Territoriality of the regional and national vote in Central and Eastern Europe Presentation delivered at the Workshop ‘Territorial Politics in Western and Eastern Europe’ University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, Scotland, June 2012 Dr. Arjan H. Schakel Assistant Professor in Research Methods Maastricht University

Congruence of the vote Vote shares can be differentiated along : –Level of aggregation: national (N) or regional (R) –Type of election: national (N) or regional (R) This leads to three measurements of the congruence of the vote –Party system congruence: NN-RR –Electorate congruence: NN-NR –Election congruence: NR-RR

MAIN FINDINGS

Results I West European hypotheses Second-order election model –Leading to less dissimilarity in the vote Territorial cleavages –Leading to more dissimilarity in the vote Regional authority – Negative (no) effect but probably no causation

Electoral alliances –Contributes greatly to dissimilarity in the vote –Election alliances in regional elections lead to less dissimilarity in the vote Party system volatility –Particularly relevant for explaining increases in dissimilarity of the vote over time Results II East European hypotheses

Discussion In how far can (1) varying election alliances across the territory and/or (2) new parties established in regional elections be conceived as territorialization of the vote or as nationalization of the vote? Senior party which takes the lead in election alliances is often a statewide party looking to prevent a vote share loss in regional elections New parties established in regional elections may seek national representation