The book analyses how political parties compete and strategise on the issue of territorial reform using case-studies that include countries from both Western (Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain) and Central-Eastern Europe (Poland, Slovakia and Romania). Each case-study considers different drivers of decentralization, such as territorial identities and the demands of regionalist parties for territorial autonomy or independence, efficiency concerns related to issues of uneven economic development and economic competitiveness, the pressure from supra-national organizations (especially the EU), as well as different combinations of these drivers. They also consider how the ideology and organisation of state-wide parties and the institutional context in which they compete shape their responses to these drivers and their strategy towards the question of territorial reform. This collection investigates the logic of the actions that guide political parties’ strategy to highlight trends that are apparent across the case-studies.
This book was originally published as a special issue of West European Politics.
| Citation Information |
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ix | |
| Notes on Contributors |
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xi | |
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1 The Party Politics of Territorial Reforms in Europe |
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1 | (20) |
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2 Party Strategies on Territorial Reform: State-wide Parties and the State of Autonomies in Spain |
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21 | (21) |
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3 Party Strategies, Voter Demands and Territorial Reform in Belgium |
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42 | (21) |
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4 Sailing with Northern Winds: Party Politics and Federal Reforms in Italy |
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63 | (23) |
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5 Party Servants, Ideologues or Regional Representatives? The German Lander and the Reform of Federalism |
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86 | (23) |
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6 Party Strategies and Administrative-Territorial Reforms in Poland |
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109 | (21) |
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7 The Forbidden Fruit of Federalism: Evidence from Romania and Slovakia |
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130 | (21) |
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| Index |
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151 | |
Emanuele Massetti is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Gediz University, Izmir, Turkey. He obtained a PhD in Politics and Contemporary European Studies in 2010 at the University of Sussex, UK. In 2010-11 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Teaching Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His research interests are in the fields of political parties, ethno-regionalist politics and institutional reforms.
Simon Toubeau is García Pelayo Research Fellow at the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies (CEPC) in Madrid, Spain, and a Scientific Collaborator at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium. He holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute (EUI). His research interests are in the fields of nationalism, regionalism and federalism and party competition in Europe.
