Quarterly Journal of Political Science > Vol 12 > Issue 1

The National Effects of Subnational Representation: Access to Regional Parliaments and National Electoral Performance

Elias Dinas, University of Oxford, UK, elias.dinas@politics.ox.ac.uk , Florian Foos, King's College London, UK, florian.foos@kcl.ac.uk
 
Suggested Citation
Elias Dinas and Florian Foos (2017), "The National Effects of Subnational Representation: Access to Regional Parliaments and National Electoral Performance", Quarterly Journal of Political Science: Vol. 12: No. 1, pp 1-35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00015068

Publication Date: 16 May 2017
© 2017 E. Dinas and F. Foos
 
Subjects
Elections:Electoral institutions,  Representation,  Political parties,  Legislatures,  Political organizations,  Federalism,  Electoral institutions,  Elections,  Comparative politics
 
Keywords
Party organizationFederalismParty financeSubnational electionsElectoral thresholdsGermanyDiscontinuity design
 

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In this article:
1. The Organizational Returns to Subnational Parliamentary Representation: Money and Members 
2. An Alternative Explanation: Spillover Effects 
3. Data and Research Design 
4. Results 
5. Robustness Checks and Diagnostics 
6. Unpacking the Organizational Mechanism 
7. Alternative Mechanisms 
8. Discussion 
References 

Abstract

According to scholarly wisdom, party competition at the subnational level plays a negligible role in national elections. We provide theory and evidence that qualifies this view. Subnational elections determine entrance into subnational parliaments, which provides essential organizational resources: members and money. Since in most cases the same political actors compete at all levels of government, they can make use of these resources to improve their status in national party competition. We test our argument exploiting two institutional features of the German multi-level electoral context: the discontinuities generated by the 5% electoral threshold in German state elections, and the occurance of German state elections at different times in the federal election cycle. We find that parties that marginally cross the threshold for state parliamentary representation gain more members, and eventually perform better in national elections, but only if the party has sufficient time to organize between the state and the federal election. Consistent with our organizational explanation, bottom-up effects are more pronounced where state parliamentary parties receive more financial resources. Alternative mechanisms are tested, and receive no empirical support.

DOI:10.1561/100.00015068