Horizontal and vertical spill-over in multilevel electoral systems

Abstract

A multilevel electoral system perspective reveals several ways in which electoral spill-over may occur. Vertical spill-over may be top-down from the national to the regional level or can be bottom-up from the regional to the national electoral arena. Horizontal spill-over happens when developments in one regional electoral arena impact electoral outcomes in another regional electoral arena. The literature on regional elections has mainly focused on vertical top-down spill-over. In this introduction, we discuss two main insights in relation to spill-over between electoral arenas that surface when considering the collection of articles and reports presented in this fourth annual review of regional elections. First, we discuss how horizontal spill-over can be identified and differentiated from diffusion of electoral developments driven by territorial cleavages. Second, we discuss several institutions that impact vertical spill-over. We conclude by considering a wider research agenda for the study of spill-over in multilevel electoral systems.

Personalization at different levels: Intra-party competition and preference voting in local elections

“…The so-called 'multi-level election perspective' posits that in a multi-level context, election outcomes at one policy level cannot be fully understood without taking into account the possibility of horizontal and vertical spill-over effects from electoral arenas at other policy levels (Golder et al, 2017). Two types of possible effects can be distinguished: vertical and horizontal effects (Schakel and Romanova, 2021). Vertical spill-over effects are about the relationship between evolutions at a higher territorial level and a lower one, e.g.…”

“…The vertical dimension of the ‘multi-level election perspective’, which will be further elaborated here, can be linked to two theoretical approaches: the theory on second-order elections, and the theory on coattails (Schakel and Romanova, 2021). The literature on second-order elections (Reif and Schmitt, 1980; Marsh, 1998) argues that voters usually pay less attention to either regional, local or European elections than to national elections because there is less at stake.…”

“…On the ‘tails of the coat’ of a successful presidential candidate, candidates for the parliamentary elections of the same party can gain votes more easily. More recently, it has been argued that this argument can also be applied to a multi-level context: successful candidates at national elections can also have an impact on their party’s fate in elections at other policy levels (Schakel and Romanova, 2021; Borges and Lloyd, 2016). Voters use the qualities and/or positions of well-known national candidates as an information shortcut to gauge qualities and/or positions of less well-known politicians of the same party at other policy levels (Lupia, 1994; McDermott, 2009).…”

“…Vertical spill-over effects are about the relationship between evolutions at a higher territorial level and a lower one, e.g. between local and national elections, or between regional and national elections, or between national and European elections (Schakel and Romanova 2021). They could function top-down, e.g.…”

“…More in particular, we will argue that in a multi-level context, personalization can take place at different policy levels, which could have an impact on each other. We find inspiration in the literature on the 'multi-level election perspective', that states that campaign behaviour and voting behaviour at one policy level is influenced by elections and politicians at another policy level (Schakel and Romanova 2021). Therefore, researchers analyzing personalization should not only focus on the number of people to which the process of personalization applies (which is usually, but inaccurately called the 'level' of personalization), but also at which policy level it takes place, and how processes at one policy level have an impact on other policy levels.…”