4. The organization of state-wide parties
4.2. Six hypotheses with regard to the relationship between party and state structure
Dual vs. organic federalism and the position of the regional party branch
A first hypothesis pertains to the relationship between a federation’s posi- tioning on the dual-organic framework and the territorial structure of a state-wide party.
Other things being equal, the more cooperative a federal design, the more the regional party branches will be involved in the central party executive and conference and vice versa. Or, to put it differently, we expect the inter- mingling of federal and regional party positions (in organization and public office) to be higher in federations with a more cooperative design. Also, regional party branches that are embedded in a less cooperative framework are more autonomous in organizing regional party affairs (staffing, finance and campaigning) as they see fit. This is so, because the outcome of regional elections does not affect the policies of the centre that much.
Of all our cases, the German federation has the most cooperative design. In line with the hypothesis, regional party leaders are strongly involved in co- determining federal party policy. Regional executive leaders usually assume a central role in the regional party executives and may even come to lead the regional party branch. Via their membership of the federal second chamber they can veto approximately 60 per cent of all federal bills. At times, the federal party executives of the two major state-wide parties (SPD and CDU)
have been composed from leading regional party branch members for approximately half of their membership (Lehmbruch 1998). Membership of a German regional executive can lead to a ticket in the federal party executive or presidium (almost ex officio if the person is a regional Premier).
Consequently many regional Premiers who represented a party in federal opposition have used their seat in the federal party executive as a springboard to the federal chancellorship, the highest prize in German politics. Apart from Adenauer and Erhard, all German chancellors have served as regional premiers or ministers first. Before they were elected as chancellor, Kiesinger served as Premier of Baden-Württemberg, Brandt as Mayor of Berlin, Schmidt as Minister (‘senator’) of the Interior in Hamburg, Kohl as Premier of Rhineland-Palatinate,5and Schröder as Premier of Lower Saxony. The list is even more impressive if one considers all the chancellor races that took place after 1972: Kohl (Premier of Rhineland-Palatinate) vs. Schmidt (1976), Strau (Premier of Bavaria) vs. Schmidt (1980), Rau (Premier of North-Rhine Westphalia) vs. Kohl (1987), Lafontaine (Premier of Saarland) vs. Kohl (1990), Scharping (Premier of Rhineland-Palatinate) vs. Kohl (1994), Schröder (Premier of Lower Saxony) vs. Kohl (1998) and Stoiber (Premier of Bavaria) vs.
Schröder (2002). In each of these races, the Chancellor’s challenger was a sitting regional Premier. In most, the challengers already assumed the general leadership of the federal party, while continuing to serve as Premiers. Should Angela Merkel be elected Chancellor in September 2005, she would be the first federal parliamentary opposition leader in more than thirty years to become so without preceding experience as a regional Premier or minister.
Although the leaders of the regional party branches have played an impor- tant role in federal party politics, regional branches have retained substantial powers of their own. In this sense, the findings do not correspond with the hypothesis. All the German state-wide parties (even the PDS) display the elements of a federal party. They comprise roughly 16 regional party branches (although regional branches do not always correspond with Land borders) and have entrusted the largest fiscal and administrative autonomy to the subregional party branches (Kreisein the case of the CDU, Bezirkeand Unterbezirkein the SPD; see Saalfeld 2002, for a general overview, and Schmid 1990; Lösche and Walter 1994; Vorländer 1992; Hopper 2001; Poguntke 1993; Müller-Rommel and Poguntke 2002 for overviews of the CDU, SPD, FDP and Greens respectively). Furthermore, members usually join the party at the subregional level first. At that level, the pre-selection of most candi- dates for federal and regional office takes place. Usually, the pre-selection of candidates takes place free from direct federal party influence. State funding primarily accrues to the federal party branch (which it can use to finance electoral campaigns), but membership fees largely flow to the regional or subregional branches.
Although the design of Austrian federalism is cooperative, Austria is also a more centralized federation than Germany. The institutional linkages
between the regions and the centre are weaker than in Germany. The Austrian Bundesrat is less powerful and its membership does not comprise the most important regional political players (Polaschek 2000: 403–22).
Consequently, the Austrian regional party leaders play a less-prominent role in the central party, and the regional branches have also retained less auton- omy (Dachs 2003). Regional party leaders may eventually end up in federal politics, but they rarely do so without having shifted level first.
Austria has three major state-wide parties; the Social-Democrats (SPÖ), the Christian Democrats (ÖVP) and the Freedom Party (FPÖ). If we leave aside the Freedom Party, the internal structure of the SPÖ and ÖVP approximates to that of a ‘federal party’. The regional party branches of both parties have retained some autonomy in the pre-selection of candidates for regional and federal public office and in setting the agenda for regional policy matters.
Yet, in both respects, the regional party branches assume a less-prominent position than their German cousins. For instance, when the regional branches stirred a revolt against the federal ÖVP leadership in 1989, the federal party organization responded by claiming a right to propose up to a tenth of all federal parliamentary candidates by the next parliamentary elec- tions. The federal party chairman was given the power to cast a suspensory veto against the suggested ranking of candidates on the regional electoral lists for federal parliamentary elections. In turn, the regional party heads as well as the leaders of the functional party associations received some input in the selection of the federal party leader (Dachs 2003: 92–110).
Swiss federalism also approximates to the organic end of the continuum but, compared with German and Austrian federalism, it has remained more decentralized. Consequently, the regional party branches have retained more autonomy than the regional branches in Germany and Austria. That said, compared with the state-wide parties in the other states, the federal and the regional-party organizations are weakly developed.
Swiss state-wide parties are divided in more than 20 cantonal branches.
Cantonal borders coincide with electoral districts for federal legislative elections. Cantonal party branches control most of the party financing, are almost fully autonomous in pre-selecting candidates for federal and cantonal mandates alike and register party membership. Cantonal party organizations spend up to three times the amount of money of the federal party organizations in federal election campaigns. Some cantonal party branches refuse to campaign under the federal party name, despite their ide- ological or organizational linkage to the state-wide party (Hadley, Morass and Nick 1989: 94–5). The weakness of the state-wide party organizations is stressed further by the presence of no less than 5,000 local parties, excluding the state-wide parties from controlling much of the powerful Swiss munici- palities (Ladner 2001: 132).
Swiss parties are insufficiently endowed to pay for their political personnel and they employ a small party bureaucracy. In 1997, the four state-wide
parties which took part in federal government employed only about 120 full-time staff, 74 of which were active at the cantonal and only 45 at the federal levels. Parties receive hardly any state funding. In 1999, the four fed- eral government parties received 9.4 million Swiss francs, slightly below the amount that accrues to their cantonal party branches. Party membership fees usually accrue to the regional party branches. Unlike in other federa- tions, there is hardly any public funding available to tilt the overall fiscal party balance in favour of the federal branches (data taken from Ladner 2001: 133–6).
On paper, the federal design of Spain is less cooperative than that of Germany, Austria or Switzerland. On that basis, we would expect the regional branches to be less involved in central party affairs and vice versa.
Yet, despite the rapid regionalization of the Spanish state, the two major Spanish state-wide parties have retained a relatively centralized structure. It seems then that the autonomy of the regional party branches is weaker than expected on the basis of the decentralized nature of the Spanish state.
Of the two major Spanish state-wide parties, the Partido Popular (PP or Conservatives) is the most centralized. The PP did not emerge in its present form until 1989, and its first president, later Prime Minister Aznar, invested much of his time in streamlining the organization and in recruiting more and younger party members (Gunther, Montero and Botella 2004: 252–3).
The party has kept a strongly centralized organizational structure through- out. Two elements stand out when the PP is put in a comparative perspec- tive. The first element relates to the strong position of the central party president. By statute, the president is acknowledged as the highest represen- tative of the party with a decisive vote in each of the central party organs.
The party president also presides over all the parliamentary party groups in the national and European Parliament and can nominate up to a third of the members of the central-party executive. The second element relates to the constraints which party delegates serving at a higher level can impose upon delegates serving at a lower level. Central-party delegates are also ex officio members of party decision-making bodies at these lower levels. Hence, national MPs representing the PP also hold a seat in the regional and provin- cial party councils in the region from which they originate (Biezen 2003:
100–1). Obviously, this constrains the freedom of these party branches in determining suitable electoral strategies and in nominating candidates for central and regional elections alike.
Although the Spanish PSOE (Social-Democrats) is an internally more decentralized party, it remains relatively centralized from a comparative point of view. Its central and regional party branches have a close grip on regional and local politics. For instance, the PSOE’s central electoral com- mittee can modify the candidate lists for all regional parliaments, as well as for all municipalities with a population of more than 50,000. Apart from vetoing suggested candidates, the Committee can ‘propose’ or rather
‘impose’ alternative candidates. Similarly, although the local party branches collect the bulk of membership fees and can determine their own spending priorities, they must return much of that money to the national party (Biezen 2003: 100). As is common for state-wide parties in other countries as well, state subsidies (funding electoral campaigns, for instance) largely accrue to the central party. As Biezen asserts, ‘the national leadership elabo- rates the budget, establishes the membership contributions, decides on the salaries of party employees, administers party property and decides on elec- toral expenditures as well as the distribution of money over the organiza- tional echelons of the party’ (Biezen 2003: 100–1). Despite the party’s centralized character some of the regional party bosses have retained sub- stantive autonomy in crafting their own policies andin influencing general party policy. However, this influence is based more on patronage than on structure. For instance, next to being in Spain’s most populous region, the PSOE has always dominated the regional government of Andalucia. As a result, regional party bosses there have used their power base to influence the selection of the central party leader, or, when the party was in govern- ment, to bargain for central grants. Shortly after it was stranded in central opposition (1996–2004), the PSOE sought to widen its membership base. As part of this process, party members were involved in electing the central, regional and local party leaders (Biezen 2003: 91). The first elections in 1998 along those lines resulted not only in the replacement of the central party president but also in that of 80 per cent of the regional and local party bosses (Gunther, Montero and Botella 2004: 246). In this sense, the influ- ence of the central party branch in determining the regional party leaders has weakened.
Finally, in Britain, devolution is not only a young but also an asymmetric process. Because devolution affects such a small share of the British popula- tion, the pressure on the state-wide parties to adapt has been relatively lim- ited. Furthermore, prior to devolution the British state-wide parties already accommodated the regional dimension to some extent. Devolution for Scotland is extensive, and also relatively dual. Yet the autonomy of the Scottish regional party branches is relatively limited, particularly in the Labour and Conservative parties.
Of the British state-wide parties, the British Liberal Democrats best accommodate the regional branches into their state-wide party organization and provide them with the largest level of autonomy (Fabre et al. 2005). For instance, the process of pre-selecting candidates for central and regional par- liamentary office alike is entirely supervised by the regions. The Liberal Democrats is the only one of the British parties which not only mentions the powers of its regional branches in its party constitution but also gives them a veto in proposed amendments to the party constitution which affect their powers. Party representatives in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly take part in the central party conference and delegate a few members to
the central party executive. Finally, only within the Liberal Democrats half the membership of the central appeals body that is used to expel members from the party is appointed by members of the regional branches (Fabre et al. 2005).
Compared with the British Liberal Democrats, the Conservative and the Labour parties have kept a more centralized organizational profile. The British Labour Party is the only one that does not provide for any statutory form of regional representation in the party’s executive. Regional delegates are poorly represented in the central party conference. The Conservative Party does not provide its regional branches with a significant voice in state- wide party organs either. However, the party’s executive board contains two regional representatives and its members in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly are present at the central party’s conference. In this sense, the Conservatives score higher in terms of regional representation than the Labour Party (Fabre et al. 2005). The Labour and Conservative party consti- tutions can be amended by a vote of the state-wide organs, generally the party conference or congress, or, in the case of the Conservative Party, a special Constitutional College.
The Conservative and Labour parties leave their regional branches with relatively limited autonomy. Both parties provide for a state-wide instead of a regional system of candidate selection. The Conservative Party is slightly more decentralized insofar as it has established a Scottish Candidates’ Board (SCB), whose members are appointed by the Scottish party branch. The SCB overtakes the functions of the national selection committee in scrutinizing candidates for office. In recent years, the Labour and Conservative parties have sought to involve the rank and file more broadly in the pre-selection of parliamentary candidates for central and regional office alike (Hopkin 2001).
However, in both parties, devolving powers to individual party members has effectively weakened intermediary party activists and prevented the emer- gence of alternative candidates that are less to the liking of the central party leadership (Hopkin 2001: 349). Furthermore, the central (not even the regional) party executives can veto proposed candidates for the regional assemblies.
The process of candidate selection, including the selection of a regional party leader has caused some considerable intra-party dissent. In 1999, the central Labour Party machine sought to push through its own candidates for the regional and local party leadership positions in Wales and London. The Labour National Executive Committee forced the nomination of Alun Michael as a candidate for First Minister for Wales, against the wishes of the regional party rank and file and activists. This caused a backlash in Labour Party support on the occasion of the first Welsh Assembly elections in 1999 (compared with the levels of Labour support in the 1997 general elections in Wales).6The central Labour Party did not intervene so strongly any more in the candidate pre-selection process for the second Scottish parliamentary
and Welsh Assembly elections in 2003. Furthermore, the regional party branches were given more freedom to devise their own regional electoral manifestos. Rhodi Morgan, the Welsh First Minister (Labour), approved and co-devised an electoral manifesto which clearly deviated from the British Labour Party line. It proposed amongst other things, free breakfasts for primary school teachers, the abolition of prescription charges, free homecare for the elderly, and no top-up fees for Welsh universities. Each of these poli- cies placed it to the left of the British Labour Party and established, in Morgan’s word’s, ‘clear red water’ between Cardiff and London (Baker 2004:
222). This example suggests that the consequences of devolution have not yet fully sunk in and that party structures and behaviour may gradually adapt in the light of the changing institutional context.
The scope of a federal arrangement and the relative strength of the regional party branches
In Chapter 4 I introduced the notion of the ‘scope of federalism’. I assume that, as the scope of the regional powers increases, the involvement of the regional party branches in state-wide party affairs also increases. In parallel, the autonomy of the regional party branches (in staffing, finance and regional campaigning) should increase as well.
We can examine this hypothesis by taking a closer look at the role of the regional party branches in two countries at identical moments, say Germany and Austria. The scope of federalism is more extensive in Germany than in Austria. As indicated above, the German regional party branches wield more influence in the central party and have kept more powers to themselves than the Austrian regional party branches. If we expand the analysis to Switzerland, we would note that the Swiss regional party branches have retained the widest autonomy of all the state-wide parties. The path from which Swiss federalism developed featured very loose, decentralized parties.
However, we can also examine this hypothesis by considering how the centralization or decentralization of powers in any given country has affected the autonomy of the regional party branches. One of the most inter- esting cases for ‘testing’ this hypothesis is Spain. Spanish devolution has affected all of the Spanish regions and has been ongoing for more than twenty years. In line with the above hypothesis, we expect the Spanish state- wide parties to have become more decentralized in time.
The empirical data do not confirm this view. The UCD, the centre-right party which collapsed in the 1982 general elections, had a very centralized structure. The PP which emerged from the ashes of the UCD started off as a fragmented party of right-wing oligarchs with strong roots in Francoism.
Through a series of mergers with small parties, as well as by absorbing several important figures of the UCD, the PP adopted a more centralist profile.
However, there is little evidence to support the view that the PP has become more decentralized as the process of devolution continued. There may have