in federated and decentralized systems, Paquin draws on a multilevel rather than a centralized approach to understand international trade. Stating that foreign policy should not be a monopoly of the central state but should involve regional actors, he argues that the negotiation and implementation of international trade treaties involving Canada exemplifies the emerging need to consider regional levels of government at the international level. Multiple court rulings in the first half of the 20th century served to consolidate federalism in Canada and provide a growing platform for provinces to have their say in the negotiation and implementation of international treaties. These rulings have given rise to increased intergovernmental mechanisms for managing relations between the provincial and federal governments and ensuring that provinces are consulted on international treaties, specifically as they regard their legislative jurisdictions. This has proven necessary, as the federal government alone is responsible for concluding an international treaty, yet cannot enforce its implementation where it falls outside its jurisdiction, that is to say at the provincial level. This has led to discrepancies in the past, in terms of [23] the number of treaties concluded at the federal level and implemented at the provincial level. The sovereignty of regional actors and their increased representation in international negotiations, Paquin argues, makes a multilevel approach necessary for understanding and studying international trade.
Iván Medina and Joaquim M. Molins analyze the role of business associations in the United Kingdom and Spain, more specifically their adaptation to MLG structures. They begin by dispelling Keynesian and neo-corporatist assertions put forward in previous studies, instead focusing on the effects of globalization, the European Union, regional elites and competitiveness on the gradual transformation of economic and political structures, and the resulting implications for the actors and business associations. The increasing importance of territorial politics has contributed to the rise of peripheral economies and regional institutions, elites and cultures, thus forcing business associations to adapt accordingly. The case studies of Spain and the UK highlight the different regional paths business associations can follow in response to changing structures of state territorialism. They show that business associations in Spain revolve around the sector and territory, which together form a complex network of business associations with a focus on defending an open economy and participating in collective bargaining. The UK, for its part, is far less institutionalized than Spain and shows no incidence of collective bargaining and increased competition between interest groups. These case studies present two different models – one where regional governments incorporate business association into their governance, and another where business associations adapt to newly devolved states – to show that these associations strive to achieve institutional representation as a means to meet their political objectives.
IV
Part 4 of the book focuses on the interaction between party systems and political parties in multilevel layered-out systems. Lori Thorlakson and Guy Lachapelle present the case of federal and provincial parties in Canada, while Juan Rodriguez and Astrid Barrio look at the Spanish case, and Kris Deschouwer the Belgium case. First, Lori Thorlakson argues that multilevel politics in a federal system can follow a model of second-order party competition or involve completely separate elections. The latter scenario, she demonstrates, has characterized the Canadian federal system. Thorlakson argues that provincial elections do not fit the model of second-order party competition, as there is a considerable distinction between provincial and federal politics in Canada, owing to the independence of provincial parties from their federal counterparts. This leads to incongruent voter behaviour stemming from separate voter [24] identity at different territorial levels. Examining major political parties at the provincial and federal level, Thorlakson finds that the overwhelming majority are united only by weak or non-existent organizational linkages. Federal parties are thus allowed to associate themselves with more parties of the same political persuasion, she argues, while provincial governments pursue their own interests in light of conflicts between the different party levels. With the exception of Québec, Thorlakson shows that Canadian politics is marked by widespread party label incongruence and party system diversity due to the separation between provincial and federal levels of government. Congruence, Thorlakson notes, is the exception rather than the rule in Canada, and it is measured by the level of organizational linkages and the number of political parties at the provincial level. Strong fiscal and policy decentralization have created an incentive and competition for holding public office at a provincial level, as greater political autonomy and fiscal resources allow provincial governments to shape and respond to provincial policy demands. Canada’s low level of congruence, party system nationalization, and inconsistent partisanship makes it unique in comparison to other multilevel democracies in the Americas.
Guy Lachapelle examines how a political party can be involved in international affairs and create new type of multilevel politics, citing the example of the Parti Québécois and its role in promoting the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity. As policy entrepreneurs working to bring specific issues to the forefront of the public and international sphere, political parties can play a major part in shaping paradiplomatic relations undertaken by regional governments. The articulation of Québec’s domestic concerns and foreign policy on the international stage represents one such example. Over the years, Québec’s political parties have wavered in their interest in international relations. The lone exception, the Parti Québécois, has been more active in debating international issues at their conferences through the Comité des Relations Internationales (CRI). The CRI’s objectives and actions were concerned largely with collecting information and fostering partnerships and international relations that might help Québec play a larger role on the world stage in the event that it becomes a sovereign state. After its 2003 defeat, however, debates on international issues have waned within the Parti Québécois, which has reverted back to mobilizing public opinion on the issue of cultural diversity. While cultural diversity has remained an issue for the current Québec government, the Parti Québécois provided the impetus for a widespread debate on the issue, portraying itself as the defender of cultural diversity. The Parti Québécois is thus an example of a political party within a multilevel system that furthers its own policy interests even where there is a shared jurisdiction in areas of foreign policy control. It has added its voice to the debate on cultural diversity, arguing in favour of its legal protection in the face of rampant globalization, and holding it up as a model for political parties in multilevel systems.
[25] Juan Rodriguez and Astrid Barrio study the role of political parties in Spain. Decentralization of unitary states, such as Spain, forces political parties to adapt to the new framework in order to remain competitive in a multilevel system. Rodriguez and Barrio set out to explain how statewide political parties interact in the context of Spanish multilevel competition through the use of coalition-based strategies, and how these strategies allow them to achieve optimum electoral and institutional performance. This multilevel competition is characterized by a regionally differentiated electoral system and calendar, a regional discrepancy between nationalist and regionalist demands in several regions, a challenging position of the parties representing these demands on each level, and the existence of electorates showing different behaviour on each electoral level. As a result of this competition and newly devolved institutions, statewide parties have gradually changed their discourse and organization in order to strengthen their electoral presence in different territories. These indicators can be used to measure this adaptation: vertical integration, as evidenced in the presence of formal and informal linkages between the central office and regional organizations; influence, evidenced in the increased importance of regional leaders in national politics; and autonomy, seen in the incidence of interference by national organizations in regional affairs. Rodriguez and Barrio argue that while statewide political parties are adapting to this new decentralization and form of competition, their main challenge comes from the rising importance of non-statewide parties (NSWP) at both the regional and national level; in order to understand the dynamics of Spanish politics, these salient levels of government cannot be overlooked, they suggest. They examine the growing strength of NSWPs in the national system as well as regional subsystems and statewide coalition strategies adopted by parties before and after regional elections. While decentralization has not impacted the number of NSWPs, it has increased their salience and influence on political institutions, providing a considerable challenge to statewide parties and forcing them to change their practices