5. Parties in the electoral arena
5.2. Party strategies in a multilevel electoral environment with ethno-regionalist parties
The brief analysis of the party dynamics in the Scottish and Welsh elections suggests that PR brings in a second dynamic of its own. The likeli- hood that coalition governments are required after the elections is much higher than in elections that are held under a majoritarian formula. In this regard, the preferred option of which party should be taken into a coalition government after the elections can turn into an electoral theme. Furthermore, the central branches of state-wide parties may seek to influence the forma- tion of regional coalition-governments after the elections.
Germany serves as a good example. In Germany, the federal party branches of the state-wide parties generally prefer the formation of regional coalitions which replicate the federal government–opposition divide.14From the viewpoint of a federal opposition party, regional coalitions that would hand back a majority to the federal government parties in the Bundesrat, or at least would remove its majority in the second chamber, should be avoided. From the perspective of a party in federal government the opposite logic applies. Yet the federal branches of the state-wide parties may not be able to push through the regional coalition governments of their liking. For starters, they must accept the verdict of the regional voters. Furthermore, the regional and not the federal party executive may have the strongest input in determining who is to enter a regional coalition government. Formally, only the federal party executives (presidiums) of the Liberals and Social Democrats have the power to intervene in the making of regional coalitions ( Jun 1994; Kropp and Sturm 1998; Kropp 2001).
In the mid-1990s, William M. Downs conducted survey research among an extensive sample of German regional MPs. When asked who they believed most strongly determined coalition strategies during and after the regional elections – the federal or regional party leaders – no less than 94 per cent of the respondents opted for the regional party leaders.
Nonetheless, with the exception of the Greens, a slim majority of the Liberal and Social Democratic respondents identified the influence of the federal party leadership in regional coalition bargaining as strong. The cor- responding share of the Christian Democratic respondents who reported strong influence even hovered around 80 per cent. Although the reported response for the Christian Democrats is at odds with its profile as the most decentralized of the state-wide parties, the result may be attributed to the presence of the CDU in federal government at the time of the survey (Downs 1998: 195).
5.2. Party strategies in a multilevel electoral
where they feed strong ethno-regionalist parties. Such parties may directly undermine the legitimacy of the state and force the state-wide parties to take a position on ‘the regionalist issue’. As the presence of such sizeable ethno- regionalist parties brings in a dynamic of its own, I treat the strategies of state-wide parties vis-à-vis the ethno-regionalist parties and vice versa in a separate section.
State-wide parties and two potential explanations for how ethno-regionalist parties will be treated
When state-wide parties face the competition of one or several ethno- regionalist parties, they must seek to find a stance that maximizes their vote share without compromising the overall ideological cohesiveness of the party. Ethno-regionalist parties owe most of their existence to their demand for regional autonomy (possibly secession). They are certain to ask for more regional autonomy than the state-wide parties are willing to concede. The presence of this so-called ‘regionalist issue’ in the campaign is absent from a context which only involves (regional party branches of ) state-wide parties.
Political science has devised two sets of approaches for explaining the likely strategy of the state-wide parties (Maddens and Swenden 2002).
A first set takes the distribution of the voters on the ethno-regionalist issue as its starting point. It borrows from the proximity theory of voting (Downs 1957). Assume that voters are not polarized on the regionalist issue, that is, cannot be divided into two radically opposing camps, one seeking a more centralized state structure, the other propagating regional independence.
Instead, both of these options merely serve as two outliers. A majority of the voters are distributed around a middle position which reflects support for a modest departure from the status quo into the direction of more regional devolution. Faced with such an electorate, state-wide and ethno-regionalist parties may well converge towards that middle position. Alternatively, when the electorate is divided in two equally large but radically opposed camps with respect to the regionalist issue, moving towards that middle position may be too costly for the state-wide and the ethno-regionalist parties. State- wide parties may be punished for not being centrist enough. Ethno-regionalist parties may be subject to sanctions for being insufficiently supportive of regional autonomy.
A second set of explanations borrows from the directional theory of voting.
It argues that irrespective of the distribution of the electorate and the type of election, the regionalist party will intensely emphasize its pro-autonomy stand (Raboniwitz and Macdonald 1989; Maddens 1996). Predicting the position of the state-wide parties, in contrast, is more complex. In regional elections, directional theory would normally expect the state-wide par- ties to remain silent on the regionalist issue and to focus on alternative issues instead. Yet the feasibility of such a downplaying strategy will probably depend on the strength of the regionalist party. The stronger the
ethno-regionalist party, the more difficult it will be to ignore the regional- ist issue and the more state-wide parties will be forced to opt for an intense centralist or anti-separatist stand. In their choice of strategy, state-wide parties are likely to be influenced by many elements that were already extensively touched upon in the previous section. What is the corre- sponding view and influence of the central party branch and how much divergence from the prevailing state-wide party view does it tolerate?
What view do the other state-wide parties take on the regionalist issue?
Are the ethno-regionalist parties sufficiently strong to form a regional government?
Spain offers the ideal environment in which to test these assumptions since ethno-regionalist parties have popped up in several of its regions. In general, the attitudes of the Spanish electorates with regard to the regional- ist issue are not ‘frozen’. As indicated earlier, Spain has a relatively large share of ‘dual voters’, that is, voters who vote differently in central and regional elections. For instance, between 1986 and 2000, the mean result for the ethno-regionalist parties in central elections which were organized in the Basque Country, Galicia and Catalonia was respectively 49.2, 12.6 and 35.6 per cent. The corresponding results for these parties in regionalelections were much higher. They stood respectively at 62.0, 19.4 and 51.4 per cent. In the whole of Spain, non-state-wide parties attract a vote share that is roughly 7 per cent higher in regional than in general elections (Pallarés and Keating 2003: 247, 250–1). Dual voters may argue that their regional interests are best served by voting for ethno-regionalist parties in regional elections. At that level, ethno-regionalist parties may be strong enough to form a regional government. By comparison, in general (central) elections, these parties are not likely to be strong enough to influence the composition of the national government (notwithstanding the exceptional situation from 1993 to 2000, and again since 2004 when their influence at the centre was decisive for taking the federalization process a few steps forward).
The presence of a significant group of dual voters indicates that parties must not take a polarized attitude on the regionalist issue. Yet, as identity surveys document, public opinion is more polarized on the regionalist issue in the Basque Country than in the other historical regions (Catalonia and the Basque Country; Moreno 2001; and Chapter 7). Therefore, a polarized campaign strategy may pay off more in the Basque Country than in Catalonia. Since the ethno-regionalist camp represents a sizeable share of the electorate, the state-wide parties cannot downplay the regionalist issue so easily. The legacy of terrorist activities forces the state-wide parties to address the Basque question head on, not only at the regional but also at the national level. Many of the terrorist attacks take place outside the Basque Country and proposed changes to the Basque autonomy statute require the consent of the centre. With these observations in mind, the 2001 Basque elections require some further attention.
Despite the relatively polarized electorate on the regionalist issue some of the Basque regional governments had been made up of a coalition of state- wide and ethno-regionalist parties (PSOE/PSE-PNV). However, since January 1999 the Basque regional government had been composed of PNV and EA representatives, initially even with the legislative support of Euskal Herritarrok (EH), the political arm of ETA. An ethno-regionalist coalition had been made possible after all three parties signed an agreement in 1998, the so-calledpact of Lizarrawhich ruled out the use of any future violence. ETA reopened its terrorist attacks in 2000, in part because Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar (PP) refused to recognize a Basque minority government which relied on the support of EH. The PP also protested against the Basque government parties’ intent on organizing a referendum on Basque sover- eignty after the elections.
In its campaign prior to the Basque elections, the regional branch of the PP adopted a harsh-line attitude of non-cooperation vis-à-vis the ethno- regionalist parties, hoping to secure an absolute majority of votes. Clearly, the central party’s strategy was meant to polarize the electorate on the issue of regional autonomy, and to drive most voters to the PP. In turn, the EA, the most radical of the two largest ethno-regionalist parties took on a harsh atti- tude against the PP, despite the fact that it formed an electoral cartel with the more moderate PNV. The Basque Social Democrats (PSE) adopted a more moderate profile as well. In the end the ‘harsh-line view’ of the PP paid off but only insofar as the party increased its vote share compared with the previous regional elections. The PP did notcapture an absolute majority of the votes as hoped for. Consequently, the ethno-regionalist parties could prolong their coalition-government (Gunther, Montero and Botella 2004).
According to the directional theory, the relative size of the ethno-regionalist parties – which until then were strong enough to form a regional govern- ment by themselves – forced the PP to put the regionalist issue high on the political agenda. The direction which the PP would take could be the oppo- site of that which was expressed by the ethno-regionalist parties. However, the outcome of the elections suggests that the PP campaign strategists over- looked the alternative option of taking a more moderate stance on the ethno-regionalist issue. Hence, in tune with the proximity theory, the elec- torate was less polarized on the ethno-regionalist issue than was assumed.
A central branch of a state-wide party may not always seek to reduce the regionalist campaign rhetoric of its regional party branches when it faces the competition of an ethno-regionalist party. In fact, in the mid-1990s, the central PP removed its party secretary in Catalonia, because his views on the organization of the state were too centrist. Such a strategy was believed to harm the party’s electoral fortunes in the regional elections (Hopkin 2003:
232). Within Catalonia’s regional party system, the PP is a small player. Also in this example, the proximity theory seems to have a stronger predictive value for explaining the actions of the central PP. According to the
directional theory, the PP would have to emphasize the regionalist issue (as the ethno-regionalist parties command too large a share of the regional vote), but in differentiating themselves from these parties only a radical cen- trist campaign would be a viable one. However, such an option runs against the opinion of a vast majority of the regional electorate, who do not wish to return to a more centralized state structure.
Apart from illustrating the predictive value of the proximity or directional theories, the Basque and Catalan examples also demonstrate that state-wide parties can adopt more pro-regionalist views when they are not in central government. In the case of the Catalan example, the PP was not in central government and thus could more easily push its regional party branch into accepting a ‘relatively’ pro-autonomy stand. In the Basque example, the PP ruled the centre and imposed a hard-line attitude that was consistent with the central party ideologies of that time. Similarly, the PSC, the Catalan Social Democrats, was allowed less freedom in the centre and at home so long as the PSOE controlled the Spanish government. For much of the period when Felipé Gonzalez was central party leader, the PSOE intensely scrutinized the strategies adopted by the PSC, and even forced the party to give up its ‘separate parliamentary party group’ in the general parliament, a privilege which it regained only after the Socialists ended up in national opposition again (i.e. in 1996; Roller and Van Houten 2003: 12–13).
Furthermore the PSOE prevented the PSC from taking a more regionalist stance in regional elections, thus attracting a share of the voters who prefer to vote more ‘regionally’ in regional than in central elections. The PSC was only allowed to carve out a more autonomist role for itself and to convey the image of a ‘quasi-regionalist’ party in regional election campaigns after Pascal Maragall (the former mayor of Barcelona) was elected to the PSC’s leadership and some party scandals had weakened the central party branch (Roller and Van Houten 2003). Whether such ‘divergence’ can be main- tained now that the PSOE and PSC are controlling the central (2004–), respectively Catalan (2003–), regional governments remains to be seen.
The radical approach of the formerly Belgian state-wide parties
Of all the state-wide parties, none responded more drastically toward the rise of the ethno-regionalist parties than the Belgian parties. Not only did they absorb many of the issues that the ethno-regionalist parties stood for, but in the process they themselves split up along linguistic lines. The break up of the state-wide parties started in 1968, when the Christian Democrats disagreed on a decision to split the bilingual Catholic University of Louvain into a Dutch- and a French-speaking university and to move the latter to a newly built campus across the linguistic borderline. Once the Christian Democrats split, the Liberals (1972) and Social Democrats (1978) followed suit. From the outset, the Greens entered the electoral stage as two monolin- gual parties. By breaking up along linguistic lines, the former state-wide
parties could sharpen their regionalist profile, establish their own party organizational structures and party programmes, and select a party leader of their choice.
Arguably, the ethno-regionalist parties were too successful. As Belgium turned into a federal state (policy success) and most of the ethno-regionalist parties actively participated in negotiating this transformation, their original rationale evaporated. The only alternative was to radicalize their opinion even further. This dilemma, in some sense comparable to the ambiguous attitude of the SNP towards devolution, has contributed to the break up of the Flemish People’s Union (VU) into several ideological wings. In 2002, the New Flemish Alliance (NVA) emerged as the ideological heir to the Volksunie, but unlike the former it propagates a confederalBelgian state. In order to secure their electoral survival, the two long-standing ethno-region- alist parties, the NVA and the Front Démocratique des Francophones (FDF) even had to forge electoral alliances respectively with the Flemish Christian Democrats and the French-speaking Liberals on the occasion of the most recent regional elections ( June 2004). By itself, the NVA might have failed to surpass the 5 per cent electoral threshold at the provincial (subregional) level that is needed to enter parliament. Similarly, the FDF might have been excluded from any federal or regional (Brussels) coalition negotiations. The third regionalist party of historical significance, the Rassemblement Wallon has long disappeared, while some of the moderate and left-wing sections of the Flemish People’s Union joined the Flemish Social Democrats. For reasons explained in the introductory section, the Vlaams Blok/Vlaams Belang is more often classified as an extreme-right-wing rather than an ethno- regionalist party. Survey data reveal that such a classification is partially justified. In 2003, less than half of the Vlaams Blok voters identified exclu- sively or more with Flanders than with Belgium (compared with 68 per cent of the NVA voters). About 47 per cent of the Vlaams Blok voters defended the view that the regions (Flanders) should get more powers. That percentage represents about the mean score in the electorate and is significantly below the reported shares among the Flemish Christian-Democratic (53 per cent) and the NVA (78 per cent) voters (Billiet 2005).
In many ways, the Belgian party system does not reflect the attitude of the Belgian public with regard to the regionalist issue. As I will discuss in Chapter 7, only a sizeable minority of the Flemish public prefers an inde- pendent or confederal Flemish state. Attitudes are even more outspokenly pro-Belgium within the French-speaking electorate. Public opinion surveys suggest that, as in Spain, there should be sufficient scope for a few Belgian parties to compete against one or several ethno-regionalist parties (Van Houten 2004). Yet, the split of the Christian Democrats gave a short-term competitive edge to one party group which stimulated the other parties to follow its path. Once linguistically split parties emerged that could build up their own human resources management and strategies that path was