Regional and National Elections in Eastern Europe

Arjan H. Schakel is Assistant Professor at Maastricht University, Netherlands. His research on regional elections and regional parties has appeared in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, Party Politics and West European Politics. He is the co-author of the book Measuring Regional Authority (2016) and co-editor of the book Regional and National Elections in Western Europe (2013).

This book is the second of two studies which systematically explore territoriality of the vote in Europe. They investigate when and where voters treat regional elections differently from national contests and aim to increase our understanding of the dynamics of electoral competition, which have become increasingly multifarious and complex in many countries due to the establishment and strengthening of regional government. This volume brings together leading experts on elections who analyze differences between regional and national electoral outcomes in ten East European countries since 1990. Based on a common analytical framework, each chapter investigates congruence between regional and national elections and traces and explains second-order and regional election effects. The editors applied a similar analytical framework in Regional and National Elections in Western Europe (Palgrave, 2013) which focused on 13 West European countries, enabling the authors to compare regionalelectoral dynamics between Eastern and Western Europe and observe to what extent explanations for territorial heterogeneity in the vote in the West also apply to the East. This book will be of particular interest to advanced students and scholars in the fields of comparative politics, regional studies, Eastern-European politics, and democratization.

List of Tables and Figures.- Acknowledgements.- Notes on Contributors.- 1. Introduction: An Analytical Framework for Studying Territoriality of the Vote in Eastern Europe; Arjan H. Schakel and Régis Dandoy.- 2. Bosnia and Herzegovina: An Archetypical Example of an Ethnocracy; John Husley and Dejan Stjepanovic.- 3. Croatia: Elections for Weak Counties When Regionalization is Not Finished Yet; Ivan Kopric, Daria Dubajic, Tijana Vukojicic Tomic and Romea Manojlovic.- 4. Czech Republic: Regional Elections without Regional Politics; Michal Pink.- 5. Hungary: Are Neglected Regional Elections Second-Order Elections?; Gábor Dobos and Réka Várnagy.- 6. Poland: Nationalization Despite Fear of Regionalization; Wojciech Gagatek and Michal Kotnarowski.-7. Romania: Regional Persistence in a Highly Nationalized Party System; Drago Dragoman and Bogdan Gheroghi a.- 8. Russia: Nationalization Achieved Through Electoral and InstitutionalEngineering; Derek Hutcheson and Arjan H. Schakel.- 9. Serbia and Montenegro. From Centralization to Secession and Multi-Ethnic Regionalism; Christina Isabel Zuber and Jelena Dzankic.- 10. Slovakia: The Unbearable Lightness of Regionalisation; Marek Rybár and Peter Spác.- 11. Turkey: Provincial Elections as a Barometer of National Politics; Emanuele Massetti and Sait Aksit.-12. Conclusion: Towards an Explanation of the Territoriality of the Vote in Eastern Europe; Arjan H. Schakel.- Bibliography.- Index.