Suchergebnisse

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar las causas que explican la inestabilidad del sistema de financiación autonómica. El análisis muestra a partir de un juego en forma extendida que la inestabilidad es el resultado del comportamiento racional del gobierno central y de los gobiernos autonómicos. Por un lado, el gobierno central es incapaz de labrarse una reputación de jugador duro y renunciar a la utilización de la financiación para maximizar sus estrategias electorales. Por otro lado, el particular diseño institucional de la descentralización en España genera incentivos para la revisión continua del modelo de financiación por parte de los gobiernos autonómicos. Estos incentivos tienen su origen en las asimetrías entre el régimen foral y el régimen común, en la excesiva dependencia de las Haciendas autonómicas de las transferencias del gobierno central y en la redefinición permanente del reparto competencial entre Administraciones. Si estas características institucionales permanecen, no importa cuánto se comprometa el gobierno central a establecer un sistema de financiación estable; la renegociación periódica seguirá produciéndose si la actual estructura de incentivos se mantiene.

AbstractThe rise of regional governments in Europe has been often espoused on democratic grounds. Yet the democratic promise of political decentralization should be evaluated in light of its potential undermining effects upon the essential mechanism to make accountability work: citizens' capacity to assign responsibility for policy outcomes. People may get it wrong when assigning responsibility because they are not sure who is responsible for policy outcomes when powers are vertically fragmented between different levels of government and/or simply because their responsibility judgements are biased by political beliefs, which act as lenses through which attribution is filtered. How can we then make electoral accountability work in decentralized systems? This paper will explore this question by delving into the most important theoretical and empirical challenges in the study of attribution of responsibility and electoral accountability in decentralized contexts. At the theoretical level, there is still need of a better understanding of the relationship between federal institutional conditions and individuals' use of cognitive bias to cope with institutional complexity when assigning responsibility. The empirical challenge is to overcome the lack of comparable individual‐level data on responsibility attribution for a broad range of country cases.

The literature that explores the relationship between decentralisation and the structure of the party system has barely explored an important dimension of party integration, namely the degree of ideological cohesiveness among parliamentary elites. This paper purports to fill the literature gap by analysing heterogeneity in attitudes towards devolution among representatives from Spanish state-wide parties (the People's Party (PP) and the Socialist Party (PSOE)). Drawing from a sample of 460 parliamentary elites, results show that within-party variation in preferences towards regional self-rule are accounted by the territorial cleavage (historical regions vs ordinary ones) as well as by an institutional cleavage, defined by the type of assembly – regional or national – in which representatives are elected. However, parties' political and organisational trajectories moderate the impact of those cleavages: territory prevails in accounting for internal variation within the PSOE, whereas the institutional cleavage is more important to explain internal cohesiveness among PP's party elites.

The literature is still undecided on whether sub-state elections conform more to a national or regional logic of voting. In this article, I argue that the impact of national politics on regional elections is contingent upon the level of decentralization. I hypothesize that the greater the number of policy areas and resources in the hands of regional governments, the lesser the influence of national coat-tails on regional elections. Using the electoral results of the Spanish Socialist Party in national and regional elections from 1979 to 2009, the empirical analysis shows that regional politicians' electoral performance is correlated to that of their national counterparts. However, this correlation has weakened as regional governments have gained greater decision-making and financing powers. This has been particularly evident in elections when the regional branch of the party rules a single-party government and competes against strong regionalist parties.

The study of electoral competition of populist radical right (PRR) parties has mostly focused on the national and supranational levels, leaving the subnational arena unexplored. This article contributes to filling this gap by theorizing on PRR parties' strategic behaviour in regional elections and testing the hypotheses using the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a case study. Combining new Regional Manifestos Project data with a qualitative exploration, the article shows that the AfD has adapted to a regional frame of competition in different ways. While its radical conservatism on cultural issues is cross-regionally homogenous, the positions in other dimensions do significantly vary across Länder, revealing a mix of economically rightist and leftist positions as well as a mix of national and regional identity appeals. The latter are combined with differentiated and conflictive competential demands. These findings pave the way for a more ambitious research agenda on PRR substate competition, which so far has been limited by the lack of comparable data.

AbstractOne of the most significant economic trends in the last decades has been the integration of countries in international markets. What have been the consequences of global economic integration upon the territorial organization of the states? Has it contributed to centralize powers or to further decentralization? The literature so far has provided inconclusive evidence. In this article we shed new light on the relationship between economic globalization and territorial politics by using a varied source of data such as the Regional Authority Index, and the KOF indices of globalization for the period 1970–2010. Results show that economic globalization is positively associated to decentralization, particularly in those countries with more regionalist parties and where levels of inequality are lower.

One of the most significant economic trends in the last decades has been the integration of countries in international markets. What have been the consequences of global economic integration upon the territorial organization of the states? Has it contributed to centralize powers or to further decentralization? The literature so far has provided inconclusive evidence. In this paper we shed new light on the relationship between economic globalization and territorial politics by using a varied source of data such as the Regional Authority Index, and the KOF indices of globalization for the period 1970-2010. Results show that economic globalization is positively associated to decentralization, particularly in those countries with more regionalist parties and where levels of inequality are lower. Conversely, higher levels of regional inequality can revert the effect.

AbstractThe literature on party system nationalisation has yet to provide a better understanding of the impact of short‐term factors upon the nationalisation of politics. This article helps to fill this literature gap by analysing the effect of economic conditions on party system nationalisation. The argument is that economic crises will decrease levels of nationalisation by amplifying territorial variation in preferences for redistribution, limiting political parties' capacity to coordinate divergent interests across districts and triggering the emergence of new political forces. Data on 47 countries for the 1960–2011 period confirm this hypothesis and show that lower economic growth during the years prior to the election is associated with a decrease in levels of party system nationalisation in the next election. The result is robust to variation in the specification of the econometric model and to the use of different measures of nationalisation. Results also show that federal institutions increase the impact of economic conditions on the nationalisation of politics, whereas any moderating effect of electoral system proportionality on the economy is not found.

There is a large body of research showing that the provision of social policies is higher under proportional electoral systems than under majoritarian systems. This article helps advance this literature by showing that the geographic distribution of social recipients plays an essential role in moderating the impact of electoral institutions on social provision. Using data from twenty-two OECD countries, the results show that majoritarian systems increase the provision of social spending when recipients are concentrated in certain regions. When levels of concentration are high, social spending in majoritarian countries can surpass levels of provision in proportional representation systems.