Ideological trends among ethnoregional parties in post‐industrial democracies

Between autonomy and secession

“…In particular, we found that: majoritarian electoral systems dramatically increase the probability of finding radical parties, thus confirming Newman (1997); as suggested by Van Houten (2000) and Massetti (2009), competition from other regionalist parties within the region increases the probability of radicalization, but only at national level; whereas holding office increases the probability of moderation, confirming Elias and Tronconi (2011a).…”

“…4. As noted in several previous studies, especially since Newman (1997) and De Winter (1998), regionalist parties can (and usually do) develop ideological stances on virtually all dimensions/areas (e.g. economic policy, immigration, Notes: *p < 0.05; P ¼ protectionist; F ¼ federalist; A ¼ ambiguous; S ¼ separatist (see Table 1 for a description of the types of parties).…”

“…Comparative works analyzing regionalist parties' ideology per se, as a dependent variable, have remained rare exceptions (Newman, 1997;Van Houten, 2000;Massetti, 2009). 3 It is not by chance that one of the most authoritative works on regionalist parties concludes by stating that 'ideology stands out as one of the most important aspects to cover in future comparative research' (Gomez-Reino et al, 2006: 252).…”

Regional Nationalist Parties and Constitutional Change in Parliamentary Democracies: A Framework for Analysis

“…This article refers to them as regional nationalist parties because they contest elections in a geographically delimited territory and advance the interests of its inhabitants, which share a sense of collective consciousness as a national or political community. This term has the advantage of being more encompassing than the term ethnic or ethno-regionalist party (Horowitz, 1985;Newman, 1997), which is limited to ethnic groups that usually share a common language, while being more specific than the term regionalist, autonomist or non-state-wide party (Pallares et al, 1997;De Winter and Tursan, 1998;De Winter et al, 2006), a term that could equally apply to mainstream parties with a limited geographical basis of electoral support and that do not necessarily speak on behalf of a distinct nation. 2 Mair and Mudde (1998: 222) consider that regional parties do not constitute a party family because they cover the full spectrum on the left-right dimension, suggesting that "the group might be more usefully dispersed among other competing families".…”

“…RNPs act as "mobilizers and challengers" (Rochon, 1985;Newman, 1997), mobilizing electorates on the basis of the territorial cleavage and challenging MSPs by competing for their share of the electorate. Micro-level analyses have shown that the support for RNPs may represent a sincere vote reflecting territorial variations in socio-economic and cultural factors (Urwin, 1983;Hearl et al, 1996;Gordin, 2001), but may also represent a protest vote of citizens dissatisfied with the prevailing system (Hechter and Levi, 1985;Rudolph and Thompson, 1985).…”