Riker and Rokkan

Introduction

This special issue studies the strategic interaction between major state-wide and regional parties in a political setting defined by multiple, potentially cross-cutting, political issues pertaining to the economy and the territorial organization of multi-national states. Through this framework, this special issue locates itself decisively in the behaviorist tradition of studying political competition. Stemming from the classical works of Riker (1986, cf. Riker 1996) and the Rochester school, and focusing on rational choice models, this tradition has influenced a lively literature on party strategies.

This special issue primarily engages the works addressing the divergent strategic payoffs available to different party types. Developed by Meguid (2005, 2008), Adams et al. (2006), and Ezrow (2008), this scholarly strand focuses on the distinctive nature of niche parties – “new political parties [that] have emerged and gained popularity on the basis of previously over-looked issues such as the environment, immigration, and regional autonomy” (Meguid, 2005: 347). These parties are expected to shun traditional (left-right) politics, instead focusing on overlooked political issues that do not neatly fit into the standing ideological profiles of mainstream parties. These niche issues provide entrepreneurial niche parties with political wedges in the standing structure of political competition (De Vries and Hobolt, 2012; Rovny and Edwards, 2012; van de Wardt et al., 2014). As such, however, these parties are different political animals facing different costs and benefits to their political strategies. While the appeal of their niche issue may provide them with significant electoral gains, empirical evidence suggests that they are strategically limited to relative extremism on their niche issue (Adams et al. 2006; Meguid 2008).

While regional parties have been included in the niche party category (Meguid, 2005, 2008), this special issue focuses on arguing against their niche character. The articles included here suggest that regional parties have a multiplicity of effective strategic tools at their disposal, and that they are not limited to competition on the niche issue of territorial politics. Instead, the special issue provides a valuable insight into a rich set of adopted political tactics on the part of regional parties that are played out across different issue dimensions, and – since the volume deals with multi-national states with different tiers of government – across different political arenas.

Simultaneously, this special issue demonstrates the centrality of historical divides in the formation of strategic opportunities, thus tacitly connecting the Rikerian strategic perspective to the sociological works of Lipset and Rokkan (1967, see also Rokkan 2009 [1970]) addressing the structural bases of politics. Specifically, a number of the included articles emphasize the function of the territorial, center-periphery dimension of politics in multi-national societies. The empirical evidence highlights the historical presence, if not outright dominance, of territorial concerns, suggesting a parallel importance of territorial and redistributive divides in the studied societies. This crucial finding implies that regional parties operate in a particular structural environment, one that is characterized by multiple political divides that create specific, yet delimited, political prospects for their strategic behavior.

Consequently, this concluding article of the special issue argues that the findings of the substantive contributions create a bridge between the strategic, Rikerian literature they stem from and seek to engage and more sociological, Rokkanian approaches to the study of political parties, which focus on the structural features of politics and the institutional constraints on political behavior. I suggest that, ultimately, this special issue demonstrates the socially, historically, and institutionally bounded opportunities of political parties. Fundamentally, the special issue makes a significant contribution to the strategic literature by suggesting structural limits to strategic behavior.

This article first summarizes the theoretical framework and the findings of the special issue. Then I address four fundamental theoretical points that the special issue contributes to. First, I briefly discuss the virtues and shortcomings of the dimensional frame selected for empirical testing across the special issue. Second, I focus on the key question of whether the issue of territorial politics is a niche or a core political issue. Third, I discuss the question of dimensional construction and issue associations, which stands at the theoretical core of this special issue. Finally, I highlight the findings of the special issue suggesting that historical and institutional context constrains political strategies.

The framework and the findings of the special issue

As outlined in the introductory article (Elias et al., 2015), the special issue focuses on the role of regional parties and their mainstream state-wide competitors in multi-national states in western Europe. Consequently, it conceptualizes the structure of party competition along two dimensions. ¹ The first pertains to economic left-right politics focused on the role of the state in economic intervention and wealth redistribution. The second dimension is territorial, or center-periphery, and concerns the “conflict over the structuring of political authority within the state, where political actors in territorially distinct communities contest the state’s right to rule uniformly across its territory.” (Elias et al., 2015). The framework expects selective emphasis on the part of political parties across these two dimensions, where state-wide parties are likely to focus on economic issues, and regional parties are expected to focus on center-periphery issues.

The key research question posed by the special issue is: what do parties do on their secondary dimension? The introductory article proposes four strategies for managing the ‘other’ dimension: 1) ignoring it (unidimensional strategy), 2) blurring it by presenting vague or inconsistent positions on it, 3) subsuming it by way of framing it in the views and rhetoric of the dominant dimension, and 4) taking a position on it (two-dimensional strategy). The substantive articles consequently test the presence of these strategies across different party types in primarily western European countries. Although the special issue as a whole considers all four strategies, not all individual articles operationalize and test each strategic option. Consequently, with the exception of Basile’s (2015) article on Italy, which considers all strategies, the special issue does not allow direct comparison of relative strategic uses. While the article by Massetti and Schakel (2015) uses a dataset covering 11 western European countries and Canada, the other substantive articles focus on Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

The results concerning the strategies of political parties across the two dimensions under study suggest the use of blurring and subsuming, while consistently highlighting the presence of the two-dimensional strategy. First, the unidimensional strategy is observed minimally. Field and Hamann (2015), for example, note that “Spain’s regional-nationalist parties do not frequently frame their policy proposals in center-periphery terms, indicating they opt not to pursue a uni-dimensional strategy”. Only Alonso et al. (2015) observe a uni-dimensional strategy in cases where state-wide parties do not face a regionalist competitor. This suggests that in most cases parties in multi-national democracies need to somehow engage in both dimensions.

Second, the blurring strategy is utilized by political parties largely consistently with the theoretical expectations. The studies by Alonso et al. (2015) and Basile (2015) suggest that, as expected, regionalist parties tend to present unclear or obfuscated positions on their secondary, economic dimension. While Basile (2015) finds that state-wide parties present vague stances on their secondary, center-periphery dimension, Alonso et al. (2015), contrary to expectations, find that state-wide parties tend to also present vague stances on the economic dimension. This finding by Alonso et al. (2015) can be interpreted in two ways. Either the blurring strategy does not always occur only on the secondary dimension, ² or the economic dimension is not the primary locus of conflict of the analyzed (Spanish and British) state-wide parties – a point I take up later.

Third, the subsuming strategy is noted by Massetti and Schakel (2015) on the part of regional parties that “might ‘read’ left-right politics through the prism of their territory”. Similarly, Basile (2015) demonstrates how state-wide and regional parties differ in the framing of the same political issues. Finally, all contributions to the special issue consistently agree that political parties in the systems under study engage both sets of political issues – economic and center-periphery. In fact the ultimate finding of the volume is that “both mainstream and ethno-regional parties frequently deal actively with their secondary dimensions” (Elias et al., 2015). The resounding conclusion is that regional parties are not niche parties because they fully engage the dimensional space, and are able to utilize a multiplicity of political strategies.

The contributions present two additional, striking findings not expected by the initial theoretical frame. First, Field and Hamann (2015), as well as Massetti and Schakel (2015), point out that political contests at different levels of government revolve around different issues, convincingly suggesting that there is different issue dimensionality at different levels of multi-tiered political systems. Consequently, it may be that political parties behave as mainstream in one level and as niche in another. Second, all of the substantive articles fundamentally point to the role of political context in constraining party strategies – perhaps more so than their partisan characteristics of ‘nicheness’ or ‘mainstreamness’. In the following sections I address what I consider the main questions and contributions proceeding from this special issue in light of its substantive findings.

The costs and benefits of mandated dimensionality

The Rikerian approach to party competition suggests that strategic parties seek to artfully manipulate the available competitive choices to their advantage, seeking to (among other things) divert attention from one issue dimension to another. To study this competitive dynamic, the Introduction to the special issue convincingly sets up a deductively defined two-dimensional frame spanning economic and territorial issues (Elias et al., 2015). I find this heuristic, rather than empirical, approach to dimensionality based on the insights of Benoit and Laver (2012) fundamentally correct. Rather than seeking to capture the various dimensions that may be present, the analysts identify the key conflict dimensions of interest, and assess the strategic behavior of partisan actors over these dimensions.

Simultaneously, this dimensional framework assumes that the competitive issue space is made up of a primary economic issue dimension, which is the domain of major state-wide parties, and a territorial dimension, which is the domain of regional parties. While convincing, this setup suggests that mainstream competition in the countries under study occurs over economic issues. Bakker et al. (2012) highlight the importance of dimensional complexity, suggesting that in some countries issue dimensions (economic, social, and EU integration) are more or less associated. This means that in some countries economic issue stances significantly coincide with social issue stances (pertaining to preferences over issues such as immigration, civil liberties, or gay rights), while in others they do less so. Interestingly, the three countries this special issue focuses on (Italy, Spain, and the UK) demonstrate high to very high levels of association between the economic and social issue dimension according to Bakker et al.’s (2012) measures. This suggests that in these countries economic competition is tightly interwoven with competition over non-economic social issues. Consequently, economic issues, while certainly relevant, may not be as dominant in mainstream party competition as the theoretical frame suggests. In line with this objection, Alonso et al. (2015) find high levels of contradictory partisan statements on economic issues, which may be a function of both the UK and Spain having significant competition over non-economic rather than economic issues.

In sum, while heuristically useful and empirically convincing, the particular two-dimensional frame mandated by the special issue overlooks the possibility that mainstream conflicts occur (also) over other non-economic issues. This omission may introduce bias into the assessment of the role of the economic dimension and its relationship to the territorial dimension. If we imagine that recent political conflict revolves around, say, immigration, then comparing strategies over economic versus territorial issues is likely to significantly understate strategic differences in the system.

Center-periphery: Niche or core?

Following from my argument about the dimensional focus of the special issue, I find it striking that the literature in general, and this special issue in response to it, consider the center-periphery as a ‘niche issue’. ³ This is clearly caused by the dominant view that economic issues define the generic left-right spectrum across advanced capitalist democracies, relegating other conflict to second rank. Paradoxically, this view seems to arise from Lipset and Rokkan’s (1967: 50) famous argument about “the freezing of the major party alternatives after the wake of the extension of the suffrage and the mobilization of major sections of the new reservoirs of potential supporters.” The suffrage extension facilitated the rise of socialist parties that were the political expression of the worker-owner economic cleavage that uniformly affected all European party systems.

Simultaneously, Lipset and Rokkan (1967) emphatically argue for the importance and temporal precedence of the center-periphery cleavage. They point out that national versus local conflict was the first to develop, suggesting that “[t]he early growth of the national bureaucracy tended to produce essentially territorial oppositions” (1967: 13). While this says nothing about the continuing dominance, subordination, or disappearance of this initial cleavage, it documents the fact that it is a very old one. The evidence about the continuing centrality of this cleavage in the countries under study is convincingly documented in this special issue.

This special issue demonstrates the fundamental structural nature of the center-periphery divide in the analyzed countries in line with Lipset and Rokkan’s (1967) argument. In these countries, the cleavage between the center and the periphery played a major historical role, which was reflected in the definition of some party identities, voter allegiances, and ultimately in the structure of the party system as a whole. For example, Basile (2015) underlines the long-term presence of the territorial dimension in Italian politics, preceding the appearance of the regional Lega Nord. Similarly, pointing to the historically rooted nature of territorial politics in Spain, Field and Hamman (2015) note that “some regional parties had longer organizational histories than the significant state-wide parties.” Ultimately, the works in this special issue engage with a Rokkanian view of politics by highlighting a latent structural support base for territorial contestation that may be tapped by an explicitly regional party – whether the party is a continuing political fixture or a recent upstart.

The relative importance of the center-periphery cleavage in the countries under study suggests an alternative interpretation of the special issue’s main conclusion. Rather than claiming that regional parties are not niche parties, I would suggest that center-periphery is not a niche issue or dimension. That is to say that center-periphery concerns are not tangential political topics brought forth by strategizing political entrepreneurs and their niche parties, but rather – and especially in the countries most studied in this volume – center-periphery divides stem from deep-seated historical conflict that permeates the structural fabric of politics, as claimed by Lipset and Rokkan. As a result, regional parties, focusing on center-periphery concerns, cannot be niche parties because the center-periphery divide is a long-standing structural cleavage in many societies. Consequently, the ‘non-nicheness’ of regional parties, so convincingly demonstrated in the special issue, is not a result of their own agency – of exercising multiple strategies over diverse issues, including the economy – it is rather a result of the prominent and lasting place that center-periphery conflict has in the structure of political competition.

This speaks to the continuing debate over the definition of niche parties. While originally defined on the basis of party family (Adams et al., 2006; Meguid, 2005, 2008), Meyer and Wagner (2013) recently advanced a more flexible and potentially time-variant niche party definition. They propose that party ‘nicheness’ is a function of the relative salience that parties give to political issues. Niche parties are consequently those that cover topics relatively overlooked by others. The lessons of this special issue concur that we need to be more sensitive to context when considering party ‘nicheness’. In contrast to Meyer and Wagner, whose niche party definition remains agent-based, my reading of this special issue suggests that we should also consider the underlying structural context. Parties contesting historically important structural divides are unlikely to demonstrate niche party characteristics.

Dimensionality and issue connections

The discussion of the structural, Rokkanian context of competition leads me to consider how underlying, historical divides frame the structure of political conflict. This special issue nicely emphasizes the presence of the two-dimensional strategy – that is the fact that most political parties take positions on both studied dimensions. Furthermore, the piece by Massetti and Schakel (2015) demonstrates a logic in the association between economic and territorial preferences. They find that radical regionalist parties tend to be more left-leaning, while uncovering a relationship between the left-right placement of regionalist parties and the relative economic position of the region within the state. Massetti and Schakel (2015) analyze only regionalist parties, however, if most partisan actors employ the two-dimensional strategy, leading to consistent positional association between the two dimensions, it effectively collapses the two dimensions into one. That is to say, if parties take consistent positions across two (or more) dimensions so that these dimensions correlate, we end up with one (unidimensional) line. The fundamental question is: What gets connected with what?

Stimson (2004) emphatically argues that issue associations are arbitrary outcomes of political strategizing which become learned and thus seemingly natural. This special issue offers convincing bases for an alternative view. I propose that in certain cases, issue associations may be based on structural determinants. First, some issues are likely to dovetail with others because they share an underlying ideological root. Elsewhere (Rovny, 2014), I demonstrate the ideological association between the issue of immigration and ethnic minority rights, both of which are different expressions of approaches to national ‘others’. Second, the Massetti and Schakel (2015) article shows how underlying economic divides map onto the center-periphery divide. Economically underdeveloped regions (with respect to the national average) associate their peripheral status with left-wing calls for resource redistribution, etc. I would add that such a dynamic may not play out only on the economic dimension. Note that, for example, the French peripheral Vendée region – where religion has historically had an important role – tends to vote predominantly for the right. The structural backdrop to issue linkage does not preclude that some associations are indeed arbitrary; however, the underlying social, historical, or ideological structure – as viewed by Rokkan – may increase the likelihood of success for some connections over others. Put more broadly, the Rokkanian structural view of politics provides and delimits the stage for Rikerian strategizing.

Context as a strategic constraint

This leads to my final point, namely, that the most fundamental conclusion and contribution of this special issue is its demonstration of the structural limits to party strategies. The Rikerian strategic literature that this special issue departs from remains strikingly detached from the Rokkanian historical and contextual view of the structure of competition. The Rikerians generally assume that all issues have the theoretical potential of creating a strategic political niche. Similarly, one of the most recent works on niche parties assumes that parties have significant strategic flexibility, and that any limitations on this flexibility stem from party characteristics, such as size, age, or government participation (Meyer and Wagner, 2013: 1251). The main finding of this special issue – as I rephrase it above – suggests that, given its Rokkanian, historically rooted position in the competition structure of many societies, the center-periphery dimension does not behave as a niche dimension. This emphasizes the role of the contextual, structural underpinnings of this dimension, pointing to its potential in constraining party strategies. This is a significant observation that may help bring the strategic, behavioral literature closer to the sociological, cleavage-focused literature (for example, Kitschelt, 2004; Kriesi et al., 2008).

What may be the structural constraints on party strategies? Given the limited space here, I merely sketch out three likely sources of structural constraints on partisan strategic calculus. The first set of limitations is what I would call systemic constraints. It pertains to the historical, social, and political contexts of party systems. The articles in this special issue offer a number of useful illustrative examples. Basile’s (2015) description of the Italian Lega Nord, as well as Field and Hamman’s (2015) explanation of the historical multi-tiered nature of Spanish politics, point to the fact that political divides are difficult to create from scratch. Rather, these authors demonstrate the utility of mobilizing long-standing, though perhaps temporarily latent, divides and grievances. Similarly, the work of Massetti and Schakel shows how the historical context of left-right politics determines which political pole regionalism can be associated with.

A second set of structural constraints are at the party-level, put forth by the niche party literature (Adams et al., 2006; Rovny, 2013; Rovny and Edwards, 2012, etc.), which suggests that, given their organizational characteristics, some parties are better suited for strategic action than others. Clearly, internal organization structures and rules, the existence and weight of traditional constituencies, coalition considerations, government position, etc. constrain the strategic flexibility of partisan action.

Finally, political parties may be strategically constrained by the issue structure in the political space they compete in. This special issue demonstrates the particular character of the center-periphery dimension, which cannot act as a new niche issue in a number of political systems, simply because it is not new. Field and Hamman, and Massetti and Schakel show how regional parties compete in different ways on the regional and the national political arena, precisely because these arenas diverge in their issue structure. Similarly, Alonso et al. (2015) note that the varying strategic emphasis on the center-periphery issue across regions “depends on the structure of party competition in each particular context.”

Conclusion

This special issue is a much needed addition to a rich academic tradition studying party competition in western Europe. The presented articles provide extensive empirical evidence, united by a clearly defined theoretical framework. The special issue contributes to the study of party strategies in general, by theorizing, operationalizing, and demonstrating specific strategic actions available to parties. It also provides much needed knowledge on the behavior of regional and state-wide parties in multidimensional contexts, and within different political arenas.

In this article I argued that this special issue provides a bridge between Rikerian, strategic, and Rokkanian sociological literature on party competition. Through its focus on the center-periphery dimension, the special issue demonstrates the structural limits to political strategizing. It highlights the particular associations between territorial and other issues, which constrain the ability of parties to treat territorial concerns as unattached niche issues, leading them to diverse political strategies. Similarly, the contributions to the special issue note the historical specificity of the center-periphery divide in some societies, making it a deeply entrenched political cleavage in the Rokkanian sense.

While this special issue departs from Riker, it inadvertently engages with Rokkan. The volume’s aim at theorizing the strategic behavior of regional and state-wide parties leads it to analyze the structural context in which these parties act. The articles emphasize that while equipped with a series of possible strategic actions, both regional and state-wide parties choose from this repertoire in light of the underlying structural contours of their party systems. The fundamental contribution of this special issue is thus the demonstrated complementarity of these accounts. While parties have a reasonable space to act strategically, their strategies are enveloped in structural context. Riker and Rokkan coexist.

Future research on party competition should address the extent to which these findings travel across countries and across issue dimensions. Specifically, future work should focus on the interplay between strategic action and its structural limitations – whether these limitations stem from social divides, institutional imperatives, organizational characteristics, or political issue frames. In this sense, this special issue achieves its aim of “lay[ing] the groundwork for a comprehensive theory of party competition in two-dimensional space” (Elias et al., 2015). This concluding article suggests that such a theory will need to consider structure, as well as strategy.