Not always second order: Subnational elections, national-level vote intentions, and volatility spillovers in a multi-level electoral system

National-level elections receive more attention from scholars and the media than elections at other levels, even though in many European countries the importance of both regional and European levels of government has grown in recent years. The growing importance of multiple electoral arenas suggests that scholars should be cautious about examining single levels in isolation. Taking the multi-level structure of electoral politics seriously requires a re-examination of how the incentives created by electoral institutions affect the behaviour of voters and party elites. The standard approach to analysing multi-level elections is the second-order election model, in which national elections are considered to be first-order elections while other elections are second order. However, this model does not provide micro mechanisms that determine how elections in one arena affect those in another, or explain variations in individual voting behaviour. The objective of this book is to explain how party and voter behaviour in a given election is affected by the existence of multiple electoral arenas. This book uses original qualitative and quantitative data to examine European, national, and subnational elections in France, Germany, and Spain from 2011 to 2015. Party mobilization efforts across multiple electoral arenas are examined, as well as decisions by individual voters with respect to turnout, strategic voting, and accountability. This book provides the first systematic analysis of multi-level electoral politics at three different levels across multiple countries.

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Conclusion

10.1093/oso/9780198791539.003.0008 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Sona N. Golder ◽

Ignacio Lago ◽

André Blais ◽

Elisabeth Gidengil ◽

Thomas Gschwend

Keyword(s):

National Level ◽

Second Order ◽

Political Behaviour ◽

Electoral Democracy ◽

Multi Level

The goal of this book has been to examine in detail the micro mechanisms underlying the aggregate patterns described by the second-order election model commonly used to study multi-level elections. The book builds on existing work showing that the incentives provided by multiple arenas affect political behaviour and show that these effects are heterogeneous across parties and voters and across regions and countries. Multi-level governance complicates the study of elections but it also creates greater variation, and this variation allows richer theories about party and voter behaviour to be tested. As the importance of electoral arenas beyond the national level increases across ever more countries, it is imperative that those theories help us to understand the implications not just for parties and voters but for the quality of electoral democracy.

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Party System Linkage

Multi-Level Democracy ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198833505.003.0005 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 102-131

Author(s):

Lori Thorlakson

Keyword(s):

Party System ◽

Electoral System ◽

System Level ◽

Fiscal Centralization ◽

Electoral Support ◽

Subnational Elections ◽

Multi Level ◽

Number Of Parties ◽

Social Cleavage ◽

Cleavage Structure

This chapter examines two forms of integrated politics at the party system level, party system congruence and party system nationalization. Drawing on data from over 2,220 subnational elections in seven multi-level systems, it assesses three forms of party system congruence across the units of a multi-level system: similarity of the number of parties, electoral support, and similarity of the magnitude and direction of the electoral swing. Using the index of cumulative regional inequality (CRI), it measures the territorial concentration of party systems. The analysis shows that fiscal centralization and administrative interdependence predict integrated politics in the form of more congruent patterns of electoral support. There are limits to the institutional explanation. The electoral system and social cleavage structure are important explanations of variation in party system structures and territorial concentration.

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Turnout in Multi-Level Systems

10.1093/oso/9780198791539.003.0005 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Sona N. Golder ◽

Ignacio Lago ◽

André Blais ◽

Elisabeth Gidengil ◽

Thomas Gschwend

Keyword(s):

National Level ◽

The Body ◽

Political Community ◽

The Political ◽

European Level ◽

National Elections ◽

Political Issues ◽

European Elections ◽

Multi Level ◽

Different Levels

Voters face different incentives to turn out to vote in one electoral arena versus another. Although turnout is lowest in European elections, it is found that the turnout is only slightly lower in regional than in national elections. Standard accounts suggest that the importance of an election, in terms of the policy-making power of the body to be elected, drives variation in turnout across elections at different levels. This chapter argues that this is only part of the story, and that voter attachment to a particular level also matters. Not all voters feel connected to each electoral arena in the same way. Although for some, their identity and the issues they most care about are linked to politics at the national level, for others, the regional or European level may offer the political community and political issues that most resonate with them.

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Constitutional Pluralism and Transnational Justice

10.1093/oso/9780198825340.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Alec Stone Sweet ◽

Clare Ryan

Keyword(s):

National Level ◽

Legal Order ◽

Rights Protection ◽

National Courts ◽

European Court ◽

Transnational Justice ◽

Multi Level ◽

Constitutional Pluralism ◽

Combined Impact ◽

Proportionality Principle

In Europe, a cosmopolitan legal order was instantiated through the combined impact of Protocol no. 11 of the ECHR (1998), and the incorporation of the Convention into national legal systems. As a result, two processes—(i) the evolution of constitutional pluralism at the national level; and (ii) the development of rights protection at the transnational level—became causally connected to one another. The first undermined traditional models of domestic orders wherein the notions of constitutional unity and centralized sovereignty reinforced one another. The second process created a multi-level legal system whose effectiveness depends on the extent to which the European Court is able to induce and sustain the cooperation of national courts and officials. The constitutionalization of the proportionality principle, at both the domestic and transnational levels, provided a doctrinal interface for inter-jurisdictional dialogue, and the collective enforcement of the UPR.

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Trajectories of Civil Society Leaders in Italy: Individual Careers, Organizational Structures, and Ideological Affiliations

SAGE Open ◽

10.1177/21582440211061559 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 215824402110615

Author(s):

Cecilia Santilli ◽

Roberto Scaramuzzino

Keyword(s):

Civil Society ◽

National Level ◽

Organizational Structures ◽

Civil Society Organizations ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

The Third ◽

Career Trajectories ◽

Member Organization ◽

Multi Level ◽

The Relationship

The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between individual leaders’ career trajectories and organizational structure and identity in Italian civil society organizations (CSOs) active at national level. The analysis in this qualitative study draws on two sets of data, semi-structured interviews with leaders on their career trajectories and their understanding of what it takes to become a leader of a CSO and short biographies of leaders’ career trajectories. Three main representational logics are idenitified: within: multi-level, within: member-organization, and outside: supporting organization. The two first logics are based on a trajectory within the organizations either departing from the local and regional levels of the same organizations or within one or more member organizations. The third logic is based on a trajectory outside the organization that is marked by the ideological affiliation of the president through leading positions in other organizations within the same movement or field.

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Representation of citizens by the EP

European Constitutional Law Review ◽

10.1017/s1574019605000738 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 73-78 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jörg Gerkrath

Keyword(s):

National Level ◽

Parliamentary Democracy ◽

European Level ◽

Member States ◽

Democratic Representation ◽

Constitutional Principle ◽

Union Democracy ◽

The People ◽

Multi Level ◽

Political Decisions

As it is obviously impossible for the modern ‘demos’ to assemble in order to take political decisions, democratic representation is an inevitable tool in large democracies. Representatives have to stand for and to act for the people as a whole. Accordingly, the principle of representative or parliamentary democracy is a fundamental constitutional principle shared by all the Member States of the Union. Democracy doubtlessly works on the national level; the Member States' decisional powers, however, are fading with the constant transfer of competences towards the European level. This leads to a system of European ‘multi-level governance’ with wide consequences for the linkage between the represented peoples of the Member States and their representatives on both national and European levels.

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Fiscal Responsibility and Multi-Level Governance

Advances in Electronic Government, Digital Divide, and Regional Development - Handbook of Research on Sub-National Governance and Development ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-1645-3.ch008 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 167-192 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Enrico Guarini ◽

Anna Francesca Pattaro

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

National Level ◽

Deep Understanding ◽

Holistic Approach ◽

Fiscal Rules ◽

Financial Behavior ◽

Macro Level ◽

Governance System ◽

Fiscal Responsibility ◽

Multi Level

Public-policy assumptions regarding sub-national governments' financial behavior are based on economic rationality. Therefore, to achieve fiscal stability at the macro level, central governments use fiscal rules both to constrain the behavior of local policymakers and to resolve deficit/debt biases. Using the Italian fiscal governance system as an illustrative example, this chapter considers both the tensions derived from achieving fiscal responsibility at the national level in a decentralized environment and the difficulties of maintaining adequate performance at the local government level. It is argued that the public management perspective can be helpful not only at the micro level but also at the macro level in developing public policies to promote fiscal stability. It is suggested that public policy should adopt a more holistic approach toward fiscal responsibility in multi-level governance environments. Such an approach requires a deep understanding of the determinants of financial viability of public sector organizations.

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Part I Rationales for State Aid Rules, 4 The Legal Framework to Subsidies and State Aid Review

State Aid Law of the European Union ◽

10.1093/law-ocl/9780198727460.003.0004 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Kreuschitz Viktor ◽

Nehl Hanns Peter

Keyword(s):

National Level ◽

Great Influence ◽

Legal Framework ◽

State Aid ◽

Eu Member States ◽

Procedural Law ◽

Legitimate Interests ◽

General Principles Of Law ◽

Multi Level ◽

Procedural Rights

This chapter assesses the legal framework of the multi-level system of State aid and subsidies control not only on the level of the EU but also on the international level—the World Trade Organization (WTO)—and the national level by EU Member States. The control of subsidies and State aids as a multi-level phenomenon has been a laboratory of design solutions for procedural law provisions, enforcement techniques, and the development of general principles of law. It is one of the fields of law which has been most influential for the development of modern public law as a multi-level legal system with several constitutionalized levels. Not only by the sheer force of numbers and issues raised, State aid and subsidies cases have had a great influence on the development of procedural rights such as defence rights. It also added to the clarification of notions of discretion, the protection of legitimate interests, and principles of equality.

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Multi-Level Governance: Explaining the “climate-focused” behavior of Chinese exporting companies

Public Policy and Administration ◽

10.1177/0952076718766722 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 34 (2) ◽

pp. 165-188 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yitian Huang

Keyword(s):

Multinational Enterprises ◽

National Level ◽

Developed Countries ◽

International Norms ◽

Business Strategies ◽

Chinese Government ◽

Governmental Organizations ◽

Nation States ◽

Non Governmental Organizations ◽

Multi Level

While being increasingly aware of the importance of adopting climate-friendly business strategies, Chinese exporting companies have been active in taking “climate-related” actions but moderate in taking “climate-focused” actions. This article presents a preliminary attempt to apply Multi-Level Governance theories to explain the behavior of Chinese exporting companies toward climate change mitigation. It argues that the convergence of state-centered climate politics and market-oriented climate governance, which has a multi-level feature, has shaped the “climate-focused” behavior of Chinese exporting companies. Specifically, nation-states, multinational enterprises, and non-governmental organizations have contributed in the following ways: (1) at the global level, nation-states co-established and interpreted international norms, which generally justify the stance of the Chinese government, have been an indirect source of influence; (2) at the national level, the Chinese government has been the most influential actor, which has put emphasis on energy-saving when interpreting and operationalizing international norms; (3) at the industrial level, multinational enterprises and international non-governmental organizations have been influential contributors by playing a proactive role in launching and running low-carbon initiatives; and (4) transnational public–private partnerships launched in China and some developed countries have offered limited momentum.

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