5. Parties in the electoral arena
5.1. Party strategies in a multilevelled electoral environment: general observations
Parties seek to maximize votes and most of them also aspire to executive office. Party strategies on how to woo the electorate before and to deliver on its promises after the elections are important for consolidating and expand- ing levels of political credit. In federal or regionalized polities, parties must
devise strategies for central and regional elections. These strategies are deter- mined by a number of factors, which are summarized here in brief.
Regional elections as first- or second-order elections
The differences in profile that state-wide parties adopt in central and regional elections depend on whether or not the regional elections are per- ceived as ‘second-order’ elections. The more regional elections acquire the character of ‘second-order’ elections, the smaller the differences in profiles between state-wide parties in both types of elections. Two questions arise:
first, how do we recognize second-order elections; second, why are certain elections second order?
Second-order elections are characterized by lower turnout levels and a greater willingness among voters to experiment and turn to lesser parties than in ‘first order elections’. It has been said that European Parliamentary elections as well as regional elections are generally second order relative to national/general parliamentary elections (Reif and Schmitt 1980). Regional elections are second-order when parties in central government are systemat- ically losing votes compared with the nearest preceding general elections and when the opposite holds for parties in central opposition ( Jeffery and Hough 2003: 199–200).
For instance, testing the ‘second-order character’ of regional elections in Germany and four Spanish regions (amongst which were the historic regions of Catalonia and Galicia), Jeffery and Hough found supporting evidence for the second-order character of the German, but not of the Spanish, regional elections. In Germany, parties in federal opposition performed on average 10 per cent better than one would expect on the basis of averaging their vote share in the preceding and ensuing federal elections. For small parties, the
‘second-order bonus’ came even close to 27 per cent. As expected, turnout for regional elections was also much lower than in federal elections. Small parties as well as opposition parties perform best if the regional election falls mid-way in the federal electoral cycle ( Jeffery and Hough 2003: 202–4).
By comparison, in Spain, all the major state-wide parties (in central gov- ernment and opposition) performed badly in regional elections, since most of their votes flocked to the ethno-regionalist parties. Considering the regional elections in eachof the Spanish regions, Pallarés and Keating came to a different conclusion. Turnout rates for regional elections are markedly lower than for general elections. On average 66.3 per cent of the voters show up in regional elections, 10 per cent below the average turnout levels in central elections. Contrary to what one would expect, turnout levels are gen- erally higher in the non-historic regions. This is so because with the excep- tion of the three historic communities and Andalucia the elections in all the other regions are held on the same day (Pallarés and Keating 2003).
The instruments for measuring second-order elections focus on turnout and electoral outcomes. But one could make a case that second-order
elections could also be defined on the basis of the issuesthat are at stake in the electoral campaign. In this sense, regional elections that are absorbed by central policy issuesor that revolve around the capacity to thwart the agenda of a central government are for that reason also ‘second order’. For instance, the regional elections in Lower Saxony in the spring of 1998 attracted unusually high turnout levels. However, this was so because the outcome of that election determined who would be the next SPD Chancellor candidate, Gerhard Schröder, or the then Premier of Saarland, Oskar Lafontaine. Hence, that election was ‘second order’ because ‘regional issues’ hardly received any importance.
In Germany, the design of federalism contributes to the second-order char- acter of regional elections. When the federation tends towards the organic end of the continuum, regional elections are more likely to be second order than when the central and regional powers are more disentangled. Even German regional elections which do not determine a future candidate for the Chancellorship may have a profound impact on the steering capacity of the central government. The outcome of regional elections could tilt the balance of powers in the second chamber in one direction or another. As a result, some federal party leaders may be actively involved in regional elec- tion campaigns (a strategy that may provoke resentment from the regional party leaders when the federal party branch is unpopular), or stimulate the making of particular coalition-governments afterwards. Hence, much is at stake, and what is at stake often affects federal politics as much as or even more than regional politics.
If we accept that the ‘second-order’ character of elections should be mea- sured by considering issues and electoral behaviour rather than turnout, then the higher turnout levels in the non-historic Spanish regions do not indicate that regional elections are of ‘higher order’ there than in the historic regions.
On the contrary, the regional elections in Andalucia coincide with the Spanish general elections, and the regional elections in all of the non- historic regions coincide as well. Therefore, the preceding electoral cam- paigns, the considerations of the voters as well as the interpretation of the results are more likely to be affected by the central political framework.
The higher the frequency of coinciding (central and/or regional) elections, the more state-wide parties will seek to devise a uniform strategy for all these elections and the more likely the regional elections will turn into ‘second- order’ elections. Generally, a distinction is made between vertical and hori- zontal simultaneity (Deschouwer 2003: 223). The Andalucian example illustrates a form of ‘vertical simultaneity’: central and regional elections coincide. Although the regional elections of Andalucia coincide with the Spanish general elections it takes only a single early dissolution of either par- liament to break that cycle. Until May 1999, Belgium practised vertical (and horizontal) simultaneity: the federal and all the regional elections coincided.
Since 2004, federal and regional elections are no longer held on the same
day. In this sense, we are not left with any significant examples of vertical simultaneity in Western Europe.
The simultaneous election of all the other non-historic regional parlia- ments in Spain constitutes an example of horizontalsimultaneity. Horizontal simultaneity is more common. For instance, some of the Austrian and East German regional elections coincide (Tyrol and Upper Austria; Carinthia and Salzburg; and the election of a few East-German regional parliaments). The elections of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly coincide as well (but the Northern Irish Parliament, should it be reinstated, would not be elected on the same day as the Scottish or Welsh Parliament/Assembly).
Once more, Belgium is unique. It is the only one of our cases in which allthe regional elections coincide (and coincide with European Parliamentary elec- tions). The non-state-wide character of all the Belgian parties diminishes the difference between federal and regional election campaigns. Federal and regional election campaigns are coordinated by identical party branches, they involve the same core party leaders, they address identical electoral markets, and they use the same (linguistically split) media. In such a context, elections are even less focused on issues that fall within the specific domain of the level of government that is contesting the elections. This is so, despite the more ‘dual’ blueprint of Belgian federalism. The outcome of the first uncoupled regional elections (June 2004) was largely interpreted through the lenses of the preceding federal election result (disaggregated at the regional level). The next federal elections (no later than June 2007) may be equally interpreted in light of the most recent regional electoral outcome.
The wide-spread practices of double-candidate listing and level hopping which were discussed above are not conducive to devising different cam- paign strategies for both types of elections either.
Apart from the institutional design of federalism and the degree of simul- taneity, the first/second-order nature of regional elections is also influenced by the heterogeneity of the federal or regionalized polity. Other things being equal, regions which qualify as nations are more likely to feature ‘first-order’
than second-order elections. The presence of ethno-regionalist parties, as in Catalonia, the Basque Country, Scotland or Wales underlines such hetero- geneity, but it is not a prerequisite. For instance, comparing expected and effective outcomes for regional elections, Jeffery and Hough noted that German regional elections have turned much less into ‘second-order elec- tions’ after than before German unification ( Jeffery and Hough 2003).
Differences in strategy related to the relative importance of regional elections
Irrespective of the issues at stake, their timing or the federal design in which regional elections take place, not all regional elections are equal. Some regional elections are more important than others. This may be because the regions in which elections are held carry more political, demographic or economic weight. Some regions may have more symbolic significance as
traditional party strongholds. For instance, the German Social Democrats were upset by their dismal electoral performance in the May 2005 regional elections in North-Rhine Westphalia. North-Rhine Westphalia had been a party stronghold for more than twenty years and carries important weight as Germany’s most populous region. It was also the last of the German regions that was still fully controlled by an SPD-Green majority. As a result, the CDU majority in the Bundesrat was so large that it could effectively block all fed- eral government bills (the government would need a two-thirds majority in the lower house to overturn a Bundesrat veto which could be easily cast with a two-thirds majority). Similarly, a Spanish Conservative government may care more about the outcome of the regional elections in Catalonia than in Extremadura. This is so because it may rely on the support of some of the Catalan ethno-regionalist parties in the centre and it has never been particu- larly strong in Extremadura anyway.
The more a state-wide party cares about a regional election, the more its state-wide party wing may seek to influence the campaign or the govern- ment formation process which follows upon the regional election. However, when a central party performs badly in state-wide opinion polls, it may deliberately wish to keep a low profile in the regional election campaign, or regional party leaders may seek to distance themselves more explicitly from the central party branch.
Differences in strategy related to party ideology and government responsibility
In line with their more centralized organizational structure, we expect the central party machines of the Social Democratic and Conservative parties to intervene more in the regional election campaigns than the corresponding party bodies of the Christian Democratic or Liberal parties. However, state- wide parties in central government have a stronger incentive to steer the elec- tion campaigns of their regional branches than state-wide parties in central opposition. For the former, a lack of coordination comes at a potentially higher political cost, while a diverging strategy for parties in opposition may maximize their regional electoral returns without compromising the overall consistency of the party. For instance, as long as Labour holds the political strings in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff it cannot tolerate as much inter- nal divergence. This may change if it were to lose power in London. In that scenario, the regional Labour Party branches can gain from radicalizing their opinion (not necessarily with regard to devolution per se, but also with respect to policies in matters that have been devolved already, such as health and education), without risking embarrassing the central party too much.
Differences in strategy related to the electoral system
Whether elections take place in a proportional or majoritarian electoral envi- ronment can influence the campaign strategies of state-wide parties in two important respects. The choice of electoral system affects (1) the number and
scope of issues that are discussed in the regional election campaign and (2) the potential need to interfere in the post-electoral phase (government for- mation). Both aspects are discussed in turn.
Other things being equal, systems of proportional representation produce a more fragmented party landscape than majoritarian electoral systems. In a multiparty environment, the elections are more likely to focus on a multi- tude of issues, such as economic development, environmental policies, crim- inal policy or the regionalist issue. In contrast, when a majoritarian electoral system produces a de facto two-party environment, the election is more likely to concentrate on fewer issues. If the two regional players are regional party branches of state-wide parties (say a Conservative against a Social Democratic party), the campaign may almost exclusively focus on socio- economic issues. The regional party branches will be left with fewer oppor- tunities to emphasize the regionalist issue.12
With the exception of the UK, central and regional elections are usually organized under the form of a proportional electoral system.13In the UK, gen- eral elections still use ‘first past the post’, but the election of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly use a ‘mixed member proportional formula’.
A majority of MSPs or Welsh Assembly members is still elected by ‘first past the post’. However, that result is ‘topped up’ by adding a share of members who is elected by PR (on the basis of proportional list votes). Consistent with the assumption formulated above, we would expect parties to take on more divergent profiles in regional than in general elections. To investigate this Pogorelis et al. have analysed the party manifestoes which the British parties, including the ethno-regionalist parties, prepared for all of the general and regional elections between 1997 and 2003 (Pogorelis et al. 2005). The analy- sis measured differences in salience for a variety of issues including the so- called ‘regionalist issue’, that is, manifesto sentences that emphasize a call for more (or less) devolution. In line with our expectations, regional party branches emphasized more and different issues in regional elections than their corresponding state-wide parties in general elections. Such differences also appeared with regard to the regionalist issue. In this sense, the multiparty environment of the Scottish and Welsh party system did allow for more issue divergence, and thus also some autonomy from the central party.
Interestingly, in the 2003 regional elections, the second only of its kind, the ethno-regionalist parties gave a lower salience to the regionalist issue than in the 1999 elections. Hence, the difference in campaign strategy between the state-wide party branches and the ethno-regionalist parties on the regionalist issue was narrowing. One potential explanation is that in order to open up themselves for participation in a regional coalition government, the ethno- regionalist parties not only moderated but also de-emphasized their views on regional autonomy (and possibly, though this was not researched, will emphasize it more strongly in subsequent general elections when their par- ticipation in government is not normally a possibility let alone an objective).
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