Asymmetric federalism and economic voting

Abstract

Although federal arrangements adopt a multiplicity of forms across and within federations, this article suggests that some models of power division are better than others at enhancing clarity of responsibility and electoral accountability. This conclusion is the result of exploring responsibility attribution and economic voting in a state where decentralisation arrangements vary across regions: the Spanish State of Autonomies. Using electoral surveys and aggregated economic data for the 1982–2012 period, the empirical analysis shows that regional economic voting is most pronounced in regions where decentralisation design concentrated authority and resources at one level of government, whereas it is inexistent in regions where devolution followed a more intertwined model of power distribution. The implication of the empirical findings is that the specific design of intergovernmental arrangements is crucial to make electoral accountability work in federations.

Pass the Buck If You Can: How Partisan Competition Triggers Attribution Bias in Multilevel Democracies

“…To the degree that voters are allowed to allocate the responsibility to different parties, divided government creates incentives for them to engage in credit taking and blame shifting on the basis of their predispositions, which in turn weakens the relationship between economic conditions and government support. This reasoning is consistent with a number of works showing that the strength of performance voting is reduced when power is shared among different parties: in cases of "divided government," where the ruling party in the executive does not control a majority of seats in the legislature (Leyden and Borrelli 1995;Lowry et al 1998); under conditions of partisan "cohabitation" in semi-presidential systems (Lewis-Beck and Nadeau 2000); and in subnational elections not involving incumbents of the national executive's party (Atkeson and Partin 1995;León and Orriols 2016;Stein 1990). It also conforms to finding that it is the partisan cohesion of government, rather than the institutional concentration of power, that moderates the impact of performance evaluations on incumbent support.…”

Multilevel blame games: Blame‐shifting in the European Union

“…Alcañiz and Hellwig (), Anderson (), Arceneaux (), Cutler (), De Vries, Edwards, and Tillman (), Gailey (), Gailey and Lee (), Hamilton (), Hellwig and Samuels (), Hobolt and Tilley (), Hobolt, Tilley, and Banducci (), León (, , ), León, Jurado, and Garmendia Madariaga (), León and Orriols (), Malhotra and Kuo (), Mortensen (, ), Nollkaemper (), Powell and Whitten (), Rittberger, Schwarzenbeck, and Zangl (), Rudolph (), and Wilson and Hobolt ().…”

Muddling up Political Systems? When Regionalization Blurs Democracy: Decentralization and Attribution of Responsibility

“…What political parties say on responsibility attribution may be used by individuals as a guide for their own responsibility judgements, particularly in contexts where attribution of responsibility is more difficult. We may expect individuals in decentralized contexts to resort more frequently to informational shortcuts, such as what a preferred party says, to make responsibility judgements in an efficient way (León and Orriols, ,b).…”