Challenging the State: Devolution and the Battle for Partisan Credibility

Balance dos rendementos do sistema electoral galego: unha proposta de reforma

“…Así, aos partidos de implantación nacional, había que sumarlle a presenza de forzas rexionalistas -Esquerda Galega-Partido Socialista Galego (EG-PSG), Coalición Galega (CG) e Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG) ata 1989, e só o BNG ata 2012 11 (Lago, 2004: 36) -o que fixo que o espazo de competición política dos partidos galegos se orientase ao redor de dúas dimensións principais. Por un lado, unha dimensión esquerda-dereita (económica e cultural) e, por outro, unha dimensión centro -periferia que dá conta das posicións dos partidos respecto ao modelo territorial do Estado (Alonso, 2012). O Gráfico 1 mostra a evolución, en porcentaxe de votos, dos partidos que acadaron representación parlamentar nas eleccións autonómicas.…”

Position, selective emphasis and framing

“…On the contrary, as niche parties advance a very narrow set of issues and receive electoral support exclusively on this basis, they will be unable to boost their support by emphasising non-niche issues in their programmes (Adams et al, 2006;Ezrow, 2008;Meguid, 2008: 14-15). However, more recent work has challenged this proposition, and has provided substantial empirical evidence of the strategic capacity of ethno-regionalist parties (Alonso, 2012;Elias, 2009;Gómez-Reino, 2006;Hepburn, 2009;Zuber, 2012). This literature highlights the fact that ethno-regionalist parties often choose to position themselves on issue dimensions beyond their core business, and that such choices are usually driven by a desire to compete with more established partisan rivals for votes.…”

“…In doing so, the authors adopt methodologically innovative ways of measuring the different strategies. With regard to the first two tools, position and salience, systematic data collection for the territorial dimension has only recently begun and the contributors to this Special Issue are at the forefront of this development (Alonso, 2012;Alonso et al, 2015;Massetti, 2009;Massetti and Schakel, 2015;Szöcsik and Zuber, 2015). With regard to the third tool, parties' framing of issues, and independent of whether these issues belong to the economic or the territorial dimension, only few scholars have thus far systematically measured this important component of parties' strategies (Basile, 2013;Chaney, 2013Chaney, , 2014Helbling et al, 2010).…”

“…Secondly, spatial and salience theories of party competition are increasingly seen as complementary rather than competing approaches (Alonso, 2012;Basile, 2012;de Sio and Weber, 2010;Meguid, 2005Meguid, , 2008Rovny, 2013;Rovny and Edwards, 2012;Wagner, 2012). Parties can challenge each other by altering their position on an issue dimension and their emphasis of political issues.…”

Party Strategies on Territorial Reform: State-wide Parties and the State of Autonomies in Spain

“…Hitherto, the determinants of state-wide parties' strategies on decentralisation have rarely been analysed (for an exception, see Alonso 2012;Meguid 2009;Spina 2012). This omission is critical since it is state-wide parties that design and implement the pace, scope and form of decentralisation and dominate regional and central institutions, even in highly decentralised systems (Hopkin and van Houten 2009: 131).…”