Bicameralism, intra-party bargaining, and the formation of party policy positions: Evidence from the German federal system
Abstract
How do political parties arrive at their policy positions? We conceptualize position formation in federalist countries as an intra-party bargaining process in which subnational parties compete with each other in an attempt to get their own positions into their national party manifesto. Drawing on theories about inter-party bargaining over ministerial portfolios, we hypothesize that the bargaining success of subnational parties depends on their parliamentary strength. We evaluate our hypotheses based on a comprehensive dataset on policy positions of national and subnational parties in Germany from 1990 until 2009. Our results show that German subnational parties that are powerful in the second parliamentary chamber (Bundesrat) are particularly successful in shaping the manifesto of their national party. The findings have important implications for our understanding of intra-party politics and position formation within political parties in Germany more specifically and federalist countries more generally.
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Biographies
Hanna Bäck is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at Lund University, Sweden. Her research focuses mainly on political parties and coalition politics in Western European parliamentary democracies, focusing on topics such as parliamentary speeches, coalition formation, portfolio allocation, and policy-making. She has published articles in for example European Journal of Political Research, European Union Politics, Party Politics, Political Science Research and Methods, Public Choice, and West European Politics.
Marc Debus is a Professor of Comparative Government at the University of Mannheim, Germany. His research interests include political institutions and their effects on the political process, party competition and coalition politics, and political decision-making in multi-level systems. His articles have appeared in Political Science Research and Methods, European Journal of Political Research, Politics and Gender, Electoral Studies, Political Research Quarterly, and West European Politics, amongst others.
Heike Klüver is a Professor of Empirical Political Science at the University of Bamberg. Her research interests include European politics, interest groups, political parties, coalition governments and political representation. Heike Klüver has published her work in, amongst others, the British Journal of Political Science, European Union Politics, West European Politics, Electoral Studies and at Oxford University Press.
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Article first published online: September 15, 2014
Issue published: May 2016
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