Summary of Chandler: Federalism and political parties. In Federalism and the Role of the State, Herman Bakvis and Willia -- Adam Brown, BYU Political Science

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Chandler: Federalism and political parties. In Federalism and the Role of the State, Herman Bakvis and Willia

Disclaimer. Don't rely on these old notes in lieu of reading the literature, but they can jog your memory. As a grad student long ago, my peers and I collaborated to write and exchange summaries of political science research. I posted them to a wiki-style website. "Wikisum" is now dead but archived here. I cannot vouch for these notes' accuracy, nor can I say who wrote them.

Chandler. 1987. Federalism and political parties. In Federalism and the Role of the State, Herman Bakvis and Willia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

In Brief

Key question: How do "variations in regionalism or territorial politics impinge on the role of political parties within federal systems and how [do] political parties in turn shape the forces of regionalism"?

Key argument: Federalism based on a jurisdictional division of labor leads to party bifurcation between the federal and provincial level. A functional division of labor encourages party integration between levels.

Key conclusion: Parties can serve an integrating function only if the federal structure is functional. Jurisdictional federalism leads to bifurcation.

Jurisdictional vs Functional Divisions

A "jurisdictional" division of labor has two autonomous levels of government (the usual form of federalism):

incentives are greater for each level to go it alone
incentives are greater for regional elites to politicize federal-region relations
encourages party bifurcation between the federal and provincial level (e.g. Canada, US)
marginalizes regional parties from policy process

A "functional" division of labor (federal government sets policy; regional governments implement it) is a different form of federalism, mostly seen only in Germany, but also in Belgium:

creates a need for bargaining and cooperation between levels of government
encourages party integration between levels (e.g. Germany)
parties remain central to the policy process

Research on similar subjects

Lijphart: Patterns of democracy (3 shared tags)
Samuels: The gubernatorial coattails effect (3 shared tags)
Boix: Setting the rules of the game (2 shared tags)
Desposato: The impact of electoral rules on legislative parties (2 shared tags)
Hicken: Engineering aggregation (2 shared tags)
Lake and Rothchild: Territorial decentralization and civil war settlements (2 shared tags)
Rodden: The dilemma of fiscal federalism (2 shared tags)
Weber: Class, status, party (2 shared tags)

Tags

Chandler, William (author) • Comparative Politics • Federalism • Parties

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