Abstract
The case studies revealed that the constitutional nature of a multi-level system indeed shapes its modes of day-to-day intergovernmental coordination and, with it, the way competences are (re)allocated in the longer term. Both in federal arrangements and in confederations, the ‘subunits’ – whose status is constitutionally protected – could more easily defend their decision-making capacity within their areas of jurisdiction because they can veto changes in the allocation of competences, an advantage lower-level governments in regionalized systems do not enjoy. Similarly, in federal and confederal systems day-to-day interaction in Inter Governmental Relations (IGR) predominantly took place in multilateral structures, while in regionalized systems bilateralism was more pronounced. The relative influence of party-political (in)congruence on IGR, in contrast, was more varied than theoretically expected.
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Notes
Usually, but not always, the constitutionally protected status of lower-level governments is linked to shared rule requirements, that is, the extent to which subunits can participate in central decision making, usually via a second chamber (Swenden, 2004a). Whether lower-level governments in federal arrangements also have a say about national law-making naturally affects their overall strength towards the centre and therefore has implications for how clearly our hypotheses play out. However, we did not expect this feature to qualitatively alter the basic systemic logic captured by our categorization, which is why our classification does not refer to shared rule mechanisms as constitutive element.
The JMC Europe was an exception to this rule.
Only 3 of 26 cantons opposed it.
Considerable administrative matters are decentralized to the local level though.
Cross-national studies that systematically place Swiss parties in the context of other federal systems, rather than engaging in a single case study as presented in this special issue, indicate that party linkages are weaker in Switzerland (where in the cantons parliaments and executives are separately elected) than in parliamentary federal systems such as Germany or Canada, for instance. At the same time, once compared to the United States as the other extreme where parties as organizations are institutionally undermined by open primaries for the selection of candidates, it becomes clear that intra-party linkage provide one precondition in the Swiss multi-level system for bridging inter-institutional divides within government units and one underpinning for cooperative IGR between oversized, consociational governments (Thorlakson, 2009; Bolleyer, 2011). Looking at the nature of parties, Switzerland shares more similarities with consociational Belgium (although there the party system is bifurcated) than with the institutionally similarly fragmented US system, since at least until 2004 there has been a tendency for Socialists, Liberals and CD from across the Dutch- and French-speaking party systems to join in federal government or opposition based on ideological affinities (Swenden, 2002; Deschouwer, 2009).
The Electoral Alternative for Employment and Social Justice (Wahlalternative für Arbeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit) was founded 2004.
Factors identified by Table 2 that only concern individual cases such as the origin as international organization in the case of the EU or direct democracy in Switzerland are not considered.
Germany is difficult to classify. It has a historical tradition of regional, administrative autonomy but the federal system created post-1945 can hardly be described as ‘coming together’ federation.
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Bolleyer, N., Swenden, W. & McEwen, N. Constitutional dynamics and partisan conflict: A comparative assessment of multi-level systems in Europe. Comp Eur Polit 12, 531–555 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2014.12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2014.12