Elodie Fabre

Issue salience in regional and national party manifestos in the UK

The study reveals the salience of particular issues in the manifestos of the main British parties for the 1997 and 2003 UK general elections, as well as the 2003 Scottish and Welsh elections, using the method introduced by the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) and a modified list of issue categories to reflect the division of government competences between the central and regional governments. Ideological and social base of a party, as well as the delimitation of government competences, are found to be important determinants of issue salience. A more consensual institutional design of the regional government in Scotland and Wales seems to have conditioned larger differences among the issue profiles of parties competing in regional elections, in comparison with general elections. With the institutionalisation of devolution, however, we observe an increase in the similarity of the issue profiles of the same parties in general and in Scottish and Welsh elections, as well as among different parties competing in the same regional elections.

Multi-level Election Timing—A Comparative Overview

This article compiles information on multi-level electoral politics in nine countries, starting with multi-level election cycles: horizontal concurrence and vertical concurrence. In addition to the cycle of federal and regional elections, this report looks at election rules for federal and regional elections: fixed election date, possibility of vertical concurrence, dissolution of regional assemblies, length of term after dissolution and the electoral systems for state-wide and regional elections. These election rules and the cycle of state-wide and regional elections contribute to either encouraging the symmetry between the state-wide and regional party systems or, on the contrary, facilitating the divergence between state-wide and regional political arenas and electoral cycles.

Statewide parties and regional party competition: An analysis of party manifestos in the United Kingdom

In the UK, the arrival of devolution has compelled statewide parties to adapt their internal organization and campaign strategies to the presence of regional elections. The dynamics of party competition in which these regional elections are fought are noticeably distinct from the pattern of party competition which prevails in statewide elections. One of the main causes of such highly differentiated dynamics is the substantial presence of autonomist parties, the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru, respectively in Scotland and Wales. Although these parties have existed for a very long time (Plaid Cymru was founded in 1925 and the SNP in 1934), they have rarely been significant players in the statewide political arena. Devolution represented for them a clear opportunity to weigh into the political debate. Within their regional party systems they have routinely collected 20 percent of the vote or more and gained significant numbers of seats in regional elections. Consequently, regional party competition has increased the pressure on statewide parties to diversify their regional campaign strategies and messages. However, too much diversification may undermine the cohesion of the statewide parties. This chapter explores, and seeks to explain, how the British statewide parties sought to balance these two conflicting goals (diversification versus cohesion) by analysing their party programmes for statewide and regional elections (Scotland and Wales) between 1997 and 2003.1

Belgian Federalism in a Comparative Perspective

Since Belgium became a federation in 1995, there have been continuing debates about its future, calls for further regional competences and questions about the role of the federal state. These discussions have led to the reform of 2001, which have increased the powers and financial autonomy of the regions, but institutional reform remained on the agenda and was one of the main objectives of Premier Leterme in 2007. To replace the debate on Belgian federalism and the issue of the respective competences of the central and subnational governments, this paper compares the Belgian institutional system to that of other federations and west European countries. After a brief presentation of the different aspects of federalism in general, the paper turns to the issue of measuring federal institutions for the purpose international comparisons. The Regional Authority Index (RAI) developed by Hooghe et al. (2008a) is the most elaborate and systematic coding scheme of multi-level institutional arrangements. Its data,which covers the period 1950-2006, is used to compare Belgium with the other countries of the EU15 (the 15 member states of the European Union before the Eastern enlargement), Australia, Canada, the United States and Switzerland. This data set allows a comparison of the two aspects of federalism emphasised by Elazar (1987): shared rule, that is, the capacity of subnational governments to make decisions without risking to be overruled by the central government, and shared rule, which is the ability of subnational governments to influence central decision making, most often via intergovernmental relations or a second chamber of parliament based on territorial representation. Finally, this study focuses on fiscal federalism, which is a major issue in the debate on the evolution of Belgian federalism.

Electronic voting in the French legislative elections of 2012

This book analyzes current research on the integration of modern technologies with traditional democratic systems, providing a framework for designing and deploying electronic voting systems in any context or society--