Coalition trading in Spain: Explaining state-wide parties' government formation strategies at the regional level

In compounded polities, political parties need to coordinate their governing strategies across the central and the regional tiers of government. The coalition game is also more complex in these contexts, especially for the state-wide parties (SWP) that alternate in central office, as their need for...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Falcó Gimeno, Albert, Verge Mestre, Tània
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2013
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:2445/165084
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/165084
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Descentralització administrativa
Partits polítics
Coalicions
Espanya
Decentralization in government
Political parties
Coalitions
Spain
Descripción
Sumario:In compounded polities, political parties need to coordinate their governing strategies across the central and the regional tiers of government. The coalition game is also more complex in these contexts, especially for the state-wide parties (SWP) that alternate in central office, as their need for cohesiveness across party levels is higher and the quest for vertical congruence across institutional levels is more pressing. This article aims at identifying the influence of the SWP situation at the central level on their government formation strategies at the regional level. By examining the Spanish case, we show that multi-level dynamics provide parties with incentives to trade government formation strategies at different levels. Particularly, when the SWP in the central government has a minority status, parliamentary support is more likely to be given to the investiture of non-state-wide parties (NSWP) in those regions where the latter are stronger. Furthermore, we observe that, as political decentralization advanced, SWP seem to have been more inclined to adopt a cooperative behaviour toward NSWP. Overall, our findings suggest that SWP's strategies are not simply interconnected across levels but rather regional government formation decisions are hierarchically subject to central-level considerations.