Demarking political space: Territoriality and the ethnoregional party family

Nationalism and Ethnic Politics

Volumn 12, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 53-82

  Miodownik, Dan ^a   Cartrite, Britt ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA   (Israel)

^b ALMA COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ETHNICITY; POLITICS; TERRITORY;

EID: 33644802729     PISSN: 13537113     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13537110500503869     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. Giovanni Sartori, Parties and party Systems: A Framework for Analysis, Volume 1 (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
2. E.g. Michael Gallagher, Michael Laver, and Peter Mair, Representative Government in Modern Europe, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2001).
3. Stein Rokkan and Derek W. Urwin, Economy, Territory, Identity: Politics of West European Peripheries (London: Sage, 1983).
4. E.g. Derek W. Urwin, "Harbinger, fossil or fleabite? 'Regionalism' and the West European party mosaic," in Hans Daalder and Peter Mair (eds), Western European Party Systems: Continuity & Change (London: Sage, 1983), pp. 221-56.
5. E.g. Lieven De Winter and Huri Türsan (eds), Regionalist Parties in Western Europe (London: Routledge, 1998).
6. Peter Mair and Cas Mudde, "The Party Family and Its Study", Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 1 (1998), pp. 211-29
7. Gallagher, Laver, and Mair.
8. Seymor Lipset and Stein Rokkan, "Cleavage structures, party systems, and voter alignments," in Seymor Lipset and Stein Rokkan (eds), Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives (New York: Free Press, 1967), pp.1-64.
9. Stein Rokkan, Citizens, Elections, Parties: Approaches to the Comparative Study of Political Development (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1970).
10. Daniel-Louis Seiler, Partis et Familles Politiques (Paris: Presses Univ. de France, 1980);
11. Daniel-Louis Seiler, "De la classification des partis politiques," Res Publica Vol. 27, No. 1 (1985), pp. 59-86.
12. Klaus von Beyme, Political Parties in Western Democracies (Aldershot, UK: Gower, 1985).
13. Mair and Mudde.
14. Ibid p. 222
15. Ibid.
16. Gallagher, Laver, and Mair.
17. Mair and Mudde.
18. De Winter and Türsan.
19. Rokkan and Urwin, p. 8.
20. As stated, this definition necessarily excludes federalist parties seeking to devolve power from the center to all peripheries as an ideological principle.
21. Sartori, pp.122-3.
22. E.g. Jorge P. Gordin, "The Electoral Fate of Ethnoregionalist Parties in Western Europe: A Boolean Test of Extant Explanations," Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 24 No. 2 (2001), pp. 149-70;
23. Jan-Erik Lane and Svante O Ersson, Politics and Society in Western Europe, 4th ed, (London: Sage, 1999);
24. Lieven De Winter, "Conclusion: A Comparative Analysis of the Electoral, Office and Policy Success of Ethnoregionalist Parties," in De Winter and Türsan, pp. 204-47;
25. Ferdinand Müller-Rommel, "Ethnoregionalist Parties in Western Europe: Theoretical considerations and framework of analysis," in De Winter and Türsan, pp. 17-27.
26. Derek J. Hearl, Ian Budge, and Bernard Pearson, "Distinctiveness of Regional Voting: A Comparative Analysis Across the European Community (1979-1993)," Electoral Studies Vol. 15 No. 2 (1996), pp. 167-82.
27. James D. Fearon and Pieter van Houten, "The Politicization of Cultural and Economic Difference: A Return to the Theory of Regional Autonomy Movements," Laboratory in Comparative Ethnic Processes (LiCEP), Fifth Meeting, Stanford University, 10-11 May 2002.
28. For example: Daniele Caramani, The Nationalization of Politics: The Formation of National Electorates and Party Systems in Western Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004) uses a 5% of the regional vote in national elections, identifies 58 parties in 11 countries. Urwin, coded 115 parties in 17 European countries from 1945 to 1983 with a 5% threshold either nationally or in at least one region. Müller-Rommel, with a 3% of the regional vote in two national and regional elections threshold for 1980-96 determines 17 parties in five countries meet the criteria.
29. With a threshold of "normally" polling more than 1% of the regional vote in national elections, Juan Montabes Periera, Carmen Ortega Villodres, and Enrique G. Pérez Nieto, "Electoral Systems and Electoral Success of Regionalist Parties in Western Europe," ECPR Joint Sessions, Edinburgh, 28 April-2 May 2003, Workshop 3: Building a Party Family: Comparing Regionalist Parties) examine 26 parties in seven countries,
30. and Jan-Erik Lane, David McKay, and Kenneth Newton, Political Data Handbook OECD Countries, London: Oxford University Press, 1997) code 46 parties in 12 countries, although their criteria are not made explicit in the text.
31. Ian S. Lustick, "Thresholds of opportunity and Barriers to Change in Right-Sizing of States," in Brendan O'Leary, Ian S. Lustick, and Thomas Callaghy (eds), Right-Sizing the State: The Politics of Moving Borders (New-York: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 74-101, p. 78.
32. Ibid., p.79.
33. To be sure, the majority of the parties included in this study contested local, regional, and European elections with varying degrees of success (i.e. managing to attract significant support to send representative(s) to the elected body).
34. See list in Appendix 1.
35. E.g. Gallagher, Laver, and Mair, p. 227-8.
36. Six percent of voters in the 1992 regional elections supported the Mouvement Régionaliste Alsacien (later to become Alsace d'Abord after joining forces with a group of former Alsatian members of the National Republican Movement in 2002). The joint formation managed to increase its share of the votes to 9.42% in the last regional elections in 2004. Alsace d'Abord attracts fewer supporters during legislative elections but overall increased the number of seats it contested from 7 in 1997 to as many as 14 (out of the 16 regional seats) in the 2002 elections and gained the support of 3.92% of the votes in Alsace (4.53% in the 14 seats it contested).
37. Several of the party members, including its president, Robert Spieler, trace their political lineage to Le Pen's National Front. In the early 1990s Spieler lead the formation of the Mouvement Régionaliste Alsacien that in 2002 fused together with a group of former members of the Alsatian section of the Mouvement National Républicain (MNR) to form Alsace d'Abord (Alsace First).
38. http://www.alsacedabord.org.
39. Among all the regional parties only the tiny Forum nationaliste d'Alsace Lorraine/Nationalforum Elsaß-Lothringen led by Karl Goschescheck a former member and candidate on behalf of Alsatian People's Union advocates the secession of both Alsace and Lorraine from France.
40. The initial separation of the territory around Nantes from Brittany under the Vichy regime was confirmed with the 1956 establishment of administrative regions.
41. http://www.udb-bzh.net.
42. This was a result of strategic cooperation with the smaller ERP Liberté Bretagne/Frankiz Breizh and mainly with the green party in the first round of the 2004 regional elections (gaining 9.7% of the votes) and aligned with the winning socialist candidate. Ad-hoc coalitions and mutual support agreements with a variety of ecologist parties and autonomist parties in previous electoral rounds did not yield similar results.
43. Similarly to the Alsatian case, some smaller (at times more militant) parties like the left wing Emgann (combat) vigorously continue to support independence for this greater Breton territory (Brittany and Loire-Atlantique).
44. Virtually all ERPs active in the Basque country since the late 1970s across the political spectrum have demanded independence on behalf of the Basque residents of the three provinces included in the Basque autonomous community of Spain, the northern part of the autonomous community of Navarra, as well as the Basque speaking areas in the French department of Pyrenees-Atlantique (part of the region of Aquitaine).
45. http://www.nafarroabai.org.
46. It should be noted, of course, that the expansion of regional administration results in an increased economic base, perhaps suggesting that, underlying claims for a "homeland," such parties are interested in expanding their resource base. However, such arguments are necessarily limited by the actual resource extraction capacities of the regional governmental organizations; more likely, instrumental advantages reinforce claims based on a cultural attachment to territory.
47. http://www.bloc-catala.com.
48. The independentist party "Ligue Savoisienne" founded in 1994 justifies its demand for a new referendum by stressing that in the 1860 referendum the citizens were never given the option of independence (or joining the Swiss federation).
49. http://www.regionsavoie.com.
50. http://www.uniondelpuebloleones.com.
51. In the last regional elections POC managed to gain significant exposure because of strategic cooperation with the Greens and other alternative parties. This was particularly the case in the elections for the regional council of Midi-Pyrenees, where a list of candidates that included member s of the Green Party, POC and others managed to gain 8.09% of the votes. Unlike the joint party of the Greens and UDB in Brittany, the members of this list decided not to pursue the opportunity and refrained from supporting any of the candidates in the second round.
52. http://partitoccitan.free.fr.
53. http://www.tierracomunera.org.
54. Ibid.
55. Clearly this approach would only apply to countries with subnational electoral districts.
56. In Spain parties tend to put forward lists of candidates in all districts of regions they opt to contest, including the three parties discussed here; thus the relevant level of aggregation for our purposes is the Autonomous Community.