United in Diversity? Explaining Left-Right Diversity among Regionalist Parties

• In Event: Peripheral Politics, Central Problems: Local Politics in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This paper analyzes the variation in the economic left-right positions of European regionalist parties. It adopts a dimensional approach to investigate parties’ strategic behavior across less salient, or 'secondary', issues and dimensions. I formulate and empirically test three hypotheses: (1) regionalist parties will initially avoid the economic left-right dimension, (2) their eventual positions will reflect the ideological complexion of their regions, but (3) these will be more ideologically flexible than those policy positions related to the center-periphery divide.

All over Europe we see the continuous dispersion of authority away from national governments. Not only is power relocated to the transnational level, most prominently to the European Union, the decentralization of political authority to subnational governments is equally significant. Consequently, government structures are becoming increasingly complex. Just as European integration has become more politicized over the years—not least due to the rise of populist far right parties that rely strongly on an anti-immigrant, anti-EU platform—so too has regional governance taken center stage in many European democracies, as regionalist parties achieved significant successes in Catalonia and Scotland, among others.

Our understanding of these actors is limited, however. Existing theories can neither explain how a regionalist party develops an economic platform outside of its autonomist agenda, nor the striking levels of ideological diversity among this party family on this economic dimension. Exactly because regionalist parties are the main political drivers behind this push for increased autonomy and, when granted, will play a crucial role in shaping the economic policies of the regions they represent, it is vital to understand their ideological positions.

I develop a novel theoretical framework to understand how political parties compete on multiple ideological dimensions that are not all equally salient to them, and how this may affect their behavior. Specifically, by distinguishing between a party’s primary and secondary dimension, we can analyze both the short-term strategic behavior of parties in their effort to win elections and the constraints they face from long-term ideological commitments. I build on insights from a variety of literatures, including both Downsian spatial modeling and Rokkanian cleavage theory.

I use both public opinion and expert-level data on voter and party positions to test my theoretical predictions. I find that regionalist parties, indeed, act strategically on the economic dimension, but they are constrained by the ideological preferences of the regional voters they seek to represent. In particular, I show that the relative economic left-right position of the regional voter as compared to the nationwide electorate is an important determinant of regionalist parties’ economic positions.

This study breaks new ground by evaluating the quality of democratic representation at the regional level, which is particularly relevant in a time when scholars raise increased concern over the rise of populism, anti-establishment rhetoric, and public disaffection with politics. The adopted theoretical framework makes an important contribution to the growing literature on strategic party behavior in a multidimensional environment, and shows how regionalist parties amplify their opposition on the center-periphery dimension by using other, secondary, issues.

Author

• Jelle Koedam, University of Zurich