and therefore the kind of
competition in the system, both at the regional and
at the national level.
Regionalism is not the only relevant ideology
that can be looked at. We can see that in general the
socialist parties in federal countries defend a higher
degree of centralization of policy making (especially
in social and economic matters), which also means
that they will build more strongly integrated federal
party organizations. This actually applies most
clearly to the ‘classical’ federations and their Leftist
parties; more recently, in the newer federal-type
countries, the Leftist parties (Labour in the UK, the
Left in France, the PSOE in Spain) seem to be more
inclined actively to defend claims for
decentralization and regional autonomy. This is, at
the least, an element of variation that deserves to be
explored in more detail.
Next to the ideological dimension, the position
of a party actor in the multi-layered system can be
used as a way to classify the parties and to organize
the thinking about their possible strategic choices.
The following party types can then be defined:
• A regional section of a party that has its core at a
higher territorial level (e.g. the Land-level parties
in Germany, the Labour Party in Scotland, the
regional branches of the Spanish PSOE, PP, IU,
etc.).
• A regional section of a party that is itself the
core. This ‘section’ is thus a party in itself (e.g.
the cantonal parties in Switzerland; the nationalstate parties in the EU).
• A regional party that has no organization at a
higher territorial level and that: (a) also
participates in elections and conceivably
government formation at the higher level (e.g.
the Catalan CiU, the Basque PNV, the CSU in
Bavaria, the parties in Belgium); (b) is only active
at this lower level.
• A party at the national level that has only loose
ties with the party organizations at the lower
levels (e.g. the Swiss federal parties, the
European party organizations). These parties are
not the cores of their organization. They could
also be labelled party federations, to make clear
where exactly the party is to be situated. Such a
party can be present in all or in some of the
regional party systems.
• A party at the national level that is a wellintegrated federation of the party sections at the
lower levels (the Austrian federal parties, the
German federal parties). It can be present in all
or in only some of the regional party systems.
Systemic features: federalism
The shape of the system influences the positions of
the parties and the kind of choices they can or want
to make. The general idea is that a multi-layered
system offers more and more complex possibilities
for political parties to play their role (Lancaster,
1999). The way in which a multi-layered system
differs from a single-layer system in this respect is,
however, not that easy to pin down. One way of
exploring the matter is by looking at what has been
said so far about parties and party systems in federal
or federal-type polities in general.
Parties are engaged in the recruitment of
political personnel, they participate in elections and
seek governmental power, they mobilize voters, refer
to communities and identities, defend or contest
policies. If they govern, they engage in
intergovernmental relations, both horizontally
(between regions) and vertically (between region
and federal level). Or to put it differently: political
parties are one of the very important political actors
that produce the linkages between the political
institutions. Whereas in a unitary state the linkage
function of parties can be mainly situated in the
interaction between state and society (Lawson,
1980), their role in federal polities is more complex.
They have to adapt to the institutions, while their
actions and the differences between levels also affect
the way in which the federal institutions can
function. One would expect that this special role of
parties in federal polities has been extensively
described and analysed. Very surprisingly this is not
the case. There is no conceptual language available
to grasp the role of political parties in complex and
multi-layered polities.
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DESCHOUWER: POLITICAL PARTIES
There are certainly a number of interesting and
inspiring case-studies on Germany (e.g.
Lehmbruch, 1976; Gabriel, 1989; Jeffery, 1999),
Canada (Chandler, 1987; Dyck, 1996; Thorburn,
1996), Switzerland (Girod, 1964), Spain (Hamann,
1999) or Belgium (Deschouwer, 1997; 1999), but
these are very much free-standing. There is some
literature on voting behaviour and on party
identification (e.g. Uslaner, 1989; Cotter and
Stovall, 1992; Stewart and Clarke, 1998). Of course
most analyses of parties and party systems in federal
states do mention the federal logic and do tell
something about the interaction between levels, but
there is a striking absence of cross-references and
thus no common language. In his handbook of the
Swiss political system, Kriesi (1995) spends only six
pages in the chapter on parties discussing the
impact of federalism. In a recent account of party
politics and territorial representation in Germany,
Jeffery (1999) updates the work of Lehmbruch
(1976). He produces a long, detailed, welldocumented and very interesting account of party
politics in Germany and of the interaction between
the federal state and the Länder, but it is merely
descriptive, even introducing different concepts and
models per historical period.
This literature does, however, provide us with
some clues in relation to some aspects or dimensions
of federalism that need to be brought into the
picture when analysing the role of parties. Regional
autonomy, whether it is strong or weak, allows for
differentiation. That is a very obvious starting point.
Power is not centralized and can therefore be
shared. The federal opposition parties have
opportunities for regional access to power. This
diffusion of power is conducive for the legitimacy of
the system, since minority groups have less chance
of being totally excluded (Lijphart, 1984; 1999;
Chandler, 1987; Hodge, 1987; Gabriel, 1989). There
are more access points and thus more possibilities
for opposing the central government. Parties at the
local level can ‘run against Washington’ (Katz, 1999).
But the diffusion of power and of competencies in
federal systems affects the representational role of
parties, especially the governing parties; since
responsibility can be diffused, the blame can be
shifted (Gabriel, 1989; Tuschhoff, 1999).
Since two different games are being played, one
at the federal and one at the regional level, one can
expect an internal differentiation of the political
parties, a relatively loose link between the regional
and the federal sections. That is, however, not a
general rule. It depends on the degree of autonomy of
the regions, on the type of autonomy (see below)
and also on the degree of asymmetry in the
federation. If the regions are very different from
each other, the regional games are very different and
the parties have to allow internally for this variation
(Hodge, 1987; Hadley et al., 1989). If the federation
is more homogeneous, then the development of
large catch-all parties, able to integrate the regional
differences, is more likely (Chandler, 1987). Though
all these assumptions do sound very plausible, we
have not found any comparative empirical data that
might be able to support them.
In extreme cases of asymmetry, when in some
regions one party clearly dominates the game, the
federal logic gives that party a double role. It
becomes then at the same time the regional governing
party, linked to the regional electorate, and the party
than can speak for the region in the horizontal and
vertical intergovernmental relationships (Wolinetz,
1999). It is both agent and principal. The best
example of this is probably the Party Québécois, but
the Catalan CiU is also clearly playing this double
role. Another good example is the Bavarian CSU.
All this assumes that we are indeed looking at a
federal system in which the governments and/or the
levels are closely interconnected. If they are not, the
regions and their governing parties do not have to
engage in intergovernmental relations, and only play
the role of principal to a very limited extent. Much
depends on the nature of the federal structures. If
the levels are connected, if competencies overlap to
a certain extent, either jurisdictionally or
functionally, the institutions become extremely
relevant for the parties. Federal and
intergovernmental politics are then party politics
and vice versa (Lehmbruch, 1976; Chandler, 1987;
Rydon, 1988; Jeffery, 1999). That is even more the
case if the regional level is directly incorporated into
federal decision making, as in the German
federation (Chandler, 1987; Wolinetz, 1999). ‘It
creates the possibility of federal-provincial relations
being defined in partisan terms and provides
opposition forces with an incentive for using
regional arenas as a means of challenging the
legitimacy of an existing federal majority party or
coalition’ (Chandler, 1987: 155).
If the two levels are closely connected, and
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EUROPEAN URBAN AND REGIONAL STUDIES 10(3)
especially if the regional level is present and
necessary for federal decision making, the regional
level tends to lose its political autonomy. Regional
elections then become relevant for federal policy
making, and will also be framed in these terms.
Regional elections gain a meaning with reference to
the higher level. They become federal mid-term
elections (Gabriel, 1989; Jeffery ,1999; Wolinetz,
1999). With reference to Australia, Rydon (1988)
makes the interesting point that the proliferation of
elections with relevance for the federal level leads to
an increasing de-ideologization. Unpopular
decisions constantly get postponed.
This brief overview of the literature on parties in
federal systems (at rather high altitude and not
doing full justice to it) certainly reveals that we are
confronted with a very complex and multidimensional political system. That is nothing to be
surprised at. But it does show clearly that it is not
very useful to try to find clear and predictable
patterns about the role and function of parties in
federal polities in general. Much depends on the
type of party one looks at (that is why we have this
aspect explicitly in our conceptual scheme), and on
the type of federation one looks at. This is where
multi-dimensionality enters the picture. Federal
systems can vary along many different lines, and some
of these are extremely relevant for the way in which
the parties can play their role. From the brief overview
above, four very relevant variables can be distilled:
3. The degree of asymmetry. If the competencies
given to one region differ from those given to
another one, this affects the party-political game.
It means that region-based parties are confronted
with a different opportunity structure,
depending on where (territorially speaking) in
the system they are located. It means that regional
sections of state-wide parties are playing in
different institutional contexts depending on their
position. It also means that the strategies of the
state-wide or national parties vis-a-vis their
regional sections become different for different
regions.
4. The homogeneity of society. That can actually be
seen as an aspect of asymmetry. It refers to
differences in identity between different
territorial units of the system. While the unequal
distribution of competencies can be labelled
‘institutional asymmetry’, the latter can be
labelled ‘societal’ (see also Watts, 1999). The
consequences for the parties and their strategic
choices are the same as those listed in the previous
point: strategies have to be differentiated. In this
case of societal asymmetry the differentiation will
probably be even higher, since societal asymmetry
will produce party-political asymmetry: regionspecific parties and party systems and thus a
region-specific pattern of competition.
1. The interconnectedness of the two (or more) levels
and the way in which the lower level is
incorporated in the higher level. That tells us a
lot about the degree to which the things that
happen at one level or in one region can affect
the political life of the others. This is very
relevant for parties, because their choices then
have an impact on the political life of more than
one level at a time, and the kind of choices they
make and the way in which they come about are
then extremely relevant aspects for analysis.
2. The degree of autonomy. That seems to be the
important indicator of the degree to which the
parties at the different levels can and will play a
different role. If the regions are very different
from each other, because their autonomy allows
them to make different political choices, regional
games are very different and the parties have to
allow internally for this variation.
Systemic features: electoral rules and laws
Next to aspects that are directly linked to the
regionalized state institutions, the multi-layered
aspect of a polity also accounts for variations in
other very relevant characteristics that can vary
between levels and that can offer or take away
opportunities for party action, in particular electoral
rules and electoral laws. Elections at different levels
and in different regions or countries are not
necessarily contested under the same conditions.
The right to vote
In the first place the composition of the electorate
can be different, i.e. the rules on the right to vote can
be different for elections at different levels. That
might at first sight be something that is more
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DESCHOUWER: POLITICAL PARTIES
appropriate for historical analysis, since today all
citizens are enfranchised at all levels. Yet variations
in the definition of citizenship can still be relevant.
It is clear that this type of differentiation between
two levels is not likely to appear in regional states.
But for Europe it can certainly be relevant. In local
elections and for elections to the European
Parliament citizens can vote in the country or in the
local municipality where they reside. In countries
with a very high proportion of European foreigners
(like Luxembourg), this can really affect the results.
In Brussels and in the area around Brussels, where a
high concentration of Europeans live in an area
where linguistic balances are extremely delicate, the
vote of these Europeans has definitely influenced
the strategies of both the Francophone and the
Dutch-speaking Belgian parties.
Electoral rules and formulas
If the electoral formula should differ, some parties
might not have the same chances to elect candidates
in regional or in national elections. They might even
not run in elections in which they are not likely to
reach the threshold. Different district magnitudes
can have this effect, as has been demonstrated by
Lutz (1998) for Switzerland. The European
Parliament is an interesting place to see MEPs from
different countries playing their roles differently,
because they are elected in different ways. There is
already some convincing evidence on the way in
which electoral rules affect the role orientations of
members of parliaments (Bowler and Farrell, 1993;
Hamann, 1999; Katz, 1999; Wessels, 1999). It is
clear that when one level uses a proportional
formula and the other a majoritarian one, parties
have to make different choices, make different
alliances. The good scores for Eurosceptic parties in
France in PR-based European elections (and their
decision to participate in the first place) contrasts
with their poor results or even absence at the polls in
the majoritarian elections for the French Assemblée.
If the logic of preference voting differs, the choice
of candidates can be different. If a head of executive
can be elected directly at one level or the other, this
would also affect the choice of candidates and the
organization of party-political careers in general.
Timing of elections: cycles and simultaneity
The literature on European elections has shown
very nicely how the way in which the European and
the national elections relate to each other is a matter
of timing. The elections can coincide; they can come
just before or just after one another, or at mid-term.
Electoral cycles seem thus to be an important
indicator of the way in which the levels interact
(Reif, 1984; Van der Eijk et al., 1996; Lohman et al.,
1997). This is something that has also been found
for the German federal and Land elections – see
Jeffery (1999) for a good summary – and for
Australian state and federal elections (Rydon, 1988).
Not only the interconnection of electoral cycles
is important. Simultaneity of elections also plays a
role. Two sorts of simultaneity can be distinguished:
horizontal or vertical. Horizontal simultaneity
means that elections for all the regions take place on
the same day. If this happens, their ‘nationalization’
is very likely. A very striking example of this was the
regional elections in Italy in 2000. Not all the
regions went to the polls (the special statute regions
and the islands did not have elections), but the fact
that a very large number and in fact the most
important regions were all organizing elections
allowed the opposition leader Berlusconi to turn the
regional elections into a national test (i.e. into
second-order national elections). The opposition
won most of the regions, and as a result of that
Prime Minister D’Alema resigned, as if the electoral
defeat was a defeat in national elections.
Vertical simultaneity means that elections at
different levels coincide, for instance national and
European elections. The first-order election is then
likely to ‘absorb’ the second-order election in terms
of stakes and campaigning. This is something that is
very visible (so far) in Belgium. Regional
parliaments have been elected directly twice so far,
always on the same day as the national elections.
Combined with the fact that all Belgian parties are
regional parties, and that exactly the same party
actors compete in the elections at both levels, the
two campaigns, voting behaviour, the results and
then coalition formation made the two levels
actually collapse into one (Versmessen, 1995;
Deschouwer, 2000).
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Conclusion
Developments in the institutional environments of
political parties affect the way in which they are
organized and behave. This proposition lies at the
heart of this article. Both regionalization and
European integration – often interacting with each
other – make the institutional environment more
complex. We focused on one crucial aspect of this
complexity: the multi-layered nature of the political
systems resulting from the processes of
regionalization and European integration.
The consequences for party theory are farreaching. Concepts for describing and analysing
parties have indeed to a large extent been developed
for the study of parties in single-level systems.
Parties in federal systems have of course received
attention, but – also as a consequence of some
variation in the way in which different federal
systems work – this has not led to a set of analytical
tools that allows us to analyse in a systematic and
comparative way the behaviour of political parties in
multi-layered systems in general.
We have discussed some problems of definition.
In particular, the search for the most appropriate
unit of analysis has proved difficult, because the
interaction between levels tends to blur the analytic
difference between party units and party systems.
We have suggested – relying on existing empirical
evidence – a number of possible indicators to
identify the core level of a party in a political
system. This core level depends to a large extent on
the nature of the political system itself. That is why
we have suggested a general framework of analysis
in which the characteristics of the parties and the
characteristics of the political system interact with
each other. At the level of the political system, we
have relied on the literature on federalism to
identify relevant dimensions of variation that can
have effects on political parties. We have also
pointed at the importance of variation in electoral
rules between levels. Not only the electoral formula
but also the timing of elections at different levels
seem to be crucial elements of the environment in
which political parties function.
The major aim of this article was to show that we
do indeed need to reflect on the way in which we
can analyse political parties in these complex
systems. Just as for parties in federal systems, the
literature so far has been very much case-oriented
(one party, one country, one region) or has focused
on the electoral dimension only. The notion of
second-order elections offers food for thought and
invites a more comparative exploration of
differentiated electoral behaviour. But party
behaviour itself also deserves a more comparative
approach. That is why we have tried to present this
framework for a comparative analysis of political
parties in multi-layered systems.
Note
1
The term ‘regional state’ refers to a national state in
which a number of regional subunits have received farreaching political autonomy. With this broader notion of
‘regional state’ we cover both the classical federations like
Germany, the regionalized states like Italy or Spain and
the states that have produced fairly complex and often
non-symmetrical multi-layered political institutions, like
Belgium or the UK.
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Correspondence to:
Professor Kris Deschouwer, Vrije Universiteit
Brussel, Vakgroep Politieke Wetenschappen,
Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
[email: [email protected]]
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