Multi-Level Electoral Competition

Abstract

Regionalization in the form of the creation of Autonomous Communities (ACs) has played a significant role in shaping the Spanish party system since the transition to democracy in 1977. Parties are divided into statewide parties, operating at both national and regional levels, and non-statewide parties. The latter have been most important in the historic nations of Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia. We can generally see autonomous elections as second-order elections, with lower turnout than national elections and with results generally following the national pattern. In certain cases, the presence of non-statewide parties challenges this pattern and in Catalonia a distinct political arena exists with its own characteristics. The existence of autonomous parliaments and governments has also provided new opportunities for both statewide and non-statewide parties and served as a power base for political figures within the parties.

Key electoral institutions and rules influencing proportionality and partisan bias in Spanish politics

“…The Spanish electoral system is often classified as a proportional system (Pallarés and Keating, 2003;Martinez-Pujalte, 2008) though some of its electoral rules exercise a counterbalance effect that tends to reduce proportionality by favouring the main big political groups in each district. This nonproportionality bias is also detected when we compare the results traditionally obtained by small statewide parties with those obtained by nationalist parties that only present candidates at one region-state and not in all regions-states of Spain.…”

“…Similarly, it must be taken into account that in Spain there are also many legislative chambers under a complex multilevel political system that in fact works as a federal system and generates many interdependencies between levels of government (Field, 2009;León, 2014;Rodden and Wibbels, 2011;Toboso and Scorsone, 2015). These interactions do in fact also influence electoral results and the final share of seats as well as emerging public policies (Pallarés and Keating, 2003;Leon, 2012;Sanguinetti and Tomassi, 2004;Rodden, 2002;Toboso 2005Toboso , 2006Knutsen, 2011). Finally, to clearly state that our research endeavour is not that of obtaining predictions but a more modest one, it is also relevant to stress that electoral results and seat sharing also depend on many other institutional and non-institutional factors besides those electoral ones mentioned above (Scartascini et al, 2013;Spiller et al, 2010;Holm-Hadullaa et al, 2012;Schofield and Caballero, 2011;Schofield et al, 2013).…”

Mayors' perceptions on local government reforms and decentralization in Spain

“…This foundational division between "fast-" and "slow-track" regions has been largely scrutinized at diverse levels and with different approaches. It has been argued to have different political effects on citizens' perceptions and behaviors (León, 2011;León and Ferrín, 2007;Lago-Peñas and Lago-Peñas, 2013), electoral issues (Molas and Bartomeus, 1998;Pallarés and Keating, 2003;Riera, 2012;2013) and constitutional regulations or intergovernmental relations (Aja, 2014;Aja and Colino, 2014). Specifically from a citizen's perspective, there is a large amount of research scrutinizing the impact of the differential territorial distribution of powers in Spain on public opinion (for an intensive review, see Liñera, 2014), and the process of state building (for classical works, see Linz, 1973;1985).…”

Construcción de coaliciones electorales en escenarios desnacionalizados. Un aporte teórico

“…En una línea similar, la bibliografía europea ha consensuado una distinción entre dos tipos: partidos de ámbito estatal (PAE) y partidos de ámbito no estatal (PANE)(Pallarés y Keating, 2003). Los primeros serían los partidos nacionales y los segundos los partidos regionales o locales (subnacionales).…”