Ethno-regionalist Parties in Regional Government: Multilevel Coalitional Strategies in Italy and Spain

Abstract

In the last few decades, ethno-regionalist parties have become leading players in many regional political systems across Europe. This increased representation has opened up new strategic opportunities for these parties, and in particular it has offered them the chance to participate in regional government. Based on a newly compiled data set of 282 governmental formations in Italian and Spanish regions during the period 1945–2011, this study develops and tests several hypotheses regarding the governmental participation of ethno-regionalist parties at regional level. These have been partly drawn from similar studies of ‘outsider’ party families, such as the Green parties or the radical right. A specific focus is then placed on multilevel dynamics, based on the idea that there is a relationship between party strategies at regional and state levels, and in particular on the perception that parties are willing to adopt compatible alliance strategies at the two levels (vertical congruence), at least under certain conditions. Both types of hypothesis (single-level and multilevel) are shown to be plausible when empirically tested on the cases of Italy and Spain. Special attention is given to the conditions under which vertical congruence is used by ethno-regionalist parties as an effective way of minimizing the risks associated with inclusion in governmental coalitions at regional level.

Coalition or Opposition? The Behaviour of Regionalist Parties in Multi-level Competition: The Cases of the Basque Country and Scotland

“…This is why the territorial dimension is the primary area of competition and bargaining between RPs and SWPs. Empirical analysis by Tronconi [2015] confirms that both policy dimensions matter: the less distance between RP and SWP on the centre-periphery and left-right axes, the more chances to make a coalition. Consequently, the reverse logic is valid as well: the more distance between the parties, the less likely the coalition agreement between them.…”

A world of difference: the sources of regional government composition and alternation

“…While different scholars have taken different perspectives -e.g. the strategic perspective of state-wide parties (Falcó-Gimenom and Verge 2013) vs. the strategic perspective of regional parties (Tronconi 2014) -or have stressed some peculiar factors such as the absence of state-wide parties and a national electoral arena in the case of Belgium (Deschouwer 2009), all these studies have confirmed a tendency to avoid cross-cutting coalitions across the national and regional levels (i.e. to pursue cross-level congruence).…”

“…These are the political actors that tend to benefit most from the establishment of regional elections and regional governments (Brancati 2008;Massetti and Schakel 2017). This choice draws on previous works, which have suggested that: (a) the presence of regional parties create a bi-dimensional regional space (traditional left-right plus a centreperiphery dimension) that changes the dynamics of competition and government formation (Ştefuriuc 2009); (b) the number of regional parties entering regional office has increased substantively in the last two decades (Elias and Tronconi 2011); (c) strong regional parties that get into office at regional level tend to hold on to it for long periods due to their strongly identitarian appeal (Alonso et al 2015: 17); (d) they tend to be less judged (and penalised) by voters on executive performance (Alonso 2008: 101); and (e) regional parties are far from immune from the general pressure for vertical congruence in government formation (Tronconi 2014).…”

National and local effects in the Italian regional elections (2018-2020). Beyond second-order election expectations?

“…Italy displays territorially-rooted voting behaviours, which differ from the national pattern in at least two ways. On the one side, ethno-regionalist parties (mainly) based on the centreperiphery cleavage have characterized (some still do) parts of the country and, specifically, some regions (Tronconi 2015) 3 ; on the other side, some areas have long shown a persistent political orientation (e.g., the so-called red belt) that, although consistent with the national scenario, did present specific regional features (Galli 1968;Diamanti 2009;Bolgherini, Grimaldi, Paparo 2020). For all these reasons, we consider recent Italian regional elections as perfect cases to assess if and to what extent different voting patterns between the national and the regional level are in fact occurring, with the goal of disentangling denationalization/localization dynamics.…”