Why do national parties decentralize political authority? An analysis of ideological and electoral party motives on the territorial dimension

我们的后续申请追求与第一阶段研究相同的目标-系统地了解权力下放改革的动机。从第一阶段的证据引导我们解决进一步的问题：第一，对区域和国家政党对权力下放的偏好变化的研究;第二，在多个层面上不断变化的偏好所造成的长期动态。我们假设，国家政府和地区政党之间的意识形态距离系统地影响从区域层面的权威需求。我们的研究表明，从中期来看，许多权力下放改革未能证明成功的基本国家党的意图。因此，国家缔约方的学习效应可能导致权力下放意愿的总体下降。我们打算在分析分权政治制度的长期发展时综合这两个方面。在以行动者为中心的历史制度主义的传统中，我们分析了权力下放时期的序列模式。这些模式将被用来因果地解决权力下放决定对政治制度稳定性的长期影响。历史和比较案例研究表明，正在进行的权力下放趋势从根本上改变了现代民主国家政党的演员星座。在大多数情况下，领土紧张局势加剧了政党制度的两极分化，在几个层面上也越来越严重，对政治稳定产生了不利影响。我们在项目第一阶段的发现以及由此产生的数据集允许对突出显示的关系进行有效分析。

Our follow-up application pursues the very same aim as in the first research phase - a systematic understanding of the motives for decentralization reforms. Evidence from the first phase leads us to address further issues: first, the study of preference changes of regional and national parties towards decentralization; second, the long-term dynamics caused by changing preferences on multiple levels. We hypothesize that ideological distance between national governments and regional parties systematically affects authority demand from the regional level. Observations from our research suggest that in the medium term many decentralization reforms fail to prove successful in light of the underlying national partys intentions. Learning effects of national parties, therefore, might lead to an overall decline in the willingness to decentralize. We intend to integrate both aspects in the analysis of long-term developments of decentralized political systems. In the tradition of actor-centered Historical Institutionalism we analyze patterns of sequences in periods of decentralization. These patterns will be used to causally address long-term effects of decentralization decisions on the stability of political systems. Historical as well as comparative case studies suggest that the ongoing decentralization trend fundamentally changes actor constellation of political parties in modern democracies. In the majority of cases territorial tensions add to the polarization of party systems, and increasingly so on several levels - with detrimental consequences for political stability. Our findings from the first project phase as well as the resulting dataset allow an efficient analysis of the highlighted relationships.