Statewide parties in multidimensional competition

In many European countries, party systems have become more fragmented and complex in recent decades. Ethnic and territorial divisions have played an important part in this development toward multidimensionality. The democratization of ethnically heterogeneous societies and the decentralization and regionalization of state authority are major triggers here. The paper focuses on the shaping role of parties in mobilizing along territorial and ethnic lines. In particular, it is interested in the strategies of statewide parties and their regional branches vis-á-vis ethno-regionalist parties which are competing at multiple levels but are restricted to specific communities and/or territories within political systems. Statewide parties face a particular challenge in reconciling their desire for party cohesion and national integration with the need to adapt to specific competitive pressures in attracting national minorities and substate electorates. Statewide parties may respond to this challenge by imposing hierarchical control over their regional branches, by establishing new forms of joint decision-making between levels or by allowing for substate autonomy inside their organizations, making regional branches capable of going their own ways. The territorial organization of statewide parties has important repercussions on the dynamics of party competition at substate level. We need to look at the agency of statewide and ethno-regionalist parties in order to understand how ethnic and territorial claims are incorporated in the “language of politics”. In programmatic terms, statewide parties may seek to downplay such claims by focusing on functional cleavages which are based on class and religion. However, the share of voters which can be mobilized along these more traditional lines is, for a variety of reasons, shrinking. Moreover, intra-party support for avoiding territorial and ethnic claims may be declining. Party activists and mid-level elites may demand new programmatic positions and policies to incorporate such demands. In sum, the avoidance strategy loses attractiveness. As a consequence, statewide parties and their regional branches have become more likely to take on board ethnic and territorial claims. Yet, there are strong reasons for these parties not to outbid their ethno-regionalist competitors in terms of party unity and national integration. The middle-ground will then be to develop a moderate form of territorial and ethnic advocacy which is not threatening the survival of statewide parties but is capable of attracting substantial support inside and outside the party. The paper is interested in the answers that parties find in dealing with this challenge and the reasons why certain parties prefer certain organizational and programmatic solutions. It will start with a conceptual part which outlines the puzzles and paradoxes that statewide parties face when dealing with ethnic and territorial demands. It will then try to develop a typology of possible strategies and responses, using short analysis of empirical cases (such as Spain, Belgium, Italy and the United Kingdom; possibly also Poland and the Czech Republic) as illustrations. In the third part, it will look at repercussions of these strategies on party competition in heterogeneous settings.