Replication Data for: Transferring Power to Maintain Control: Decentralization as a National-Level Electoral Strategy in Western Europe

Why do national governments choose to transfer some of their administrative, political, and fiscal powers to regional authorities? This article develops and tests a nationally focused strategic account: decentralization is a targeted means to bolster a governing party’s national-level electoral strength by appeasing the voters of threatening ethnoterritorial parties in national parliamentary elections. Statistical analyses of decentralization across the subnational regions of Western European countries confirm that governing parties transfer additional competencies to regions in which an ethnoterritorial party threat exists, when the government is legislatively vulnerable. In contrast, if a government is not dependent on a region for maintaining national parliamentary control, the presence of a strong ethnoterritorial opponent will not motivate the government to decentralize. These findings help to explain patterns of asymmetrical decentralization across regions within a country and why governing parties decentralize competencies to subnational governments that they do not expect to control.各国政府为何选择向地区当局让渡部分行政、政治与财政权力？本文提出并验证了一个聚焦国家层面的战略分析框架：权力下放（decentralization）是执政党通过安抚全国议会选举中构成威胁的族裔领土政党（ethnoterritorial party）的选民，以巩固自身全国性选举优势的针对性手段。对西欧国家国内次级行政区权力下放情况的统计分析证实，当政府在立法层面处于弱势时，执政党会向存在族裔领土政党威胁的区域让渡更多职权。与之相反，若政府维持全国议会控制权无需依赖某一区域，则即便该区域存在强势的族裔领土政党对手，也不会促使政府推行权力下放。上述研究结果有助于解释一国之内各区域间不均衡的权力下放模式，以及执政党为何会向自身无意掌控的地方政府让渡职权。