This dissertation addresses two important questions: what constitutes regionalist party success and what factors explain this success? Regionalist parties are political parties that compete within a confined geographic region and focus on gaining greater political autonomy. This differentiates them from mainstream parties who prefer to emphasize traditional left-right political issues and compete across the entire country. I argue that to better understand the electoral outcomes of these parties, their results need a more nuanced categorization: breakthrough, failure, and persistence. Breakthrough occurs when a party has a large surge in support. Electoral failure happens when a party suffers a precipitous decline in vote shares, diminishing its political relevance. Persistence results when a party replicates its previous electoral outcome with minimal change.
I used a supply-side and demand-side theoretical framing to consider the influences on regionalist party outcomes. Demand-side or “bottom-up” based theories state that political parties are primarily responsive organizations that adapt to changes in public attitudes. Thus, they must respond and closely align with the social, cultural, and economic positions of the public. I hypothesized, however, that supply-side factors best explain a regionalist party’s fate. Supply-side or “top-down” theories maintain factors outside of public demand can shape elections. These include institutional arrangements and party strategies, such as the positions the parties take and salience they give to particular issues. In this framework, the choices parties make can impact citizens’ voting. To explain breakthrough, failure, and persistence, I found three factors most relevant: the emphasis mainstream parties put on issues related to regional autonomy compared to left-right issues, the positions mainstream parties take on decentralizing power, and the positions that regionalist parties adopt regarding regional autonomy. When all of these align favorably in an election a party is more likely to breakthrough. In instances where all of them align unfavorably the probability of failure increases. Persistence is most probable when one or two of the factors is beneficial, but not all of them. I analyzed these questions using a mixed-methods approach that included multiple regression analyses and case studies of eight different elections in Scotland.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uoregon.edu/oai:scholarsbank.uoregon.edu:1794/24201 |
| Date | 11 January 2019 |
| Creators | Fontana, Cary |
| Contributors | Parsons, Craig |
| Publisher | University of Oregon |
| Source Sets | University of Oregon |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Rights | All Rights Reserved. |
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