Book Description

Abstract: In recent years regional parties have been hard to ignore. From the Lega Nord's emergence in Italy, to regional parties' role in coalition formation in Belgium, to their impact on policy in the United Kingdom, regional parties appear to play an increasingly important role in politics. Regional parties are parties that exclusively represent only a subset of geographic areas in a country. Previous research has primarily focused on structural factors (e.g., social cleavages, economic differences, and institutions) that produce and maintain viable regional parties. However if regional party success ebbs and flows while structural factors remain constant what else explains their success? While not to dismiss structural factors, parties, party strategies, and policies produce a dynamic effect that impacts regional parties. Voters operate in a world of incomplete information and uncertainty. How will their vote for a regional party affect public policy? Regional parties must have a competitive advantage over other parties in order to attract voters. They need a label and behavioral expectations that differentiate themselves from larger national parties. If voters are choosing between a small party and a larger party that is capable of winning elections, the smaller party is at a disadvantage. However, if the regional party is able to convince voters that its party platform, its ideology (i.e., its label), and its potential impact (i.e., behavioral expectations) are different and unique, it may be able to attract voters and remain viable. The impetus behind this unhappiness is when allocation of resources is net negative for a region and violates norms of equity. The core of the analysis centers on the Italian regional party, the Lega Nord. The Lega Nord was selected for study as it represents a paradox to current regional party theories. I, first, use extensive field research I conducted in Italy to trace the causal mechanisms and then test the hypotheses via statistical analysis of six electoral surveys which conducted between 1985 and 2006. Finally, I assess the generalizability of the hypotheses through comparative case studies, specifically in Belgium, Canada and the United Kingdom.