Party Politics in Multi-Layered

Systems:

An analytical framework of multi-

level party politics for Western and

Eastern Europe

Klaus Detterbeck

(University of Magdeburg)

and

Eve Hepburn

(University of Edinburgh)

Paper presented at the Political Studies Association Specialist

Group on Territorial Politics Biennial Conference, Scotland

House and Wales House, Rond-Point Schuman, Brussels,

13-14 September 2012

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Dr Klaus Detterbeck Dr Eve Hepburn

Assistant Professor Senior Lecturer

Institute of Political Science Academy

of Government

University of Magdeburg University of

Edinburgh

Zschokkestr. 32 21 George Square

39104 Magdeburg Edinburgh, EH8 9LD

Germany Scotland, UK

klaus.detterbeck@ovgu.de

eve.hepburn@ed.ac.uk

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AbstractPolitical parties are generally considered to be the maininstruments of national integration across states. However, thechallenges of spatial rescaling and ‘territorialisation’ haveforced statewide parties to adapt both programmatically andorganisationally to the new political realities of multi-levelgovernance and have challenged their integrative role andcapacity. This ‘territorial dimension’ acquires salience incases where a strong nationalist or regionalist party exists,whose goals for self-determination have won substantialsupport. The paper explores the conditions under which a‘territorial rescaling’ of party politics occurs. Whileexisting research has pointed to explanatory factors such asinstitutional structures, societal context and party strategiesfor explanation, scholarship still lacks both a broadertheoretical understanding and comparative knowledge of partypolitics in multi-level settings. There is a clear need tobetter understand how these factors work, which requires aclarification and possible expansion of existing theoreticalconcepts, methodological understandings and empiricalindicators. The paper will provide an analytical framework ofmulti-level party politics which can be valid for Western andEastern Europe (and beyond). Several empirical cases will beused to elaborate the argument.

IntroductionStudies of political parties and party systems, like the restof social science, have been dominated by a state-centric biasand theories of ‘nationalisation’. Scholars like Caramani(2004), Chhibber and Kollman (2004) have argued that partysystems and competition have become more nationalised in muchof the industrialised West, with a homogenisation of politicalstructures and processes across the state. These studies assumethat political parties are single, homogenous organisationswith authority and decision-making centralised in the hands ofthe national executive. Political parties are considered to bethe main instruments of national integration across states,through their representative functions and coordinated policy-making. For empirical research, however, there is good reasonto review and question the classical assumption on theintegrative function of political parties in multi-levelpolitical systems. Both parties and political systems inWestern and Eastern Europe have gone through some tremendous

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changes over the last decades, owing to rapid staterestructuring, the decline of statewide party membership, therise of smaller single-issue parties, decentralisation,supranational integration and globalisation, amongst otherfactors. These changes have put the integrative functions ofparties under severe pressure, forcing parties to re-evaluatehow to best respond to, and represent, the diverse needs andinterests of the electorate. This challenge has become all themore pressing in the light of decentralisation reforms, wherebyparties must compete at multiple territorial levels,characterised by increasingly territorially based electorates,which have distinct political preferences and social attitudes(Henderson 2008).

The challenges of spatial rescaling have forced statewideparties to adapt both programmatically and organisationally tothe new political realities of multi-level governance and havechallenged their integrative role and capacity. Spatialrescaling requires that statewide parties adapt to thecreation, or strengthening, of several loci of decision-makingat different territorial levels, which may have diverseelectoral and party systems with distinct structures of partycompetition. At the substate level, statewide parties mustrefocus their strategies for different regional contexts andaddress regional issues. This territorial dimension acquiressalience in cases where a strong minority nationalist orregionalist party exists, whose goals for self-determinationhave won substantial support. These developments in partypolitics have resulted in a small surge of academic inquiryinto the ‘resurgence of territory’, with new thinking on multi-level party systems, competition and voting behaviour. Morespecifically, first steps have been made towards analysing theeffects of state decentralisation on formal party structuresand programmes (van Biezen and Hopkin 2006; Fabre 2008; Maddensand Swenden 2009), the impact of devolution on electoralpolitics (Hough and Jeffery 2006), and the mechanics of partysystems at different territorial levels (Deschouwer 2003;Thorlakson 2006). Moreover, some efforts have been made totheorise more generally on the relationship betweendecentralisation and party politics (Hopkin and van Houten2009). Yet, although the territorial differentiation of partypolitics is now on the radar of European scholarship, therehave been few efforts to systematically compare the strategies

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of statewide parties in response to multi-level politicaldynamics. The growing literature on the subject is still mainlyconfined to case study research, and ‘further theoretical andempirical work undoubtedly remains to be done’ (Hopkin and vanHouten 2009: 134). This paper intends to address this gap, byexploring the effects of rescaling on party organizations, andthe conditions under which the ‘territorial rescaling’ ofparties occurs.

The paper is organised in the following way. The first sectionintroduces the concept of the ‘territorial rescaling’ ofpolitical parties. This includes a number of dimensions, suchas the increasing organisational and programmaticdifferentiation across territorial levels of the party,adoption of stronger territorial party identities and rhetoricby regional branches within the party, and the development ofalternative policy and constitutional goals amongst regionalbranches. The second section introduces a model of partyresponses to multi-level politics. Parties have followed sixpatterns of adaptation, which we categorise along a two-dimensional ‘territorial’ continuum. We then apply this modelto several cases of multi-level party politics in Western andEastern Europe: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany,Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain, Ukraine and the UK. It isdemonstrated that political parties have responded differentlyto similar challenges of multi-level politics, and the nextsection seeks to account for why this is the case. Itidentified several explanatory factors for why political partyresponses vary across country, across time and across the partyitself. These include the role of party ideology, theconstitutional aims of parties, state design, the existence ofnon-statewide parties (NSWPs) in the local party system, andthe importance of territorial interests and identities. Thepaper then concludes by evaluating the changing role ofpolitical parties changing in multi-level political systems.

The Territorial Rescaling of PartiesThe trend towards decentralisation and federalism withinWestern and Eastern European states means that substateelectoral arenas have gained in importance as focal points forterritorial interest representation (Jeffery 1997; Hough andJeffery 2006). Decentralisation has led to the creation ofregional executives and parliaments, regional policy

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communities and regional electoral arenas. In long-standingfederal states such as Austria and Germany, as well as newlydecentralising or federalising states in the UK, Spain, Italy,Belgium, Russia and Ukraine, substate tiers of government haveaccumulated executive, legislative and fiscal powers that lieoutside the control of the state. One group of scholars hassought to provide us with a quantitative analysis of this‘institutionalisation’ of regions. Marks et al (2008) createdan index that accounts for the main characteristics of regionalauthorities from 1950 to 2006. Of the 42 countries theyexamined, half of them had created regional tiers during theperiod and no country had become more centralised. Thesefindings pose important questions for the declining functionsof states, and for the operation of parties within them.

The reconfiguration of political authority across differentterritorial levels has necessitated an adjustment to howparties organise and compete. Shifts in the territorialdistribution of power to regions have led to the‘denationalisation’ of party systems, so that parties mustrespond to substate challenges. This has led to intra-partyconflict as different parts of parties (operating at differentlevels) diverge in the areas of elite recruitment, partyprogrammes and campaigning, and their activities in publicoffice (Deschouwer 2003; Hopkin 2003; Thorlakson 2005; Houghand Jeffery 2006; Fabre 2008; Detterbeck and Hepburn 2010). Asa result of the creation of multi-layered political arenas,parties can no longer pursue one strategy for office in asingle statewide political arena. Instead their priorities aresplit between several arenas: they must adapt and respond toseveral loci of decision-making at different territoriallevels. In particular, at the substate level, statewide partiesmust refocus their strategies for different regional contexts.The resulting reorganisation and re-positioning of parties tocompete at different territorial levels may be described as the‘territorial rescaling’ of political parties. Territorialrescaling has a number of dimensions.

First, it involves the organisational and programmaticdifferentiation of regional parts from the centre. Regionalbranches may seek to differentiate their policies from thecentre to ‘fit’ the local setting, requiring separate partymanifestos and campaign strategies. They may also seek greater

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organisational autonomy to control regional activities. Thistransition may lead to intra-party tensions and potentiallysplits if the centre does not grant the region autonomy.

Second, regional branches of statewide parties have adoptedstronger territorial party identities and rhetoric. Thisinvolves altering party logos, letterheads, posters and otherparty literature to reflect the importance of the locality tothe party. It also involved a qualitative change in partydiscourse, emphasising the importance of the territory (be itculture, identity, social values), and pledges to defend theinterests of the territory within the state.

Third, different sectors of parties have adopted differentpolicy goals. In particular, regional branches of statewideparties may develop constitutional alternatives toindependence, such as enhanced devolution or autonomy, todefuse support for nationalist parties.

Fourth, the territorialisation of parties has resulted in newforms of power-sharing amongst constituent units. In rescalingparty organisations, power and authority no longer rest in onesingle place, but rather different organisational units withinparties possess different powers and autonomous functions. Inthis sense, parties are developing new stratarchicalorganisational structures, replacing the hierarchicalstructures of old (Carty 2004).

Party Responses to Multi-level CompetitionIn multi-level systems, parties are confronted with aparadoxical situation: in order to maintain their integrativefunctions, there is a need for policy cooperation in the faceof territorial diversity. There are six principal ways in whichparties have adapted to this paradox. Parties may either:maintain traditional mechanisms of vertical linkages in afederal mode or a centrist mode, develop new forms of verticalparty cooperation to provide for the accommodation ofterritorial interests, or grant autonomy to substate units. Wehave termed these strategies centralist, confederalist, federalist,consensualist, decentralist and bifurcated.

Following the work of Deschouwer (2006) and Swenden (2007), weposit that party strategies are determined by the interaction

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Joint Decision-Making

Regional Autonomy autonomy

Strong

Weak

Low High

Consensualist parties

Federalist parties Confederalist

parties

Decentralist parties

Centralist parties

Bifurcated parties

of two dimensions: the strength of joint decision-makingstructures within party organisations, and the degree oforganisational and programmatic autonomy allocated to substatebranches. Indicators of joint decision-making are formal andinformal linkages between state and substate units thatdetermine ‘shared rule’ within parties, including regularmeetings between leaders, joint committees, mechanisms forregional input into statewide decision-making and the inclusionof regional officials in the state executive. Indicators ofsubstate autonomy are regional control over candidate andleadership selection, policy programmes, campaign strategies,coalition-building and finance. The combination of strong orweak joint decision-making, and high or low autonomy, createsdifferent types of multi-level party organizations, which arecaptured in the table below.

Figure 1: Typology of Multi-Layered Party Organizations

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Source: Own illustration

(1) A consensualist strategy is characterised byuniformity in political appeal and the consensus-seekingmechanisms of joint decision-making. Subs-state branches havelimited autonomy but possess considerable access to centralparty decision-making.

(2) A federalist strategy combines a high degree of jointdecision-making between party levels with substantial freedomof going their own ways for the substate branches.

(3) A confederalist strategy is typified by strong intra-and inter-party coordination and joint decision-makingprocedures, flexibility but harmonisation in policy programmesand high regional control of party finance and candidateselection.

(4) A decentralist strategy is characterised by thedecentralisation of all party functions relating to policy andorganisation, loose vertical links, and low regional input intostatewide party decision-making.

(6) A centralist strategy is characterised by weak jointdecision-making structures, high statewide control of theregional party decision-making, and low regional substatebranch autonomy. In this scenario, the regional branch of theparty neither has strong input into statewide decision-makingprocesses, nor is structured strongly at the regional level.

(5) Finally, a bifurcated strategy consists of cuttingorganizational linkages between the different territorial partylayers, allowing for quite different political profiles andpolicy choices.

Our next task is to examine which of these six strategiesparties have been adopted in each of our cases in response tothe territorialisation of politics. We will examine theresponses of the main two parties (usually representing centre-left and centre-right poles) in each case.

AustriaFor decades, the symmetry of party competition has been astrong feature of the highly centralized Austrian federalsystem. On both political levels, two major parties (ÖVP andSPÖ), as representatives of broad social strata (Lager),dominated the vote and controlled a corporatist party state

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which deeply penetrated society; and a smaller third segment,represented by the German-national FPÖ, existed at the marginsof party competition (Luther 1992). Electoral behaviour wasbuilt on strong party alignments and was therefore both verystable and relatively undifferentiated between the politicallevels. With respect to government formation, the GrandCoalition (1947-66) was (temporarily) replaced by single-partygovernments (1966-83) or small coalitions (1983-87) at thefederal level, but continued to be the dominant pattern in mostof the Länder as a result of the constitutional mechanisms ofProporz governments, the proportional allocation of cabinetpositions (Fallend 2004: 90-93).

Since the 1980s, a relatively symmetrical party system changehas taken place at both levels of the Austrian system. The mostremarkable feature here is the deconcentration of the partysystems. At both levels, SPÖ and ÖVP lost support to the FPÖ,which had embarked on a right-wing populist course under JörgHaider, to their liberal splinter, the Liberales Forum, and tothe Green Party. The second feature of party system change inAustria has been an increase in differences between state andsubstate voting patterns. Elections to both the stateparliament and the Land parliaments are characterized byincreases in volatility and fragmentation. More voters areavailable, but they are also potentially open to othercompetitors. With less predictability about voter alignments,there is room for anti-government voting and populist protest(Abedi and Siaroff 2006). While symmetry still is the basicfeature of multi-level party competition, party support hasbecome more fragile.

Looking at the organizational development of the two majorparties, there are interesting parallels. First, both partieshave become more federalized in the 1960s. Within thetraditionally more centralized SPÖ, the different Landorganisations gained a more equal representation in the federalparty leading bodies (against a former predominance ofpoliticians from Vienna and Lower Austria). On the other hand,the Land parties were allowed more political freedom inregulating their own regional affairs (Dachs 2003: 81-84).However, the SPÖ managed to uphold a high degree of internalcohesion, with the substate party units being involved andstrongly supportive of the federal SPÖ single-party governments

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in the 1970s. High levels of vertical integration allowed thedifferent party levels to find common solution for mostproblems. The more decentralised ÖVP, which has a more complexand indirect organisational structure due to the strength ofher affiliated subdivisons, the three corporatist leagues, hasalso seen demands by the ‘weaker’ Land organisations for anequal regional representation in federal government cabinetsand party leadership bodies during the 1960s. In the period offederal opposition (1970-1986), strong Land party leadersgoverning at the substate level, dominated the federal party.Despite several party reforms, the strong autonomy of thefunctional and territorial sub-organisations always remainedproblematic for party cohesion within the ÖVP (Müller andSteininger 1994).

Second, both parties have experienced increasing territorialstrains since around the 1980s. Within the SPÖ, the Landparties, facing fiscal crises and an increased politicalcompetition in a more volatile environment, became more willingto distance themselves from the federal party in electioncampaigns and policy debates. The gradual erosion of the strongstate interventionism and of consociational practices inAustria, both of which can be seen as the political project ofthe post-war SPÖ, contributed to the loosening of ideologicalbonds within the party (see Müller 1994). There were severalinstances, where Land parties allied to call for a strongerrepresentation of their specific interests within the federalparty (Dachs 2003: 87-90). Therefore, the SPÖ lost in internalcohesion over the last few decades. In the ÖVP, the Landparties have similarly mounted more open criticism on thefederal party. While this has a longer track record in the ÖVP,publicized internal conflict has become a more frequentphenomenon since the 1990s. Regional election campaigns quiteoften saw ÖVP Land parties in critical distance to the policiesof the federal party (Müller et al. 2004; Abedi and Siaroff2006). Despite these tensions between party levels, bothparties have maintained, both in formal structures and ininformal practices, the close interconnectedness of federal andsubstate party units. Regional party leaders, who most oftenhold executive positions in Land governments, form part of theinner circle of the federal party leadership. Verticalintegration is basically organised around regional party elites

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who combine party offices at both levels and/or public officesat the Land level (Detterbeck 2011).

BelgiumUntil the 1960s, the party system in unitary Belgium was highlyconcentrated and very stable. In a two and a half party system,political competition was basically confined to the ChristianDemocrats, the Socialists and the smaller Liberals. All threeparties were rooted in a densely organized subcultural pillarand resolved political conflict by the consociational means ofsegmental autonomy, proportionality, elite compromise andpower-sharing (Lijphart 1977; Deschouwer 2004). Since then, theBelgian party system has changed significantly. The erosion ofthe pillars, the increasing economic weight of Flanders, therise of territorial conflicts and NSWPs, the federalisation ofthe Belgian state and the linguistic divorce of the traditionalparties (as well as of the newly emerging Greens) provide thebackground for new patterns of party competition in Belgium(Deschouwer 2004; De Winter 2006). There are now two distinctparty systems in Flanders and Wallonia, which only partlyoverlap in the Brussels region. While party competition inWallonia and French-speaking Brussels revolves around the left-right divide between Socialists (PS) and Liberals (MR), theFlemish party system is more fragmented. Here, the traditionalpredominance of the Christian Democrats (CD&V) has beenchallenged by the other established parties as well as by theextreme right Vlaams Belang, which is much more electorallysuccessful than the Walloon Front National.

The three traditional party families in Belgium (ChristianDemocrats, Socialists and Liberals) as well as the Greenparties in Flanders and Wallonia are prototypes of a modernistresponse to the recent challenges of the parties-federalismnexus. On the one hand, strongly driven by internal fightingand the competitive pressures of the ethno-regionalist parties,the established parties opted for a radical solution bysplitting their organisations along the linguistic-regionalcleavage. Each regionally based party now has distinct partystatutes and leadership bodies, political programmes and policypositions, electoral strategies and fortunes (De Winter 2006:76). Rather than seeking to maintain interest aggregation, theBelgian parties allowed for the formal separation ofideological party families. On the other hand, Belgian parties

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developed new forms of intra- and inter-party cooperation amongsister parties which allowed them to organise cooperationbetween the political levels and substate entities. In thissense, Belgian parties maintained their traditional role asbrokers between differentiated segments (once ideologicalpillars, now territorial entities) by inventing new mechanismsof coordination.

Three mechanisms are particularly interesting for our analysis.First, within each territorial subsystem (Flanders/ Wallonia)multi-layered parties are operating. Within one organisationalstructure, all-important activities of the party – ranging fromcandidate selection to electoral campaigns and policypositioning – are coordinated by one party apparatus under oneparty leadership. We may thus expect that there is a permanentlink and exchange between the federal and the regional arena.One of the most visible manifestations here is the phenomenonthat under the system of simultaneous elections many partycandidates appeared on different party lists (federal/regional)and a number of government ministers were even elected on the‘wrong’ political level (Fiers 2001). Intra-party coordinationoccurs in regular meetings of the (powerful) party presidentwith the chairs of the various parliamentary groupings (Flemishparties have up to four parliamentary groupings, Walloonparties even up to six); through the inclusion of theseparliamentary chairs as well as most federal and regionalministers of that party in the party executive; through policy-specific working groups and study commissions (De Winter 2006:83-85).

Second, inter-party coordination among sister parties takesplace on formal and informal channels. In the traditionalBelgian parties, most formal institutions such as commonresearch centres and joint parliamentary caucuses, which wereinstalled after the divorce, became defunct after some time.Nowadays, only the two Green parties uphold importantinstitutional fora – a joint federal executive and jointparliamentary group meetings, in particular. At the informallevel, however, there is frequent coordination among the partyleaders of the Flemish and Walloon Christian Democrats,Socialists, Liberals or Greens. This is especially relevant atthe governmental level. Many crucial policy conflicts have beensolved or put off the agenda by inter-party leader summits.

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Elite cooperation across the linguistic divide remained aconsociational device of making a complex federal system work(Deschouwer 2004; De Winter and Dumont 2006).

Third, at the governmental level parties that belong to thesame party family have most often remained together in cabinetor in opposition. Whenever possible, congruent coalitions havebeen built at the federal and the substate level (Swenden2002). For the sister parties, being together in government oropposition, may allow a clearer signal to the electorates aswell as more successful policy advocacy. Yet, in case ofdisagreement, especially with regard to linguistic andterritorial issues, clashes between the parties have not beenmoderated by historical and ideological ‘family bonds’ (DeWinter 2006). Not being statewide parties any more, the Belgianunilingual parties have clearly embarked on a ‘bifurcated’strategy (Smiley 1980). The bifurcation á la Belge is, however,not a separation along territorial levels (as in Canada) but aseparation along linguistic lines. Despite elaborate structuresof power-sharing (which involved both shared-rule and self-ruleelements), tensions between the linguistic wings have becometoo strong to maintain unified party structures across thenational territory (see Verleden 2009). The regional successorparties compete on both territorial levels of the Belgianpolity, while having few organisational linkages to theirideological sister parties. However, there is inter-partycooperation in coalition governments.

Czech RepublicThe Czech party system, which consolidated after the split ofthe former Czechoslovakia in 1992, has been characterized by amulti-party arrangement with relatively high levels ofstability (see Klima 1998). Structured along a left-right axis,party competition since 1990s has been dominated by two majorparties which both emerged from the anti-communist opposition:the centre-left Social Democrats (CSSD) and the centre-rightCivic Democrats (ODS). Several other parties, such as theChristian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and the Communists (KSCM), thelatter being excluded from power at the national level, couldalso build on a rather stable electoral following. In theperiod 1996 to 2010, these four parties held 92% of all seatsin the national parliament (Deegan-Krause and Haugton 2010:229). On the other hand, government formation and stability

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often proved to be quite difficult given the equal strength ofthe left and the right in the political spectrum. Withhindsight, the 2010 general elections may be seen as anwatershed, with several new parties – most notably, TOP 09 andVV, both running on an anti-corruption and liberal platform -entering the scene and forming a majority coalition with theODS while the established Christian Democrats lostparliamentary representation. At the regional level, the 14self-governing provinces (kraj) with limited autonomy, partycompetition looks quite similar with the same set of statewideparties dominating regional elections. In the last round of2008, the major opposition at the national level, the SocialDemocrats, won in all of the regions.

Party organizations in the Czech Republic generally adhere tothe pattern of East-Central European parties as being elite-dominated, state-centered, voter-oriented and weakly linked tosociety (Kopecky 1995). However, differences exist between the“old” parties which have been part of the communist regime andthe “new” parties. The former, most notably the Communist Party(KSCM) and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), brought theorganizational legacy of an extensive membership base and well-established party structures to the democratic era. However,these mass party characteristics have become weaker over timeand are likely to erode further (Klima 1998: 498; van Biezen etal. 2012: 35 and 48). By contrast, the “new” parties, such asthe Social Democrats (which, of course, do have historicalroots dating back to the pre-communist period) and the CivicDemocrats (ODS), have not been able to build solid membershiporganization. Both parties have relatively few members (20,000-30,000), weak infrastructures and are strongly controlled bysmall leadership groups or even individual leaders. Looking atthe party statutes of the ODS, provincial and local partylevels are granted autonomy in their own day-to-day management.The central executive, however, has maintained control overfinal decision with respect to candidate selection and canestablish and disband lower party structures at its own will(Kopecky 1995: 529; Klima 1998: 500). In political practice,ODS national leaders seem to have paid little attention tothings going on at the regional level, allowing “regionalbarons” to establish their own little chiefdoms (see Hanley2008). In the wake of the 2010 national election, this has beensubject to an intensive internal party debate.

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GermanyUntil the 1990s, the formats and mechanics of the party systemsat the German national and subnational level have been highlysimilar. The main feature of territorial symmetry has been theearly predominance of two major parties at both politicallevels, the CDU/CSU and the SPD. Although the main partiesvaried in regional strength, they attracted the bulk of thevoters across the territory and structured politicalcompetition along a left-right axis. In addition, two smallerparties, the liberal FDP and, since the 1980s, the Greensgained permanent representation at both levels. Sinceunification in 1990, there has been a regionalization of partysystems in Germany. There is a rather clear divide between Eastand West Germany with respect to the political relevance ofindividual parties (Jeffery 1999; Sturm 1999; Detterbeck andRenzsch 2003). Most significantly, the post-socialist PDS hasbecome a major political force in East Germany at both nationaland substate elections, while having only marginal electoralsuccess and a rather minuscule organization in the West (Hough2002). This has changed recently, with the PDS merging with abreak-up of the SPD in 2007 and becoming the Left Party. Whilethe Left has now won its first ever seats in West Germansubstate parliaments, its political strength in the West willarguably remain far below the status of the party in EasternGermany. By contrast, the FDP and the Green Party are ratherweak in the East. Party competition at the Land level has beenfurther diversified by the temporary inroads of several right-wing extremist and populist parties.

How did the major parties organize in the context of strongterritorial symmetry and how did they adapt to the growingregionalization in the reunified Germany? During the 1960s, theformerly distinct organisational models of a rather confederaltype in the case of the CDU and a rather centralised type inthe case of the SPD converged into a more strongly federalmodel (see Gabriel 1989; Poguntke 1994). The regional partyunits became more strongly represented in the federal partyexecutive, while retaining (or gaining) some organisationalautonomy for regulating Land affairs. This refers to, forexample, the selection of the regional party leadership, thedrafting of regional party manifestos and the pursuit ofregional public policies. Yet, there has been relatively little

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diversity within these highly integrated parties. In bothstrategic and programmatic terms, German parties preferred tofind consensual solutions and present united party lines.Intra-party coordination rested on shared electoral interests,common ideological outlooks and an institutional framework ofcooperative federalism (Schmid 1990; Renzsch 1998). Both CDUand SPD have been characterised by a tendency for having astronger role of the Land party leadership in national partyexecutives in times of federal opposition, as have been seen inAustria as well. When in opposition at the national level, theGerman parties more strongly depended on their regional partybarons for resources and profile (Detterbeck 2002).

The overall pattern of a high level of vertical partyintegration has been put under increasing stress since Germanunification. Political conflict between the party levels orbetween different Land parties in terms of political strategies(for example, with respect to coalition formation in theLänder) or policy positions (for example, with respect tofiscal federalism between Land parties in richer and poorerregions) have become more widespread. In election campaigns, wefind quite a number of incidences of substate parties seekingdistance from their colleagues at the federal level. However,there have been basically no changes to the formal multi-layered organisational structures of the German parties. Theintegration of substate branches into the national party hasnot declined since 1990. The very important intergovernmentaldimension to the interlocking of federal and regional partyunits has also remained unaltered. The parties have establishedstrong informal mechanisms of vertical intra-party coordinationin organising Bundesrat decision-making processes. In order todetermine common positions on legislation, representatives ofSPD-led Land governments (‘A-Länder’) and representatives ofCDU/CSU-led governments (‘B-Länder’), both ministers and civilservants, meet in separate rounds with leading members of theBundestag caucus and, if the party is in power, with members ofthe federal government (see Renzsch 1998; Leonardy 2004). Whathas changed, however, is that the substate units have startedto make more systematic use of their formal organizationalpowers to adapt to specific regional contexts. With patterns ofparty competition having become more regionalized and withfederal decentralization allowing more scope for autonomouspolicy-making by the Länder, the regional branches of CDU and

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SPD have increasingly insisted on fine-tuning party policies tospecific Land circumstances. However, divergence has remainedlimited. With some exceptions, the regional branches haveremained within the spectrum of their federal parties in termsof party manifestos, campaign strategies and coalition choices(Debus 2007; Detterbeck and Jeffery 2009).

ItalyParty competition is relatively symmetrical between thenational and regional levels, whereby the same broad centre-left and centre-right coalitions compete at both levels.However, there is territorial differentiation between north andsouth, and ‘red’ and ‘white’ sub-cultures, and in addition,there are a plethora of regionalist parties competing at theregional and national levels. In the early 1990s, Italyexperienced dramatic changes to its party system, with thecollapse of the ‘First republic’ under the weight of corruptionscandals. Whilst the main parties of the post-war period – theChristian Democrats (DC), Italian Socialist Party (PSI) andItalian Communist Party (PCI) – were dissolved or re-branded,another significant shock to the party system took place in theform of emerging ‘regional’ leagues in Northern Italy. Theresulting party system of the Second Republic has since beencharacterised by a bipolar party system based on competitionbetween a centre-left coalition and a centre-right one, withstrong regionalist undertones. The centre-left coalition, whichwas initially comprised of the Party of the Democratic Left(DS), Daisy (Margharita), the Re-founded Communist Party (RC)and a colourful array of smaller left-wing parties, transformeditself into a single ‘Democratic Party’ (though excluding RC)in 2007. Meanwhile, the centre-right coalition, comprised ofthe newly formed Forza Italia (Go Italy!), the post-fascistNational Alliance (AN), the reformed Union of Christian andCentre Democrats (UDC) and a handful of right-wing parties,amalgamated into the ‘People of Freedom Party’ (thoughexcluding UDC) in 2009 under the premiership of SilvioBerlusconi. These broad-based coalitions have alternated ingovernment since 1994, though the entry of the centre-right tooffice has required the involvement of the secessionist-turned-federalist Northern League (LN).

Forza Italia (FI), and its successor, the People of Freedomparty, have followed a centrist strategy in response to multi-

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level politics. They are/were highly centralised parties with astrong leadership role for Berlusconi, who contributes largeamounts out of his personal funds to party coffers. The stateleadership is responsible for appointing Regional Coordinators,who are often known to Berlusconi through membership of hisbusiness enterprises (Hopkin and Paolucci 2003). Members ofregional branch party organs, including the Regional Executiveand Regional Committee, are not elected by party members, butrather appointed by the Regional Coordinator or his nominees(Wilson 2007). There is a strong drive towards uniformity incampaign strategies and policy programmes in the regions. RCstend to follow the campaign guidelines set out by the stateleadership (Loughlin and Bolgherini 2006). Regional brancheshave a weak basis upon which to dispute or diverge from partypolicy, as there are few mechanisms for regional branches toinfluence state decision-making. The exception to this is theConference of Regional Coordinators, which is responsible forensuring the conformity of regional branches to stateleadership decisions and policy. However, it has littleinfluence itself over the Presidential Committee. With regardto candidate selection, the Regional Coordinator must approvelists drawn up by the state leadership for European, Italianand regional elections. The People of Freedom Party more orless adopted the same formal party structures of FI.

People of Freedom’s main political rival – the Democratic Party– has in contrast adopted an decentralist strategy in responseto multi-level politics. The Democratic Party resulted from amerger of the Democrats of the Left (DS, which constituted thebulk of the party), Margherita and some smaller ChristianDemocatic parties in 2007. When the DS merged with otherparties to form the Democratic Party, the new party took onmany of the structures and procedures of the DS, including itsdecentralist orientation. The DS had a federal constitution in2005, responding to the constitutional reform of the Italianstate, which it was responsible for driving. Out of all thestatewide Italian parties, the Democratic Party, like the DSbefore it, has endowed the regional level of the organisationwith the highest degree of autonomy. Regional ‘unions’ have nowassumed control over internal decision-making, candidateselection (using a system that must be verified by the NationalDirectorate for adherence to procedure rules), the capacity todevelop their own policies and programmes in response to

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regional particularities, autonomy over campaign strategies,and control over sub-regional levels of the party. RegionalUnions are organised into a federal network across Italy, andare obliged to develop ‘pacts’ with the statewide party. Theonly threat to their autonomy is the possibility of federalintervention in the case that the branch causes serious damageto the federal party – though even this must be approved bytwo-thirds of National Directorate members (Wilson 2007: 12).Regional branches, however, exercise only marginal influenceover state decision-making. Although the party has dualstructures of national decision-making, with two party leaders(Secretary and President), the regional branches have littleinput into the selection of party leaders or national decision-making (Gianetti and Mule 2006). One way to offset their lackof influence at the centre is for regional branches to use the‘subsidiarity warning mechanism’ that forces the stateleadership to re-evaluate a political or policy decision thatundermines the principle of subsidiarity or threatens theregional branches’ prerogatives.

PolandThe early stages of party system development in post-communistPoland have been characterized by a strong degree offragmentation and instability. During the course of the 1990s,however, party competition started to revolve around the socio-economic and ideological cleavages between the left-wing SLD(Democratic Left) alliance, dominated by the post-socialistSdRP, and the heterogeneous bourgeois bloc which united in theSolidarity Electoral Action (AWS). On both sides, large tradeunion federations – the post-communist OZPP and the anti-communist Solidarity respectively – played a significant roleand compensated for the weaknesses of the party membershiporganizations (Szcerbiak 1999). Both the legacies of thecommunist past and the challenges of the political and economictransition separated the two political camps (see Lewis 1996).When the governing AWS disintegrated and failed to cross theelectoral threshold in the 2001 “earthquake elections”, thecentre-right spectrum of the party system reorganized itself.Its major components are now the liberal-conservative CivicPlatform (PO) and the conservative-nationalist Law and Justice(PiS). These two parties, which are currently the largestparliamentary groupings at the national level, are divided overissues such as the saliency of Polish nationalism, support for

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EU membership and the role of the Catholic church in Polishsociety. Since 2005, PO und PiS have alternated in government,supported by some of the smaller parties (Hanley et al. 2008).The left opposition, although quite weak over the last fewyears, is still headed by the SLD. At the regional level, the16 Voivodeships with limited self-government, substateparliamentary elections are dominated by basically the same setof parties. In some of the regions, smaller ethnic minorityparties (e.g., the German minority in Silesia) do have theirspecific electorate (Szawiel 2007). In general, though, thereis symmetrical party competition across territorial levels.

Parties in Poland, as in other countries of Central and EasternEurope, are characterized by elite domination, loose electoralalliances, low membership density, weak organizationalstructures and strong links with the state (Kopecky 1995).There is top-down control of intra-party processes by smallleadership groups with a substantial overlap betweenparliamentary and extra-parliamentary party elites. Given thesmall number of active party members, regional and localbranches are generally perceived as being fairly passivebodies. While there is statutory autonomy for the lower partyunits in running their own affairs (and national party leadershave often shown a relative lack of interest here), centralparty bodies have kept formal rights of supervising andintervening in regional and local decision-making, e.g. incandidate selection (Szcerbiak 2000). However, there are somedifferences between parties to be noted. On the one hand, the“old” parties which stretch back to communist predecessors, theSLD and the Peasant Party (PSL), tend to have strongerorganizational infrastructures than the other parties. On theother hand, and related, there is evidence that the centre-right parties have a more personalized style of leadership, astronger focus on the party in public office, fewer staffmembers and a more passive internal party life (Enyedi andLinek 2008).

RussiaThe Russian party system has undergone massive changes in thelast decades. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union andthe demise of one-party rule under the Communist Party of theSoviet Union (CPSU) in 1989-91, a new multi-party system wascreated in the new Russian federation. However, the immediate

21

post-Soviet party system was characterised by high levels offragmentation and electoral volatility, with over 40 politicalparties competing in the 1995 parliamentary election alone(Gel’man 2008: 914). Given this hyper-fragmentation, it isunsurprising that this system did not survive much longer thana decade. By the early 2000s, a new party system emerged inRussia that had some worrying similarities to the old one-partymonopoly of political power, which revolved around VladimirPutin’s United Russia party and its satellites. Though thecurrent system is a far cry from the ‘centralized, secretiveand all-pervasive “totalitarian” party-state apparatus’ thatcharacterised Soviet rule (March, 2006: 346), scholars havedoubted the democratic nature of Russia’s current politicalsystem, which has instead been described as ‘electoralauthoritarianism’ (Ross 2011a) or a ‘party-based authoritarianregime’ (Gel’man 2008). Despite high hopes for the developmentof a new democracy, the post-Soviet Russian Federation hassince ‘emerged as a state wholly unfamiliar with the preceptsof democratic federalism’ and politically wedded to ‘oldimperialist policies and approaches’ (Ordeshook 1996: 1).

The main explanation for Russia’s electoral authoritarianregime is the success of the ‘party of power’, United Russia (UR),in achieving a near-complete monopolisation of power at alllevels of the Russian political system – national, regional andlocal – with full support of, indeed management by, theKremlin. The result was that political opposition was almostwiped out, party competition became near-extinct and electionsbecome staged affairs. This was achieved through theintroduction of several laws on elections and parties that were‘deliberately designed to prevent the creation of strongnationwide parties that could pose a challenge to the dominantposition of the president and the “party of power”’ (Ross2011b: 432). To fill this ‘gap’ in party competition, UR becomea ‘multi-layered pie’ with three hierarchical layers: (1) UR asthe dominant party; (2) ‘satellites’ of UR that were created byKremlin officials to provide loyal or fake alternatives to URto ‘avoid placing too many eggs in one basket’, such as JustRussia; and (3) UR’s enemies, including the neo-communists andliberals, who relied on Kremlin support for political survival(see Gel’man 2008: 920-927). In short, the Kremlin and its‘party of power’ were able to co-opt or invent the opposition,thus guaranteeing control over the party system. The result was

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a ‘massive reduction in the number of parties at the nationaland regional levels…only those parties which are sanctioned bythe Kremlin are allowed to register and compete in elections’(Ross 2011b: 432).

In terms of party organization, all political parties are‘effectively controlled by the Kremlin and incorporated intothe formal and informal hierarchy of Russia’s government’(Gel’man 2008: 913). In order to be successful in Russianpolitics, a party must be (1) highly loyal to the Kremlin andUR policies and (2) highly centralised with subordinateregional branches. A study by Perepechko et al (2011: 603)found that ‘only the centralized parties with developednetworks of regional and local organizations (LDPR, Yabloko,CPRF, Motherland, Unity (Medved) and United Russia) have becomeinstitutionalized. All the decentralized parties failed tobecome institutionalized’. UR’s party organization has beendescribed as ‘Kremlin-based external governance’ that is highlycentralized, intolerant of dissent and independent of partyleadership (Gel’man 2008: 920-2). Thus party officials are onlyin charge of routine management and are thus easilyreplaceable; the real strategic decision-making is done byKremlin officials, while power is centralized in the hands ofPutin himself rather than the party per se (Gel’man 2006; Roseand Mischler 2010). For instance, Putin is Chairman of UR’sruling council; he can get rid of dissident deputies byremoving them from the parliamentary fraction; all ministersare accountable to him as Prime Minister; and he controls theDuma and the Executive (Rose and Mischler 2010: 815). The UR’srelationship with the regions has is typified by strong,central control, with formerly autonomous regional governorsnow being appointed by the President and completely subordinateto central decision-making (Ross 2011a: 643). Regionalorganizations have no financial dependence (including controlover campaign funding), they lack representation in the centralnational decision-making organs of UR, and they must seekcentral approval over virtually all regional-level decision-making so that in effect they are unable to act independentlyon any key personnel decisions (Slider 2010: 268). In contrast,the main opposition in Russian, in the form of the CommunistParty of the Russian Federation (CPRF) is more decentralizedand heterogeneous (March, 2008: 351), however this may also –as Perepechko et al (2011) indicate – a reason for its failure.

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As March (ibid) argues, the CPRF has struggled to control itsregional components. It appears more disinclined than UR to usean iron first to guarantee loyalty and obedience to party aims.As a result, of the 34 elections held in March 2007–March 2009,UR won a majority of the seats in every assembly (Ross 2011a:643). Indeed, Ross argues that the dominance of UR is so greatthat the real battle for power is not between UR and oppositionparties, but between economic factions and groups within URitself. These regional struggles for control prohibits theestablishment of strong regional organizations, which accordingto Slider (2010: 257) is the intended outcome: the Kremlin usesthe party as a screen to conceal its efforts to micro-manageregional political developments.

SpainWith the introduction of the first democratic elections in1977, the Spanish party system evolved towards a two-partymodel, with the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) dominating theleft and the Partido Popular (PP), successor to the FrancoistPopular Alliance, on the right. The PSOE’s successfuldevelopment was aided by the decline of the Communists, who arenow represented in the smaller United Left (IU) party. The PSOEand PP have alternated in government since the 1980s. However,bipolar left-right competition in the Spanish party system iscircumscribed by a strong territorial dimension. The creationof seventeen ‘autonomous communities’ in the 1978 constitutioncreated multiple arenas for political competition. With fewexceptions, NSWPs operate throughout Spain, receiving 12-20% ofthe vote (Pallarés and Keating 2006: 117). That number ishigher in the ‘historical communities’ of Catalonia, the BasqueCountry and Galicia, where the most prominent nationalistparties exist, i.e. the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) and theConvergence and Union Party (CiU) in Catalonia, the BasqueNationalist Party (PNV), Eusko Alkartasuna and Herri Batasuna in theBasque Country; and the Galician Nationalist Bloc in Galicia.

The PSOE has made significant efforts to adapt its strategiesand organisation to the multi-level setting in Spain. Theparty, which formally established a federal structure at itsinception in 1925, began to fully decentralise power to itsregional branches in the 1990s after a period of centralisation(Hopkin 2009). A partial explanation for this was that when itlost office in 1996, the so-called ‘regional barons’ took the

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opportunity to expand their local power bases and reasserttheir role and influence at the centre. Since then, theregional units of the PSOE, called ‘federations’, haveexercised considerable organisational autonomy, as well asinfluence at the statewide level. They are responsible fortheir own internal organisation, decision-making structures,and institutional resources; manifestos, policy and campaignstrategies; post-electoral alliances; and control overcandidate selection for regional elections. Moreover, they havethe ability to formally influence statewide decision-makingthrough the mechanism of the ‘territorial council’ andinformally influence the party leadership, though this varieswith the strength of individual regional party barons. The mostpowerful regional party leaders also sit on the FederalExecutive Commission (Wilson 2007). The PSOE has also respondedto individual pressures for territorial differentiation withinits structures. Most notably, the PSOE has a special ‘pact offederation’ with the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), which wasformalised during the Second Republic. This relationshipfurnishes the PSC with far more autonomy than the otherregional units (such as over coalition formation), as well asinfluence within the statewide leadership structures. The PSOEalso has a pact with the PSE in the Basque Country, though thisunit was given less autonomy. The affiliated Catalan and Basqueparties allow the PSOE to give the Spanish socialist movement amore territorial focus and respond more effectively tonationalism there.

In contrast, the Partido Popular continues to espouse acentralised vision of Spain, which is reflected in thecentralisation of the party. The PP, despite having local,provincial and regional levels, has given them only limitedautonomy to act. The internal organisation of regional partyunits is decreed by statewide party statutes; they are obligedto comply with the decisions of the state party leadership,they have limited control over candidate selection, and nocontrol over leadership selection, which are decided by theNational Executive Committee. Regional units also have limitedinfluence over statewide decision-making. Party organs arecentralised around the President of the statewide party, whohas considerable leverage over leadership and candidateselection, and for issuing proposals on organisationaldecisions. The PP has been vigorously opposed to granting the

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regions more autonomous powers, and took a particularly anti-nationalist line in both the Catalonia and the Basque Country.Yet the PP has also made alliances with, or alternatively hadabsorbed, a number of smaller, right-wing territorial partiesin certain regions. In Navarra, the PP developed an electoralalliance with the Union del Pueblo Navarro (UPN), an anti-Basque nationalist party, with which it entered a ‘pact ofcollaboration’ (that ended in 2009). The PP also has anelectoral alliance with the Partido Aragonés in Aragón; and itmanaged to win over the territorial vote for the Unidad Alavesain the Alava region of the Basque Country, and the UnióValenciana in Valencia (Pallarés and Keating 2006). The PP hasthus differentiated its electoral and coalition strategies indifferent regions, despite the lack of formal organisationalautonomy for substate units.

UkraineWhen Ukraine achieved independence from the Soviet Union in1991, very little changed in terms of the political balance ofpower. According to Zimmer and Haran (2008: 545), the ‘elitegroups which were influential at the time of “regime change”could mold the new institutional framework in compliance withtheir ideas and interests.’ Ukrainian politics was dominated bythe nomenklatura (elite members of the apparatus) which lackedany formal party affiliation because the Communist Party ofUkraine (KPU) was temporarily banned. In the first freeelections of 1994, the nomenklatura-based ‘party of power’fielded candidates as independents, which obtained the largestnumber of seats. So began a decade of politics dominated byPresident Leonid Kuchma. The Kuchma era represented a darkperiod of history in post-Soviet Ukraine, characterized by‘electoral fraud, government-sponsored murders, distortedprivatizations, tight media control and “managed democracy”’(Copsey 2006: 335). Popular dissatisfaction with Kuchma’sincreasingly authoritarian-type regime led to the OrangeRevolution of 2004. Massive popular demonstrations in Kievstarted in October, when the first then second rounds ofpresidential elections appeared to have led to victory forViktor Yanukovych, a centrist politician groomed by Kuchma andendorsed by the Kremlin. Yanukovych was leader of the ‘Party ofthe Regions’, which endorsed close links with Russia. Keypolitical opponents who led the Orange Revolution were ViktorYushchenko, leader of the Western-oriented ‘Our Ukraine’ and

26

Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of the populist Bloc Yulia Tymoschenkoand Fatherland party. After surviving two known assassinationplots during the election campaign, including a poisoning and abomb attempt (Kuzio 2010a: 386), Yushchenko was declared thewinner in January 2005 and was inaugurated as Ukraine’s newPresident amid a peaceful end to the revolution. The OrangeRevolution led to high hopes for the ‘Europeanization’ ofUkraine, including the development of real democraticinstitutions and respect for the rule of law. However, theYushchenko presidency from 2005-2010 was fraught withdifficulties, including a persistent tension between PresidentYushchenko and on-off Prime Minister Tymoshenko that renderedUkraine ungovernable (Connolly and Copsey 2011: 551). Thus in2010, Ukrainians voted for change and endorsed the Yanukovychas President, who has been described as ‘the most neo-Sovietpolitical leader since the USSR disintegrated’ (Kuzio 2011:221). Since then, commentators have traced a worrying return toa Soviet-style repression of democratic processes.

Yanukovych’s Party of Regions was created in 2000-1 as acentrist ‘party of power’ comprised of business elites andformer members of the Soviet ruling class. It can therefore bedescribed as a communist successor party (Kuzio 2010b).According to Zimmer and Haran (2008: 553), the Party of Regions‘inherited much of the political culture of the KPU’ includinga highly centralized party organizational structure andcommand-administrative methods. But while the party has someclear policy issues, such as endorsing Russian as a secondlanguage and stronger ties with Russia, it lacks a clearideology. More than anything it is a ‘party of wealthy peoplewho were (or are) connected … with the state bureaucracy’(ibid: 557) and who are fearful of change. In particular, theparty employs Soviet-style rhetoric that is pronouncedly anti-Western (Kuzio 2011: 222). For instance, it viewed the Orangerevolution as covertly instigated by Western (i.e. U.S.)political forces. The Party of Regions is also regionallyconcentrated. It emerged from the eastern oblast of Donetsk,notable for its strong industrial base, where it hadmonopolized regional politics. While it initially had somedifficulties in extending its voter base into Central Ukraine,this was accomplished when it adopted some of the rhetoric andpolicies of the KPU, but without the ideological baggage, whichmade it first party of choice for many Ukrainians.

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The Party of Regions’ regional origins points to a broaderterritorial fragmentation of the party system and votingbehaviour in the country. Indeed, Ukraine has a ‘historicaldivide between the Ukrainian-speaking, ‘reform-oriented’ and‘pro-Western’ west (and centre) of the country, and itsRussian-speaking, ‘retrograde’, ‘pro-Eastern’ east (and south)’(Mykhnenko 2009: 279). This territorial divide, rather thansociological cleavages, has primarily determined the regionaland national success of parties since 1990 (Zimmer and Haran2008: 547). While the Party of Regions was dominant in theRussian-speaking east and south (which was a previousstronghold of the KPU), Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine bloc waspopular in the ethnic-Ukrainian and nationalist-dominated westand Right Bank regions, while the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc and thesocialists were most popular on the centre Left Bank (White andMcAllister 2010: 232; Zimmer and Haran 2008: 547). However, theelectoral geography of Ukraine changed during the 2010election. Romanova (2011) demonstrated that voting behaviourbecame more homogenous as the Party of Regions gained morevotes across Ukraine as a whole. The consolidation of the Partyof Regions beyond its eastern and southern strongholds isindicative of a successful attempt to become a pan-Ukrainian‘party of power’. It is also exhibiting strategies that aresimilar to those of Putin’s ‘party of power’, United Russia (seeabove), with which it signed a ‘collaboration agreement’ in2005. For instance, it has created ‘satellite parties’ to drawaway support from the opposition, such as the United Centre andParty of Free Democrats; it has changed the electoral law froma PR to a majority-system which created barriers for creatingnew parties; local elections have been cancelled where they arelikely to produce a low vote for the party; and one of theParty of Region’s main political opponents – Yulia Tymoshenvoand her colleagues from the 2007-2010 government – has beenimprisoned on charges of corruption and abuse of office (Kuzio2010c). The West has since strongly criticized the imprisonmentof Tymoshenko as politically motivated and has demanded herrelease. All these signs indicate that Ukraine is on the pathto the same type of ‘electoral authoritarianism’ with a single,centralized party of power monopolizing party competition, thatwe have seen with Putin’s UR in Russia.

United Kingdom

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Party competition in the UK has been influenced by the impactof a two-party system, with the Conservatives and Labourrepresenting opposing ideological poles. The Liberal Democratsbecame the ‘third’ party in UK elections, though the singleplurality electoral system used for statewide elections favoursthe two bigger parties. Party competition until the late 1990swas relatively symmetrical, with the same parties competingacross the country (though the Conservatives were stronger inthe south, whilst Labour had its strongholds in northernEngland, Scotland and Wales). However, the UK party systemunderwent a significant transformation with the introduction ofdevolution in the late 1990s. Devolution accentuated thedistinctiveness of the party systems in Scotland and Wales,where nationalist parties had been competing successfully sincethe 1960s, which was aided by the mixed electoral systems. Bothevolved into multi-party systems, with strong nationalistcompetitors (in the form of the Scottish National Party andPlaid Cymru). Electoral support for nationalist parties isconsistently higher at regional elections than statewidecontests (Wyn Jones and Scully 2006), which has putconsiderable pressure on statewide parties to compete ondistinctly Scottish and Welsh regional issues. However, lackinga devolved parliament for England, English branches of partiescontinued to be highly integrated into the British parties.

Labour moved from being a highly centralised party to a moreregionalised one, with greater autonomy for Scottish and Welshbranches, in the 1990s (Hopkin and Bradbury 2006).Traditionally, the Scottish and Welsh Councils of the LabourParty had constituted administrative branches of the unitary UKLabour Party, which enjoyed little more autonomy than, forexample, the East Midlands Labour Party. However, a number ofpressures forced Labour to decentralise certain functions tothe Scottish and Welsh parties, including North-Southpolarisation, the need to combat political nationalism, and theneed to respond to demands for more regional organisationalautonomy. In 1994, a degree of autonomy was granted to theScottish branch, and both the SLP and Labour Party Wales weregiven their own headquarters, executives and annualconferences. However, they had little real decision-makingpower: party policy, personnel functions, candidate selectionrules and campaign strategies were decided by the Britishleadership. However, in the early years of devolution, Labour

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was forced to transfer a number of powers to the Scottish andWelsh branches. These included control over internal partydecision-making such as leadership selection in the devolvedlegislatures and candidate selection procedures; control overcampaign strategy in devolved elections; and control overpolicymaking procedures and programmes at the devolved level(Bradbury 2006). The latter function would allow Labour todevelop a policy programme more attractive to Scottish andWelsh voters. But whilst the Scottish Labour Party wasrelatively comfortable with the New Labour discourse, in Walesthis was vigorously resisted. In 2000, the Welsh leader RhodriMorgan reasserted Welsh Labour’s commitment to what may beconsidered as ‘Old Labour’ values. Meanwhile, Scottish Labourpursued a number of policies distinct from the British Party.However, this autonomy has been exercised by only some partyleaders: most have preferred to toe the line of the Britishparty.

The Conservative Party also moved from a centrist strategy toan autonomist one, following devolution in 1998-9. Prior tothis period, the party was highly centralised, owing to formerUK Party Leader Margaret Thatcher’s efforts to bring theregional branches into line by assuming control over itspersonnel, finance and political office, so that ultimateauthority was exercised by the British leadership. Previously,the Scottish party, known as the Scottish Unionist Party 1912-1965, had been constitutionally separate from its Englishcounterparts, in contrast to the Welsh branch, which wasmanaged from London. The Conservatives were, under Thatcher’srule, perceived to be assimilationist (Mitchell 1990). Yet,like Labour, the Conservative party in Scotland and Wales alsoharboured some elements that desired greater autonomy (Bradbury2006). With devolution, these voices came to the fore in theparty. In 1998, the Scottish party held a number of internaldiscussions on how to respond organisationally to the devolvedlegislatures and to win back electoral support. The outcome wasa decision to transform the branch into a more ‘Scottish’ partyby granting it constitutional independence, though it was stillaffiliated to the British party and exhibited a Conservativeidentity. This allowed the party to control procedures forcandidate and selection, campaign strategies and policyprogrammes. The resulting confederal relationship between theScottish and British parties was not extended to Wales, where

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there was little development towards autonomy. Despite this,the British leadership did allow the Welsh party room formanoeuvre (Bradbury 2006: 142). The greater problem was ashortage of good Scottish- and Welsh-based candidates tocontest the devolved elections, and the knowledge that they hadlittle hope of forming an administration at the regional level.Moreover, the Scottish and Welsh parties are still stronglytied to the British party in UK elections, often issuingmanifestos with identical text (though with different coversand introductions). Moreover, the Scottish party chairman isstill appointed centrally, whilst Scottish and Welsh partymembers themselves have little participation in the British(seen as English) leadership.

Continuum of Party StrategiesThis discussion has shown that the six ‘categories’ of partystrategies are not fixed or immutable. On the contrary; thereis a great deal of flexibility and movement in party responsesto multilevel political change, and parties may also movebetween and outside these four types, for instance by removingties between national and regional party organisationsaltogether. For instance the UK parties moved from a centralistto a decentralist strategy following the decentralisation ofstate structures in the 1990s; the Austrian and Germanstatewide parties moved from a consensualist to a federaliststrategy, by strengthening regional branch autonomy in the1990s; and the Belgian parties moved from a federalist to abifurcated strategy, by loosening mechanisms of joint decision-making. In order to capture the complexities of party responsesto multilevel politics, and to account for the movement ofparties from one strategy to another, we envision the six idealtypes of party organizations as being located along a continuumof territorial rescaling.

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Joint Decision-Making

Regional Autonomy autonomy

Strong

Weak

Low High

German SPD, Austrian SPÖ (until the 1990s)German CDU,

Belgian CDV (until 1970s) Austrian ÖVP

Scottish and Welsh Labour (since 2001), PSOE,

Italian Democratic Party

Forza Italia, Spanish PP, Russian UR,Czech ODS,

Ukraine Party of the Regions

Belgian CD&V and CDH

(since 1970s)

Figure 2: Territorial Rescaling of Multi-Layered PartyOrganizations: Some examples

Source: Own illustration

In the bottom-left corner, we have centralist parties, whichhave refused to let the multi-layered nature of the politicalsystem interfere with how they organise, elect representativesor write policy. In other words, parties have continued topursue internal cohesion through strong vertical linkages, withlittle room for regional units of the party to manoeuvre. Forinstance, in Spain and Italy, centre-right parties – includingthe PP and Forza Italia – have highly centralised partystructures, with a strong leadership role for the president,and a strong drive towards uniformity in policy programmes. Wehave seen similar traits in some of the parties of Central and

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Eastern Europe: United Russia, the Ukraine Party of the Regionsand the Czech Civic Democrats are clear examples of top-downcentralist parties. These represent top-down pyramid-typestructures, whereby the state leadership is responsible forappointing the regional leadership, and regional leaders havelittle say in the running of the party.

Moving right along the x-axis, we then have a consensualiststrategy evident in Austria and Germany prior to 1990. Landorganisations were given more internal decision-making powersand gained more equal representation in the federal party. Butoverwhelmingly, Austrian and German parties sought to uphold ahigh degree of internal cohesion, with the regional partyleaders being subsumed into the federal party nationalexecutives. This provided a source of continuity andintegration. And even when there were tensions between the twolevels, the parties maintained a close interconnection, such asthe vertical intra-party coordination in the German Bundesrat.

Next, some parties have adopted a federalist strategy, wherebythey seek to maintain integration, but also allow for a degreeof flexibility. This applies to Austrian parties, and Germanparties following reunification in 1990. The ChristianDemocrats in both countries have found it easier to turn formalautonomy of substate branches into political reality than theirSocial Democratic counterparts. For the Austrian ÖVP,confederalism seems to catch the strong life of their own whichthe Land organizations and the leagues maintain.

Following this, a decentralist strategy allows for the growingautonomy of state and substate party units. This allows thedifferent units to adapt and respond to dissimilar pressuresresulting from party competition at different levels. Thisstrategy is evident amongst centre-left parties in the UK(Labour), Italy (Democratic Party) and Spain (PSOE), which haveall in recent years moved to a more decentralisedorganisational and programmatic structure. The maincharacteristics of this strategy are: granting regional unitscontrol over their own internal decision-making, personnelfunctions, campaign strategies, and policy programmes. At the bottom-right end of the continuum, we have bifurcatedparties which bear the same name (or belong to the same party

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family) as another party in the national territory but have noorganisational linkages, and truncated parties which operateonly at the national level and have no regional counterparts.Belgian parties are bifurcated, as the parties are divided intoregional units in Flanders and Wallonia, which have their ownparty statutes, leadership bodies, and full control over policyprogrammes.

Explaining variance in party responsesStatewide parties in European democracies have developed arange of different responses to the increasingly asymmetricalnature of party competition in federal or decentralised states,which has resulted from parties’ changing functions and theemergence of systems of multi-level governance. Thesestrategies have varied across countries, as well as acrossparties themselves. In some countries, all major parties havegone for similar patterns of multi-level organizations. Moststrikingly, bifurcated strategies have been adopted by all(former) Belgian statewide parties; while parties that havebeen successful in Russia have tended to be centralist. Incontrast, statewide parties competing within Spain, Italy andthe UK have tended to pursue their own individual strategies.What factors explain this variation across cases and partyfamilies? We will more clearly distinguish the variables thataccount for different patterns of adaptation. These may varyacross region, across time and across the party itself.

Party IdeologyAlthough there are centralising and decentralising traditionsin all of the main party families, this comparative caseanalysis has shown that in decentralised or devolved systems,the Left are more likely to decentralise their organisations.This has been the case for the Labour Party in the UK, theDemocratic Party in Italy, and the PSOE and United Left inSpain, which have all adopted autonomist strategies. Meanwhile,the Right has tended towards more centrist strategies, evidentin the Partido Popular in Spain and People of Freedom party inItaly. There have, however, been some exceptions. The first ofwhich is the Conservative Party in the UK, which has tendedtowards the autonomist strategy in Scotland (where the partyhas distinctive historical roots), though its strategy in Walesis more centrist (where there is a weaker distinctive WelshConservative tradition). A second important exception is the

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strategies adopted by parties operating in federal systems. InAustria and Germany we find that the pattern is ratherdifferent from the other decentralising multi-level states. Thetendency for all statewide parties, despite their partisancolours, is towards more federalist or confederalist strategies(in systems of federal joint decision-making) Meanwhile, inthe Central and Eastern European cases we examined the tendencyis generally towards more centralist forms of partyorganisation. While in the Austrian/German case, thishomogeneity in party organisations may be explained by the(federal) design of the state (see below), in CEE it may beexplained by the legacy of the strongly-centralised and elite-driven Soviet Communist parties, and the importance attributedto top-down ‘parties of power’.

State Design Party strategies are affected by the structure of the multi-level state, be it devolved or federal, which is oftenreflected in their type of organisation; their strategies arealso affected by the nature of regional-state relations, whichis especially important when there is congruence in governmentformation at the regional and statewide levels; and finally,their strategies are affected by the status of the regionwithin the state, particularly if there is popular demand formore recognition and competences. In the latter case, there hasbeen evidence of variation in strategies within the statewideparties themselves. For instance, in the UK the ConservativeParty has adopted a clear decentralist strategy in Scotland –endowing the party with organisational and programmaticautonomy – whilst in Wales the strategy is more akin to thecentrist strategy, whereby party policy and finance is decreedfrom London. We can also see evidence of internal partyvariation in strategies elsewhere: in Spain the PSOE hasallowed the development of an affiliated Catalan party withmaximum autonomy – the PSC, and in Germany, the ChristianSocial Union has developed as an independent party from theCDU, but which is affiliated in terms of its policy andideological position. Therefore, the special status of theregion within the state, and institutional changes across theterritorial structure of the state, are important factorsinfluencing party organisation. The exception here is Russia,which is constitutionally a ‘federation’, but which isdominated by highly centralised parties. An explanation for

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this is that while Russia may be a federation, it lacksstructures of democratic federalism, and is more akin to acentralised, semi-authoritarian state.

Party Constitutional AimsIn many cases, the type of strategy adopted by the party inquestion has correlated with their constitutional aims. Inother words, parties have adopted the organisational structuresthat they wish to see implemented within the state. To takesome examples, the Liberal Democrats in the UK are a federalparty supporting federalism in the UK; the devolution-supporting Labour Party has a devolved party structure; thepro-regionalisation PSOE in Spain has a regionalised partystructure; and the People of Freedom party in Italy remainscentralised in accordance with its own constitutionalpreference for Italy; and the centralist United Russia reflectsPutin’s top-down control-command preference for Russiangovernance. The correspondence between the constitutional aimsof the parties and their organisational adaptation tomultilevel governance may in part explain why parties inAustria and Germany have adopted similar strategies across theparty system: these are well-established federal states wherethe constitutional future of the state in question is not ascontested as it is in Belgium, Spain, the UK and Italy – wherenationalist parties have voiced demands for the radicalrestructuring of the state. Rather, statewide parties inAustria and Germany generally support the current form offederalism in their states. Therefore, some political partieshave sought to reflect the divisions of powers within the statein their own organisational structures.

Existence of NSWPsThe territorial strategies of statewide parties are shaped bythe constitutional aspirations of non-statewide parties(NSWPs), especially when their demands for self-determinationgain significant electoral support, resulting in a shock to thepolitical system. More specifically, it seems that in caseswhere regional branches of statewide parties face secessionistdemands from regionalist parties, then they are likely to adoptmore radical constitutional positions. For instance, statewideparties competing with more extreme independence-seekingparties (such as the SNP and N-VA in Flanders) have adoptedmore radical organisational and programmatic changes (such as

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the UK Labour and Conservative Parties decentralising theirorganisations) than those competing with federal-orientedregionalist parties (such as the CSU). Thus, in many cases, andin particular within the more contested constitutional arenasof Spain, Italy and the UK, it is a desire to maintain theterritorial integrity of the state from threats of secessionthat has motivated the strategies of statewide parties. Butwhilst some parties – especially those on the Left – believethat granting a degree of autonomy to regional subunits is thebest method for warding off the threat of independence fromnationalist parties, other parties – many on the Right – havetaken the opposite view. It is believed that any move towardsgranting autonomy to regional subunits will lead to the break-up of the party, the dissolution of the party system and thecollapse of the state. Instead the emphasis is on retaining aninflexible united front in a unified state in the face ofthreats from NSWPs.

Territorial identity and interestsA next set of explanatory factors for change in partystrategies has to do with the salience of territorial interestsand identities within the party system. The existence of astrong identity or interests at the regional level is notalways correlated with the existence of a nationalist party,though NSWPs can effectively mobilise these interests. Rather,they can act as an independent factor influencing theorganisational decisions of statewide parties. Eastern Germanyis a case in point, where parties have been forced to represent‘eastern interests’ within the federal state, adjusting theirregional party machinery to fit the locality. Tuscany offers adifferent example, whereby Italian parties have been forced toadapt their structures and policies to complement the socialvalues and civic structures of this infamous ‘red belt’ region.Importantly, territorial interests are not only about symbolicissues of recognition of identities or nationhood, orconstitutional issues like self-determination – they can alsobe functional, i.e. economic concessions or demands for fiscalautonomy, linguistic protection or greater interestrepresentation in the state. In some cases, competition overthe representation of territorial interests has become theprimary cleavage in the regional party system, most evident inFlanders and Scotland.

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ConclusionTo conclude, this paper has argued that political parties,which once instruments of national integration, are now facedwith the challenge of denationalisation and policy divergence.There are numerous ways in which political parties haveresponded to state structural change and the heightening ofterritorial dimension of politics. Whilst some have sought toreflect new divisions of powers within the state in their ownorganisational strategies, others have held on to the beliefthat a united party will underpin a unified state. We haveidentified six strategies of adaptation amongst the parties:centrist (with centralised decision-making and weak jointstructures), consensualist (with uniform appeals across levelsand strong involvement of substate party elites in centralaffairs), federalist (implying the federalisation of partystructures), confederalist (where parties mix strong intra-party coordination with high degrees of flexibility),decentralist (where parties devolve significant control toregional branches) and bifurcated (where vertical linkagesbetween party levels have been cut). However, these strategiesare neither fixed in time, evidenced by party movement alongthe centrist-autonomist continuum. Moreover, we have found thatsome parties have moved outside our typology, by severing bondsbetween regional and national party organisations, or grantingno representation to regional bodies, requiring us to expandthe continuum to range from unitarism at one end to truncatedparty structures at the other, where joint decision-makingstructures are wholly absent in party organisations. The nextstep is to expand our typology to account for these moreextreme forms of party organisation, and to expand ourempirical base to account for party structures in other multi-level states outside Europe.

The comparative case analysis here, however, has suggested arange of factors to account for variation across parties andacross countries. These include a number of local, statewideand supranational factors. To highlight a few of these, withinthe regional party arena, the existence and electoral salienceof NSWPs has been a strong factor in forcing regional branchesof state parties to take territorial issues on board, and tooffer alternative policies and demands to those of secession(Hepburn 2009). The territorialisation of statewide partiesalso results from the institutional changes in the territorial

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structures of states, whereby in decentralising states,regional branches must position themselves on regional issues,compete in regional electoral arenas, and represent or channelthe interests of the territory to higher-level politicalstructures and vice versa (Chhibber and Kollmann 2004; Jefferyand Hough 2006). Organisational strategies have also beenaffected by internal aspects of party policy – in particulartheir ideological positioning (where centre-left parties aremore likely to decentralise than centre-right parties) andtheir constitutional aims (which is often reflected in theirparty organisation). Finally, party strategies may be affectedby external pressures, such as supranational integration, whichhave reinforced the need to protect regional interests.

The re-positioning and reorganisation of parties at theregional level heralds a new type of politics, and politicalrepresentation, in multi-level states. Whilst parties havetraditionally claimed to represent citizens across the state byappealing to a common political vision, in multilevel states ithas become difficult to commit the party as a whole to a singlepolicy programme. Parties must now adapt and respond to severalloci of decision-making at different territorial levels, tocompete with nationalist and regionalist parties, and toaccommodate the territorial interests of the regionalelectorate. This has had a significant impact on party systems,causing greater divergence between regional and statewideparties and systems, and leading to new forms of coordinationand interdependence within parties. Though it may be too soonto herald the decline of statewide political representation, weare certainly seeing the resurgence of territory in multi-levelparty politics.

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