This book is about why and how central and local governments clash over important national policy decisions. Its empirical focus is on the local politics of Japan which has significantly shaped, and been shaped by, larger developments in national politics. The book argues that since the 1990s, changes in the national political arena, fiscal and administrative decentralization, as well as broader socio-economic developments have led to a decoupling of once closely integrated national and local party systems in Japan. Such decoupling has led to a breakdown of symbiotic relations between the centre and regions. In its place are increasing strains between national and local governments leading to greater intra-party conflict, inter-governmental conflicts, and more chief executives with agendas and resources increasingly autonomous of the national ruling party. Although being a book primarily focused on the Japanese case, the study seeks to contribute to a broader understanding of how local partisans shape national policy-making. The book theorizes and investigates how the degree of state centralization, vertical integration for party organizations, and partisan congruence in different levels of government affect inter-governmental relations. Japanâs experience is compared with Germany, Canada, and the UK to explore sources of multi-level policy conflict.
Abstract This article examines the relationship between the form of fiscal decentralization in Spain and the rise in tensions between the Spanish and Catalan governments during the financial crisis, in particular from mid-2010 to mid-2013. As a profound budgetary crisis unfolded at regional government level in Spain, long-standing disputes over the regional financing system and its methods of redistribution among the seventeen autonomous communities escalated. Most notably, Catalonia, one of the most indebted regions, attributed its financial woes in part to over-redistribution. This is not a straightforward connection, but the lack of clarity regarding both the workings of the regional financing system and the causes of the regionsâ varying levels of fiscal (in)compliance reduced accountability and fuelled disputes among central and regional governments, giving both sides scope to offer different interpretations. The smoke and mirrors regarding regional finances combined with the nature of intergovernmental dynamics in Spain contribute to explaining the persistent inability to resolve regional fiscal problems and agree a long-lasting reform of the regional financing system.
EnglishThis paper looks at the Federal Republic of Germany in comparison with other federations in view of the basic federal idea and the distribution of competences and powers between federation and Lander. It sheds light on the tensions of decentralization and unitarization. Furthermore, the constitutional arrangements for financing federal and Lander levels are explained more in detail. And finally the paper raises a current issue: the German Finance Constitution in need of reform. francaisCet article se penche sur la Republique federale d'Allemagne, comparee a d'autres federations pour ce qui est de l'idee federale de base et de la repartition des competences et des pouvoirs entre la federation et les Lander. Il met en lumiere les tensions de la decentralisation et de l'unitarisation. En outre, il explique plus en detail les dispositions constitutionnelles relatives au financement au niveau federal et des Lander. Enfin, il souleve une question actuelle: la Constitution allemande des finances doit etre reformee.
The purpose of my thesis is to analyse the tools and consequences of the fiscal federalism in Spain. Decentralization process has started along with democratization since passing new Constitution in 1978. It has been mainly reaction to cultural, historical and political reasons of creation of Autonomous Communities. Economic crisis stroke the Spanish economy very strongly and has been a challenge for the whole financing model. Thus, the main aim of my thesis is to deal with the recent development of the financing model. Since Spain is a member of the European Union, I describe also tools of the fiscal federalism put forward by the European Union. Spain is considered to be one of the most decentralized countries in Europe. In my thesis I want to prove that further decentralization has been confirmed by reforms responding to the economic crisis. Then, I want to show that used tools of fiscal federalism are profitable for both state and autonomous communities and positively affect economy of Spain and that they has helped to deal with economic crisis. Finally, I want to show that Spain is getting closer to federal arrangement of government. As has been proved, decentralization is still prevailing tendency in financing model of autonomous communities. But central government has been proposing...
To date, there have been 28 federal or quasi-federal and 20 decentralized unitary countries with a combined total of about two-thirds of the worldâs population. These governance arrangements have led to a resurgence of interest in fiscal federalism principles and practices as federal systems are seen to provide safeguards against the threat of centralized exploitation as well as decentralized opportunistic behaviour while bringing decision making closer to the people. Fiscal federalism principles are concerned with the division of economic powers and the structure and design of intergovernmental finance to secure a common economic union. Each country adapts these principles to suit its political, institutional and cultural characteristics; as a result, each country has a unique structure of economic governance. More often than not, though, politics trumps fiscal federalism principles. This chapter is concerned with four areas of concern: division of taxing powers for sales and resource taxes, fiscal equalization transfers, tax competition, and shared responsibility for fiscal discipline.
The current system of fiscal decentralization in China has a number of serious problems. Whereas it has clearly assigned revenues between the central government and provincial governments, the current system does not provide clear expenditure assignments for almost all levels of governments. In practice, the widely unfunded responsibilities have been taken up by local governments, in particular, by the governments at and under county level. Since 1994, the responsibilities for these local governments have continued to expand. On the other hand, the âtax sharing reformâ of 1994 led to a very limited tax bases for local governments. In fact, a significant amount of local governments in China face serious fiscal crisis.
In Germany, regional and local jurisdictions are the place where in many policy fields administrative resources are located, and where the relevant organizational actors â both public and private â implement social policies (Banting and Corbett 2002). Decision-making about benefits and beneficiaries as well as social policy financing, however, tend to be highly centralized. Subnational ( LĂ€nder -) governments have strong participation rights in such decisions, yet there are few areas in which individual BundeslĂ€nder can shape institutions or policies unilaterally or autonomously (Ziblatt 2002: 628 ff.).There is, therefore, no clear allocation of authority over the making and implementation of (health) policy across territorial levels (Jordan 2008: 168). Decision-making, control over finances, implementation, and supervision of performance are in different hands. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
The link between autonomy and federalism might seem intuitively obvious, but is far from easy to pin down with precision. Some scholars, indeed, question whether the two are linked in any meaningful way. Bernhardt, for example, nds the two terms âneither synonymous nor closely connected institutions, but very distinct phenomena in modern history with basically different underlying philosophiesâ (1981: 23). Benedikter concurs, arguing that âRegional autonomy is a speci c territorial political organization having its own constituent features. It should not be confused with a subcategory of federalismâ (2007: 2). This insistence that âRegional autonomy is a political and constitutional organization sui generis that deserves distinct attention and analysis in theory and practice,â is characteristic of the approach of specialists in constitutional or international law; political scientists writing on the subject are more inclined to emphasize similarity than difference and to recognize that the concepts of federalism and autonomy, while not synonymous, share certain key characteristics. The term âautonomyâ derives from the two Greek words auto, meaning self, and nomos, meaning rule or law (Lapidoth 1994: 276). Since the idea of self-rule is at the very core of most de nitions of federalism, it seems incongruous to argue that the two are ânot closely connected institutions.â In its broadest meaning, autonomy clearly encompasses a more diverse range of phenomena than federalism. Even when limited to territorially de ned expressions of self-rule, most de nitions of autonomy are exible enough to include cases that range from self-rule based on decentralization â the devolution of power from the center to the autonomous entity â to virtual independence in the case of associated statehood. In the former case, the powers delegated by the center to the autonomous region may be extensive, but they can be revoked unilaterally by the central government; in the latter case, the autonomous entity is legally endowed with statehood and may terminate the association at any time. The point of overlap between autonomy and federalism occurs somewhere between these two extremes. For current purposes, I take this point to be that at which an autonomous entity most resembles a subunit in a federation. When an autonomous entity enjoys self-rule that is reasonably protected from unilateral revocation by the center its legal/constitutional status is akin to that of a subunit in a federation. This protection may be provided in the common-state constitution, as in the case of Mindanao (the Philippines), in a special law, compact, or treaty between the national government and the autonomous entity, as in the case of Aceh (Indonesia), or even by an international agreement or treaty, such as that which protects the autonomy of the South Tyrol (Italy). When the autonomy (selfrule) of an entity is legally or constitutionally protected against having its status unilaterally revoked, it satis es the âself-ruleâ component of the denition of a federal system. Where territorial autonomy most obviously differs from federalism is in the organization of the rest of the system. A federal subunit is one unit among many in a system-wide institution; a territorially autonomous unit is one unit (or one of a small number) in an otherwise unitary system. For current purposes, a unitary system that contains one autonomous unit, or a small number of these, can be termed a federacy.
Despite not being a federation Spain is deeply decentralized country. The present-day system of political and territorial organization was outlined during the process of transition to democracy, which took place between 1975 and 1982. The so-called State of Autonomies was based on consensus and will to find a general agreement among the main political actors. Hence, to some extent, it has an ambivalent nature and nowadays is short of full acceptance and finality. This fact alongside the age- old heterogeneity of Spanish population results in a cleavage mirrored in the different views on desirable power and territorial configuration of the country. Today, Spain is divided into seventeen autonomous communities. These units are endowed with both executive and legislative functions and they constitute distinctive political arenas. In some of them the political competition resembles that of the national level. Nevertheless, in the majority of the communities the regional political parties have got an important, sometimes even pivotal role. Right these actors of regional politics are in the focus of this research. In its scope we defined two aims. Firstly, we want to find out what attitudes the regional political parties take towards the autonomous state and its nature, and, respectively, if and to what...
Using a panel of province-level data, we investigate the effects of political party affiliations of local chief executives on the financing and delivery of devolved health services, where arguably the opportunities for and potential gains from inter-local governmental unit (LGU) cooperation abound. Despite these potential gains, the proportion of mayors that belong to the same party as the governor are found not to have any direct, independent and statistically significant effects on the local chief executives' ability to secure additional resources from the national government and other external sources, mobilize greater spending on local health services or improve select health service outputs. However, the re-election status of mayors and governors is found to have a direct, independent and positive impact on some of these indicators. These results support the view that narrow electoral objectives more than party platforms remain the dominant influence in local fiscal decisions under decentralization.
The literature is still undecided on whether sub-state elections conform more to a national or regional logic of voting. In this article, I argue that the impact of national politics on regional elections is contingent upon the level of decentralization. I hypothesize that the greater the number of policy areas and resources in the hands of regional governments, the lesser the influence of national coat-tails on regional elections. Using the electoral results of the Spanish Socialist Party in national and regional elections from 1979 to 2009, the empirical analysis shows that regional politiciansâ electoral performance is correlated to that of their national counterparts. However, this correlation has weakened as regional governments have gained greater decision-making and financing powers. This has been particularly evident in elections when the regional branch of the party rules a single-party government and competes against strong regionalist parties.
Against the backdrop of the financial and economic crisis, federal and regional States are engaging in several reforms. The financial constitutional design and institutional setting in the area of fiscal and financial matters are being revised in order to better adapt to the current challenges, which result both from the supranational sphere of economic governance and the domestic one. The rationale behind these reforming processes lies in the struggle between the apparent needs to re-centralize while accommodating decentralization claims. The paper focuses on federal and highly regionalized European States by adopting a comparative domestic perspective and investigates reform processes in the area of fiscal matters and financial intergovernmental relations. It explores the most significant features that permeate the various legal orders, trying to single out the different trends in shifting powers in favour of either (re)centralization or decentralization. To this extent the recognition of autonomy on the revenue side and the accommodation of autonomy and solidarity within the new fiscal regimes will be analyzed. Moreover,intergovernmental cooperation in fiscal and financial areas will be scrutinized trying to point out crucial characteristics from a comparative perspective. To this regard particular attention will be given to major recently established bodies and procedures in the fiscal and public finance area as well as to their role within domestic economic governance.
Despite not being a federation Spain is deeply decentralized country. The present-day system of political and territorial organization was outlined during the process of transition to democracy, which took place between 1975 and 1982. The so-called State of Autonomies was based on consensus and will to find a general agreement among the main political actors. Hence, to some extent, it has an ambivalent nature and nowadays is short of full acceptance and finality. This fact alongside the age- old heterogeneity of Spanish population results in a cleavage mirrored in the different views on desirable power and territorial configuration of the country. Today, Spain is divided into seventeen autonomous communities. These units are endowed with both executive and legislative functions and they constitute distinctive political arenas. In some of them the political competition resembles that of the national level. Nevertheless, in the majority of the communities the regional political parties have got an important, sometimes even pivotal role. Right these actors of regional politics are in the focus of this research. In its scope we defined two aims. Firstly, we want to find out what attitudes the regional political parties take towards the autonomous state and its nature, and, respectively, if and to what...
This thesis addresses the issue of devolution and its relation to the Scottish National Party (SNP) through the lenses of historical institutionalism. It aims at answering the question, how and to what extent the devolution influenced the policies and political behaviour of the SNP as well as its internal organization. The change of the SNP is also viewed on the basis of various political theories and typologies of political parties. Because the primary aim of the SNP is to deliver independence to Scotland, the special attention is also paid to the mutual relation of devolution as a weaker form of self-determination and independence. It is possible to define three waves of the impact of devolution on the SNP. The last one leads to the establishment of Scottish autonomous institutions. Althoutgh the Labour Party tried to minimized the SNP in the political arena, the SNP took a full advantage of a new institutional setting and managed to form a Scottish government. Keywords New Labour, Labour Party, devolution, Scottish National Party, decentralization, Scotland
As it is provided in the 1999 Constitution, federalism in Venezuela is a contradictory form of government. Typically, a federation is a politically decentralized state organization based on the existence and functioning of autonomous states. The power of that decentralized state is distributed among the national state and the member states. In contrast, the federation in Venezuela is a centralized federation, which is a contradiction in itself. Unfortunately, Venezuela is not a good example of the importance of federalism in Latin America because it is a federation based on a very centralized national government, with twenty-three formal autonomous states and one capital district. Each of these twenty-three formal autonomous states is without its own effective public policies and its own substantive subnational constitutions; and if it is true that they have elected authorities, those have been weakened by the central government. Regarding the capital district, against the provisions of the 1999 Constitution, it has been regulated in 2009 by a national law with the same trends as the former federal district; that is, without self-government, dependent of the national executive. But the federation in the country's history has not always been like it is now. The centralization of the federation occurred progressively during the twentieth century and has been particularly accentuated during the past decade. Centralization began with the installment of the authoritarian government of the dictator Juan Vicente GĂłmez, who ruled for approximately three decades in the first half of the twentieth century. During those years, no democratic institutions were developed.
Abstract A vast territory, deep regional and linguistic differences, and a diverse population pose a challenge to the administration of elections and the determination of voting behavior. Election management in Canada has changed in recent years. Campaign financing is more strictly controlled that ever, advance voting and same-day registration have been introduced to facilitate easier voting, and fixed-term elections have been introduced. This article discusses the changes and challenges faced by the Canadian elections and voting system. Among the challenges faced are the efforts to enhance the equity and fairness of the electoral process. These efforts are seen as conflicting with the right of freedom of expression guaranteed by the Canadian Charter. Among the changes Canadian electoral processes have undergone are the emergence of campaigns, the pervasiveness of media coverage, decentralized federalism, and the introduction of a single-member plurality electoral system. Some of the topics discussed in this article include: managing elections, voter registration, distribution of seats, and anomalies in the Canadian electoral system.
The inclusion of structural minorities and disadvantaged groups looms large in the study of democracy. There is ample recognition that âsimple political egalitarianism on which the institutions and mechanisms of modern representative democracy were established has given way to increasing demands for group recognition as well as for forms of equality related directly to people's needs, characteristics, identities and conditions.â (Castiglione and Warren 2005: 2) There is also ample recognition that the standard liberal and majoritarian model of democracy is frequently unable to safeguard the most vital interests of structural minorities and disadvantaged groups. Several representation models and institutional devices have been proposed in order to advance the interests of minorities and disadvantaged groups. In the past decade, however, the study of inclusion and representation has increasingly taken a deliberative turn (Williams 1998; Urbinati 2000; Mansbridge 2003; 2009; Dryzek and Niemeyer 2008). Rather than focusing on formal and institutional means of inclusion (such as proportional representation, minority veto, or re-districting), deliberative approaches take an informal and dynamic view on inclusion and representation. In their mainstream and Habermasian-inspired version, deliberative approaches entail the idea of equal participation and symmetric dialogue, reasoned argument, common good orientation, serious and respectful listening (and responding) to other participants' claims, as well as mutual agreement based on the âforceless force of the better argumentâ. With their focus on equality, symmetry, serious listening, and respect, deliberative approaches spark hope to be susceptible to the interests of structural minorities and disadvantaged groups. Yet, despite tremendous interest in deliberative approaches in recent years, the exact specification and empirical translation of deliberative ideals in the context of minority and group inclusion has lagged behind. This may not be so surprising, given the fact that deliberative approaches are far from being fool-proof devices for the inclusion of disadvantaged groups. The major problem is that mainstream and Habermasian-inspired forms of deliberation might actually hamper inclusionary goals. On the one hand, feminists and difference democrats have argued that many disadvantaged people do not engage in rationalistic forms of deliberation, which may suit only a privileged few. On the other hand, why should disadvantaged groups respectfully listen to privileged groups or even transcend their interests in the light of the âbetterâ argument, especially if they have experienced inequality or if their vital interests are at stake? As Williams (1998) has noted, requiring selflessness and self-transformation of the disadvantaged is deeply unfair. These are two valid objections, not easily addressed by the mainstream deliberative approach. Therefore, we propose a deliberative approach with âfriendly amendmentsâ. Our approach focuses on two central principles of deliberation, equality of participation and reciprocity, but it does so with a twist for reciprocity. First, equality of deliberation requires that all affected are included and âthat no one person or advantaged group completely dominate the reason giving process, even if the deliberators are not strictly equal in power and prestige.â (Thompson 2008: 507). Second, reciprocity means that discourse participants should listen and respond to each other and do so in a respectful way (Chambers 1999). However, the trick here is to put the âburdenâ of reciprocity primarily on majorities and privileged groups: it is mainly their obligation to seriously listen and respond to the demands and arguments of minorities and disadvantaged groups and show a willingness to respect and accommodate these interests. Conversely, structural minorities and disadvantaged groups are not fully held accountable to these standards. They may be deliberative, but they may also adopt a more adversarial stance towards majorities and privileged groups. This relaxation is conditional though: the less inequality structural minorities and disadvantaged groups have experienced and the less their vital interests are at stake, the more we expect them to converge to the standards of majorities and privileged groups (and the more privileged groups are dispensed from taking a deliberative attitude vis-a-vis the disadvantaged). Finally, contrary to standard models of political inclusion and representation, our deliberative approach focuses only on the horizontal relationship among different (group) representatives and the ways they interact â rather than on the vertical relationship between representatives and constituents. We think that the former aspect of representation is critical though: it is the moment when inclusion and representation are in action and when constituent interests are turned into binding decisions. So far, there has been little empirical and systematic examination of deliberative forms of inclusion in the context of structural minorities and disadvantaged groups. In this study, we investigate equality of participation and reciprocity in the context of linguistic minorities in Switzerland (French, Italian and Romansch-speakers). To be sure, linguistic groups in Switzerland do not directly qualify as âdisadvantagedâ groups (such as Blacks in the United States), since they have not experienced deep inequality or oppression in the past. However, when their vital interests are at stake, they do not have formal means of veto power to prevent unwanted legislation but are generally dependent on the decisions of the German-speaking majority to realize their interests (both in representative and direct democracy). Moreover, there have been recurrent complaints of linguistic minorities of being marginalized and ignored by German speakers. As such, an empirical investigation of deliberative inclusion of linguistic minorities in Switzerland is far from being misdirected. At the same time, the institutional architecture of the Swiss political system is also conducive to deliberative forms of policy-making: it involves a consensus system with non-parliamentary features, enabling political actors to engage in consequential deliberation (see Steiner et al. 2004). Moreover, the party system is not organized along linguistic cleavages reducing partisan incentives to politicize linguistic conflicts. This combines with a specific motivation on part of the German-speaking majority to be receptive to the demands of linguistic minorities (Bachtiger and Steiner 2004). Thus, favorable institutional conditions and appropriate actor motivations should provide fertile ground to see our conception of deliberative inclusion âin actionâ. Put differently, the Swiss case enables us to explore how well the ideals of equality of participation and reciprocity are realized in practice when conditions are fairly ideal. In concrete, we focus on two Swiss parliamentary decision cases that deal with linguistic issues and directly concern linguistic minoritiesâ vital interests (language article and language bill); in addition, we focus on a contrast decision case, the labor law revision which does not touch upon vital interests of the linguistic minorities. For the three cases, we explore patterns of participation and reciprocity in the committees of the first and second chambers of parliament. With regard to equality of participation, we analyze how often linguistic minorities speak up compared to the German-speaking majority. With regard to reciprocity, we analyze how often linguistic minorities are referred to, how often linguistic minorities refer to other actors, and whether this is done in a respectful and disrespectful way. Furthermore, we also perform an in-depth analysis of reciprocity and explore how often arguments of linguistic minorities are referred to by the German-speaking minority and whether this is done in a respectful (or, disrespectful) way. Our empirical analysis of deliberative inclusion draws from Steven Levittâs (2004) analysis of discrimination in the United States. We calculate frequencies for participation and reciprocity rates as a function of the speakers status â linguistic minority or linguistic majority -, controlling for other characteristics of the speaker (such as gender, role, or partisan affiliation) as well as characteristics of the context (different issues or first vs. second chamber). The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section II presents our model of deliberative inclusion. Section III provides background on deliberative inclusion in the context of linguistic groups in Switzerland, discusses the methodological approach, and presents the empirical results. Section IV concludes.
The author explores distinctiveness of the regional state mostly in Spain as third model of territorial organization. Unlike unitary and federal, regional state is not wide-spread and broad accepted concept of vertical organization although modern Spain and Italy represents examples of good practice. Having in mind diversity of regional identities and strong cultural distinctiveness in Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia and other areas, author is wondering if any other model of territorial organization could be sustainable in such socio-cultural environment. After the period of Franco?s dictatorship, which had been trying to exterminate cultural and historical particularities among Spanish nations, decentralization demands have become more stronger resulting with the new constitution adopted in 1978. This act has set the corner-stone of modern Spanish democracy based on Autonomous Communities as specific forms of decentralized state and territorial autonomy.
The European Union (EU) is built on the federalist principle of subsidiarity, which we consider in the policy field of financial reporting. We attempt to answer the question, whether the current accounting regulation in Europe is sensibly balanced between centralized and decentralized decision making. Drawing on comparative accounting research to identify criteria for âlocal preferences,â we conclude that local solutions currently remain preferable for small and medium-sized companies. For them, a centralized solution would result in additional costs for at least some member states and their residents. Large international firms, in contrast, face an increasingly integrated capital market and rather need a central solution as currently implemented by the EU. However, recent developments in corporate finance may align local preferences on accountancy in the future.
Despite its supranational characteristics, the EU remains to no small extent an intergovernmental entity. By default, therefore, its key players are the governments of its member states. Consequently the EU has posed something of a challenge for its regions and stateless nations. Until recently, to no small degree, they were relegated to mere bystanders as the European âexperimentâ progressed. Indeed, for the ECâs ïŹrst three decades, formally, they were for the most part excluded from a direct involvement in EC policy formulation. More particularly, as the EC acquired more and more competence it encroached increasingly on those areas of policy which, hitherto, fell within the exclusive competence of the regions, or which they shared with their central governments. The net result was that, over time, authority to make decisions in a swathe of policy ïŹelds resided increasingly in Brussels. However, in the aftermath of the SEA, it became increasingly untenable for governments, in federal polities especially, to monopolise the conduct of European aïŹairs. It was less feasible for them to defend the premise that relations with the EC in a classic sense could be regarded as âforeign policyâ and thus should remain purely within the ambit of the central government. Rather, domestic policy had been âEuropeanizedâ. In eïŹect the dividing line between domestic and European policy matters had become âblurredâ as a result of European integration (JeïŹery 1997a). Accordingly, territorial administrations in the regions and stateless nations began to undergo âEuropeanizationâ. Europeanization is a multifaceted term, and there is no consensus on its exact meaning. Olsen suggested that there was a number of possible interpretations, including âthe emergence of European level institutionsâ and the âdomestic impact of European-level institutionsâ. Essentially, these two forms of Europeanization were inter-connected. Institutionally, the extent to which Europeanization evolved at the European tier of government had a resonance domestically (J.P. Olsen c2002). Thus it could be supposed that Europeanization has been an incremental process at the territorial level.1 Primarily, this can be attributed to the manner by which the EU has evolved as a result of successive treaties starting with the EEC (1957), followed by the SEA (1986), the Treaty on European Union (1992), the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997), the Treaty of Nice (2001) and (if it is ratiïŹed) the Treaty of Lisbon (2007). As the EC and its policies began to aïŹect the regions directly, the latter had little option but to respond. In addition, the reform of the structural funds in 1988 helped to fuel regional mobilization. Not only was EC regional aid more substantive than hitherto, from this point on, in theory at least, the regions were supposed to be âpartnersâ with regard to the implementation of the funds (Marks 1993). Yet territorial Europeanization was not merely concerned with acquiring EC aid, it was more pro-active. For example, it involved collaboration and networking, an underlying aim of which was to inïŹuence EU policy making. It therefore included the direct lobbying of the EUâs institutions and attempts to inïŹuence the ECâs wider agenda (John 1997: 133). In sum, sub-state actors re-structured their organizations over time and they reorientated their strategies, as bit by bit the EC began to aïŹect their activities (see for example, Keating and Jones 1985; Jones and Keating 1995; JeïŹery 1997b). Whilst few, if any, regions could ignore European integration, some were better able to mobilize than others by virtue of the political authority which they had at their disposal. This appeared especially to be the case in federal polities, where authority was âsharedâ between the state and sub-state tiers of government. Transcending that was the ideal that both tiers of government aimed to work well together by dint of their commitment to âfederal loyaltyâ. Consequently, the German LĂ€nder attained greater inïŹuence over European aïŹairs during the latter part of the 1980s and continued into the 1990s (Gerstenlauer 1985, 1995, JeïŹery 1997b). Initially they adopted a twin-track approach in their bid to secure more inïŹuence over the EC during the late 1980s. They played a leading role in the mobilization of the âthird levelâ (i.e. the territorial tier of government in the EC), and they also endeavoured to secure certain rights over the formulation of European policy in Germany (Börzel 2002, JeïŹery 1997b). Third level mobilization did yield some tangible results at Maastricht, thanks to pressure from the LĂ€nder and the Belgian Sub-national Entities (SNE). Under the Treaty on European Union, where their stateâs constitutions so allowed, ministers from sub-state administrations could vote in the Council (initially as representatives of their state). The formation of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) formally incorporated the regions into the EUâs policy processes in those areas which fell within its competence. Last, the principle of subsidiarity promised much. It was in part intended that where possible, as a matter of principle, decisions would be taken at the closest level to the citizen (see Chapter 4 for further material on subsidiarity). By the early 1990s, the LĂ€nder had also secured a number of mechanisms within the German polity which ensured that they enjoyed, collectively, greater inïŹuence over those EU matters which fell within their competence, as well as a potential veto over further transfers of competence to Brussels. The same applied to Belgiumâs SNEs (Kerremans and Beyers 1997). The situation was less clear-cut for Spainâs Autonomous Communities, however, with the Basques, in particular, appearing to lose a degree of autonomy as a result of European integration (Bourne 2000, 2002). Consequently, it could be supposed that a regionâs constitutional status could have a distinct bearing on its potential inïŹuence vis-Ă -vis the EU, both internally in relation to its central governmentâs formulation of EU policy, and externally with regard to the EU itself (Bourne 2003). Given the relative success of the LĂ€nder and the Belgian SNEs, it could therefore be inferred that regions in federal polities were best equipped to reap the beneïŹts of Europeanization, thereby calling into question the inïŹuence of territories in more centralized states, such as the UK. As far as the UK is concerned, it is a union state, comprising a number of distinct territories, where formally sovereignty resides with the Westminster parliament. In theory, this is where supreme political authority is situated. This arrangement does not lend itself to a federal system of government, whereby sovereignty is âsharedâ between the diïŹerent tiers of government, because that would subvert the Westminster model (Keating and Jones 1995) and so threaten the current constitution in its entirety. However, sovereignty itself is something of a chimera, thanks in part to European integration. It could be claimed that by virtue of their membership of the EU, the member states are no longer wholly sovereign, whilst the EU itself is not yet sovereign either. Thus the term âpost-sovereignâ could be a more apt description of the current situation for the EU and its member states (MacCormick 1999, Keating 2001). Even so, a primary concern of successive UK governments since the UKâs accession to the EC in 1973 has been, where possible, to defend the countryâs (perceived) âsovereigntyâ. Prior to constitutional change in 1999, the UKâs situation was complicated further by the system of government in the UK, or more precisely by the distribution of authority between the âcentreâ and the âperipheryâ. So far as Northern Ireland, Scotland andWales were concerned, each had its own territorial branches of government, albeit that its autonomy diïŹered. In the decades the of a in Scotland can be whereby it a degree of autonomy in relation to the implementation of domestic policies that were purely 2003). Under the of the of secured a of which the of by Westminster in as a result of âthe did not secure its own territorial of government and to with at the had a than its in began to change in it secured the and governments it was a of including and Jones 1997: Despite the of there was the that the a degree of autonomy from the especially between and to there within the UK a In eïŹect the had its own polity which on matters of such as and policy, whilst the also had a which on domestic or to this the to be by on the premise that the of this arrangement was on the of an in and the therefore, a could the membership of the EC posed its own to the not because it could consensus that from the the polity was the in the were in the of the UKâs the in the as part of its attempts at which into question the of the In addition, the polity was further by the situation in Northern and the for in Scotland and in in the the UKâs accession to the EC in as the UK was to the it was not with a of political authority to but also pressure from the for greater these to a system of government which, and was also as far as EC aïŹairs were concerned, the administrations were to the where the aftermath of supreme political authority continued to at the of the and administrations especially, accession to the EC was something of a into the they to lose as to become both and more of decisions taken in that would in the aftermath of accession was that, where the ECâs treaties so allowed, policies would be in Brussels. it could be claimed that their political would be further by European integration. they had direct to in For each had its own of was a member of the UK thereby that their could be and at the of government. their to would be in those areas of policy which fell within As far as intergovernmental were concerned, their would be by UK ministers from the in the Council of the Council of the from the the UK the this the relative autonomy Scotland and if any, substantive autonomy However, the UKâs accession with for This was most in Northern where had been in the aim of which was the of Whilst the situation in Northern was to that of Scotland or as far as the latter were concerned there had been pressure for greater autonomy during the late as the to make at the to the of a on the in the aim of which was to there was a for this to be by the UKâs membership of the EC and the to within the it its in Whilst the that the case for would not be as a result of the two of its and a of The latter that would be a for as there would be over the of competence and there was no point for regional governments in the at that in They therefore that there was little for as a Despite the of the the UK a in for Scotland and The as a the at Westminster during However, the of the administrations could best be in had to be The therefore that European aïŹairs with the UK government and that the of territorial would be on As it to on this in Scotland and in Even so, it had been for some time that the EC would have far for the UKâs territories, of the constitutional within the UK. such was Scotland where well the UKâs accession to the its political and was over the and of EC In the of the to the of the and on the that Westminster the authority to sovereignty to the In the Union was to membership on the that it would with the However, the of the of was in By this time, in the accession with a of and the they were concerned that it result in the they if the would the in relation to those areas of policy which Scotland they to little more than By however, it was that this was not to but were at the on that key were to so that they could on the In the aftermath of accession it became that EC membership was less in Scotland and Northern than in or As far as Northern was concerned, the from the that membership UK and in so it a to the of the regarded membership more for the same (Keating and Jones regard to there was the concern that the EC was and that the of did not the Thus in the to the on membership of the some in the for a on the that Scotland should from the of the UK and for membership on its own In within the were on the that the EC was concerned with the of shared to those of the for the EC during the early of UK membership from that of Scotland and Northern Whilst in in during the the for Scotland and Northern Ireland, were and with for and an of for the UK as a Yet it was early as far as the UKâs membership of the EC was concerned, it was that the latter was an impact at the territorial The for example, could not in European aïŹairs. It a in EC and the It had also been concerned with the the of which was to was because the member states had a policy on to the UKâs accession with the result that the UK was with a whilst and government did not as a The was especially of the because the of UK was in Scotland and the was a in the and of the Consequently, during the ïŹrst of the with some to defend the of as the more The on in the of the the and the of a could each be regarded as However, as time the became increasingly both in Scotland and in of the the the Europeanization of the with the SEA of As more and more decisions were taken in for European matters was from to This did not so to which the of the in it was concerned with more areas of policy such as or This was because the in were it sense for the to on European In addition, it was that the to inïŹuence the EC more directly, as it could not wholly on the to the of the the increasingly with the European albeit that it was on that its activities would not with the UK line on The also a degree of In its and European became key players Jones 1997: As far as the was concerned, that was the of EC structural In addition, at the of its of it relations with regions in the such as these were because they that the was not wholly on the by in it to in the European political as a in its own However, as was the case with the in of this was Whilst a number of Northern was involved in EC aïŹairs the of and the of and had the in so far as it was by virtue of its involvement in the implementation of EC structural funds in the and However, that that most of its was to the of the therefore, Europeanization in Northern was to Europeanization there had been, was to no small degree by its More particularly, there was an of political Given the such as these were would have been more concerned the than the European Despite the which they the territorial of government were by no in with the also an in European their European activities to the Council in EC the SEA was something of a that on, were with a of European The SEA also the reform of the structural funds in a result of which was that in the which bid for if they were EC aid Consequently, a number of EC in to their EC and some or in Brussels. For their the the of part of was to in the EC (Keating and Jones However, the of the to with regional in the EC was by and the of did relations with such as the of Regions and the of European Regions Jones the of as the for government, or more especially the to with the EC on a to a they were in For a a more leading role but that was it and its EC by the actors from the UKâs territories to a in European aïŹairs. The same applied increasingly to territorial pressure such as the and the had been involved in lobbying from the the UK the The same applied to the became involved in lobbying it became that they could no longer ignore the such was This had been in part because of the and also because of the of a in the As far as the latter was concerned, the underlying concern was that regional such as the in could Consequently, helped to the of European thereby its to a in the The situation for as a was less with the of the and the of a became more during the of government (Keating and Jones time pressure did direct in part because they did not that they would from In sum, from a territorial activities such as these that authority a swathe of policy areas no longer resided in Rather, increasingly it was in something which was to the of in and also in Despite their the and became more to the as time from the ECâs for small and in areas in the of the (Keating and The change of can be in to a member of the had been to EC to own which the By the to the of Scotland from the UK and a member state in the EC in its own for example, the was by no a with regard to however, and the key became in as the 1980s to a in therefore, the of territorial in the EC became more during the late 1980s and on into the The net eïŹect was that, the with the UK government to that territorial were in its during a the impact of the EC was more was especially so for In the to the the a of its EC a was by no to the however, as in the government did the same 2003). However, the of the were by virtue of the extent to which the EU had on its The that some to of its were in work and that of its were The for EC to be more to the ECâs institutions and a further of with the EC As far as the latter was concerned, it was suggested that should remain in for an or so they so that they could with European However, by this time each of the three territories was to have its own in Brussels. The of Scotland the Northern in and the European in was of the for a more in the ECâs Even so, their was The was that they be as applied to Scotland as both the Union and it with concern as a to a agenda in the EC and In time however, the As far as was concerned, it would some of its and the had no as ïŹrst and Scotland role on than political The latter therefore a in EC aid, and it its with on EC Despite the concern that they not have a political however, it was that these would their inïŹuence within the applied to As of its the its was that it would the of the in the the that played a Yet it was also that a number of including a of and a with the direct claimed that not only did ministers to the to and to on the work of but also the direct had a and approach to policy and For its whilst the European could be as something of a because it in it was by and with the over its role Jones 1997: each of these endeavoured to with the ECâs institutions and with regional their to inïŹuence the ECâs policy agenda appeared to be during the in with their German which better and which were more (JeïŹery it is to that there was something of a in the sense that territorial pressure in and Northern to they to inïŹuence the EU, the was more no small extent the UK government as a between the territories and by virtue of the of the Council of the In addition, the government was for the implementation of EU policy in the UK. the and Northern were territorial branches of the UK government. The net result was that to ignore or the territorial administrations they to inïŹuence EU policy making. applied to the for example, the that the had its own the 1990s the a number of a number of which was to the is that competence for with the EU as a result of the which the of the were the to reform the and the accession of states from and than direct with the of and in the Union Scotland its on the at the In so it the approach adopted by pressure in Northern and in the case it did not have its own territorial as such and it therefore The underlying was that by of their territorial in relation to a such as the reform of the or the of they could greater pressure to on the government. however, on the that their territorial inïŹuence within and that the UK government itself was able to inïŹuence in Brussels. was not the The was (see also Chapter because it little inïŹuence the UK at over EU aïŹairs. The to a in concern that which had could be to The UK government that UK of would be but the EU that there should be a this did not to in Northern Ireland, their in the UK less Despite the of the UK government, there was it could from a challenge in the and EU and the in to the of the The was as far as the of territorial was it was of the extent to which resided in Brussels. It to that the EU could its on of the UK, of the UK government or it to the UKâs relative of within the EU at that in is the adopted by the and governments (see Chapter The however, was by no the only that into question the extent to which territorial actors in the UK could inïŹuence European Whilst the UK secured a with regard to the in (see by the of the and on into the 1990s the was in as began to The was whereby the were more to such as In eïŹect their potential to three to with the in option would have been to a of the In the EC would have aid for its the government to in with the result that the for example, did not in of the number of and more pressure during the 1990s The situation was to The of for during the if an had been in at the of the the not have evolved in the that it The implementation of the structural funds also to the extent to which the UKâs territories could be by decisions taken in In theory, EC aid was supposed to be to UK regional In the the was taken by successive UK governments that this was not to as EC structural funds were to be to the UKâs to the ECâs Keating and 1985; was because the a net to the The net result was that EC were not the of at the Even the of helped as late as 2000, that the constitutional reform of Consequently, Scotland and less regional aid than they were This was especially in the aftermath of the reform in 1988 the of by the EC to the In sum, these to the potential of the mechanisms within the UK. the which territorial over the formulation of European policy within the UK, were a of the and the The have been well by in and European were an of in a which on together with a of less the European was âthe key in as the with regard to EU were to the it was to the latter to if there was a territorial to a that were so, the would be to the territorial the This arrangement was not For example, there were the was or late in the However, attempts were to this in the would an which would be by from a of government if those from territorial this was not its some that the from the territorial were and were to inïŹuence the to their and where the was to the matter could be to their In the however, ministers from the territorial the Council of the EU, of the three ministers from the to be more in Consequently, ministers at the territorial were in some within the UK so far as European aïŹairs were They could as a if their the inïŹuence in they to inïŹuence a in the with regard to a from the EU, they could to the concerned or have a the in the of they could the matter to their of The territorial of on of which with European they had an involvement in EC albeit that this to matters of such as or the than policy such as a on In the of these was on the extent to which the territorial could and defend the at within the UK it was also on the of the UK to a territorial it was its with regard to EC it was also on the of the and by the UK government to and defend that within the This became more as the 1980s to a and it was further during not because an which was over the More particularly, there was little of political at the territorial level with regard to Scotland and the same applied to which shared a of territorial albeit with less autonomy than the there was no that subsidiarity would to the territories of the UK in the aftermath of the
This article addresses the relationship between political decentralization and the organization of political parties in Great Britain and Spain, focusing on the Labour Party and the Socialist Party, respectively. It assesses two rival accounts of this relationship: Caramani's `nationalization of politics' thesis and Chhibber and Kollman's rational choice institutionalist account in their book The Formation of National Party Systems. It argues that both accounts are seriously incomplete, and on occasion misleading, because of their unwillingness to consider the autonomous role of political parties as advocates of institutional change and as organizational entities. The article develops this argument by studying the role of the British Labour Party and the Spanish Socialists in proposing devolution reforms, and their organizational and strategic responses to them. It concludes that the reductive theories cited above fail to capture the real picture, because parties cannot only mitigate the effects of institutional change, they are also the architects of these changes and shape institutions to suit their strategic ends.