Articles by Matthias Scantamburlo
Political Research Exchange, 2024
In recent years the ‘cost of governing’ has significantly increased for some mainstream political... more In recent years the ‘cost of governing’ has significantly increased for some mainstream political parties. In a context of financial uncertainty, multiple crises and growing constraints exerted by global forces, being a ‘natural’ party of government is no longer regarded as an electoral advantage. This is particularly true for parties that have moved from a position of clear dominance within ruling coalitions to a more subordinate role. In this article, focusing on the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and using an original dataset, we aim to provide a more nuanced assessment of the effects of incumbency by examining regional electoral performance since 1990. It appears that sub-national incumbency can be beneficial in regional elections, especially when a party faces significant costs of governing at the national level. However, this advantage is only applicable if the party holds a leading position in the regional executive. On the contrary, being a junior coalition partner at both national and regional levels may further exacerbate electoral decline for the party.
Party Politics, 2023
The study of electoral competition of populist radical right (PRR) parties has mostly focused on ... more The study of electoral competition of populist radical right (PRR) parties has mostly focused on the national and supranational levels, leaving the subnational arena unexplored. This article contributes to filling this gap by theorizing on PRR parties' strategic behaviour in regional elections and testing the hypotheses using the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a case study. Combining new Regional Manifestos Project data with a qualitative exploration, the article shows that the AfD has adapted to a regional frame of competition in different ways. While its radical conservatism on cultural issues is cross-regionally homogenous, the positions in other dimensions do significantly vary across Länder, revealing a mix of economically rightist and leftist positions as well as a mix of national and regional identity appeals. The latter are combined with differentiated and conflictive competential demands. These findings pave the way for a more ambitious research agenda on PRR substate competition, which so far has been limited by the lack of comparable data.
Memoria e Ricerca, 2022
South Tyrol constitutes an important laboratory for the study of nation-building at the sub-state... more South Tyrol constitutes an important laboratory for the study of nation-building at the sub-state level thanks to the presence of different national movements and an ethnic conflict that has been resolved through territorial autonomy. This article traces the different ways in which the main political parties in South Tyrol have built their identities in response to the Italian internal colonization process, looking at the period between the implementation of the second autonomy statute in 1972 and the final conflict settlement between Italy and Austria in 1992. The article shows how the process of regionalization has led to diversified identity constructions within the respective nationalisms – Tyrolean minority nationalism and Italian majority nationalism – thus contributing to the resolution of the ethnic conflict.
German Politics & Society , 2022
Germany’s Social Democratic Party, the SPD, was in government between 2013 and 2021, but until ju... more Germany’s Social Democratic Party, the SPD, was in government between 2013 and 2021, but until just weeks before the federal election of 2021, its electoral prospects seemed poor. The party was able to turn things around and surge, in the final period of the campaign, to a remarkable victory. This article sets out structural challenges faced by social democrats in Europe in general and in Germany in particular, focusing on policies and voters, coalition politics, and questions about party organization. It argues that in each area, the spd, with a mixture of sound strategic choices and good fortune, was to some extent able to extricate itself from the challenges it faced, and that its success owed much to the peculiarities of the 2021 election.
Regional & Federal Studies, 2021
Bavaria and South Tyrol belong to the so-called ‘Alpine (Macro-)Region’, a transnational area loc... more Bavaria and South Tyrol belong to the so-called ‘Alpine (Macro-)Region’, a transnational area located in the heart of Europe, where geopolitical, cultural and socio-economic peculiarities have resulted in distinctive democratic dynamics. The key question that this article aims to answer is whether these two regions can still be regarded as exceptional cases of political stability. It is shown that, since 2008, their political systems have experienced significant change. While transformations have also occurred at the national level in Germany and Italy, they seem even more dramatic in Bavaria and South Tyrol, particularly after decades of political continuity. It is argued that this unprecedented shift is due to the combined effect of regional and state-wide challengers and is linked to the multi-level character of party competition at the regional level. Generally, these two cases add a territorial dimension to the study of political stability and change in Western Europe.
Revista Española de Ciencia Política, 2021
The 2019 regional elections in Spain were held in a context of political instability and polariza... more The 2019 regional elections in Spain were held in a context of political instability and polarization in the country and just 28 days after the national elections. Taking advantage of this unprecedented quasi-simultaneous electoral setting, this article analyzes vote-switching between regional and national elections, both at the aggregate and individual levels. Specifically , it explores whether the 2019 regional elections match the expectations of the second-order election model. The results show that quasi-simultaneity between regional and national elections did not entail a higher level of election congruence. In addition, while most of the predictions of the second-order election model regarding aggregate election results hold for the 2019 regional elections, our findings suggest that dual voting at the individual level does not respond to the logic of the second-order election model but rather to regional political considerations.
European Yearbook of Minority Issues, 2020
This article explores the impact of the 2018 South Tyrolean election on the autonomous province's... more This article explores the impact of the 2018 South Tyrolean election on the autonomous province's consociational system of democracy. Implemented to tame centrifugal tendencies between the territory's language groups (German, Italian and Ladin), this system has since the 1990s been losing its inclusive capacity. While the Italian-speaking electorate has increasingly been underrepresented in the main decision-making processes, the German-speaking intra-ethnic electoral arena experienced the rise of secessionist parties. The article shows that, despite major changes affecting party politics in South Tyrol, the outcome of the 2018 election contributed to restore stability to the consociational system.
Representation, 2019
Scholarly research assumes populism enhances democratic inclusion by giving voice to groups that ... more Scholarly research assumes populism enhances democratic inclusion by giving voice to groups that are not represented by political elites and by obliging them to be more attentive to their preferences. Empirical studies have focused on this dynamic more indirectly looking at the emergence of new conflict dimensions, leaving the representation of marginalised groups underexplored. This article contributes to filling this gap by analysing party competition over poverty responsiveness at the regional level in Spain during the Great Recession. Combining Regional Manifestos Project data with issue sub-categorisation, the article shows that populist parties, which emerged during the economic crisis, represent the poor to a greater degree in their political agenda than establishment parties. At the same time, the latter have reacted to new competitors by being more attentive to the poor in their political discourse. As a result, supply-side adaption to include proposals tackling poverty and social exclusion increased the representation of the poor in regional spaces of political competition.
West European Politics, May 2018
Scholarly research on the emergence of a new politics agenda of democratic regeneration, driven b... more Scholarly research on the emergence of a new politics agenda of democratic regeneration, driven by the electoral growth of challenger parties, has focused the analysis primarily at the national and supranational levels, leaving the subnational level underexplored. This article contributes to filling this gap through a comparative analysis of party competition in peripheral regions of Italy, Spain and Great Britain during the European Great Recession. Using Regional Manifestos Project data, it shows that the regionalisation of the state and the presence of a centre‒periphery cleavage represent no obstacle when it comes to responding to a change of preferences among the electorate. The transformation of political spaces in the aftermath of the Great Recession is happening as much at the regional as at the national level. At the same time, the political relevance of challenger parties and the diversity of regional responses contradict the alleged secondary nature of regional dynamics.
Nazioni e Regioni, Jul 2016
Dalla chiusura della vertenza sulla «questione sudtirolese» nel 1992, la politica etnica in Alto ... more Dalla chiusura della vertenza sulla «questione sudtirolese» nel 1992, la politica etnica in Alto Adige/Südtirol ha subìto profondi cambiamenti. Il sistema consociativo, implementato per attenuare tendenze centrifughe, da allora ha iniziato a perdere il proprio equilibrio a causa delle pressioni secessioniste provenienti dall’arena intra-etnica tedesca. Adottando una prospettiva strategica verso l’autodeterminazione, il presente contributo analizza l’evoluzione delle strategie dei partiti etnoregionalisti sudtirolesi sulla dimensione territoriale ed europea della competizione elettorale. In linea con le nuove ricerche sulle strategie dei partiti viene dimostrato che i partiti etnici non solo possiedono le capacità strategiche di assumere posizioni riguardo a diverse dimensioni della competizione, ma anche di riformularle in chiave nuova. Mentre la saliente competizione etnica in Sudtirolo ha portato ad un nuovo frame territoriale, il consenso proeuropeo ha assunto le sembianze di un conflitto posizionale.
European Diversity and Autonomy Papers, May 2016
Since the final conflict settlement between Italy and Austria in 1992, ethnic politics in South T... more Since the final conflict settlement between Italy and Austria in 1992, ethnic politics in South Tyrol experienced insightful transformations. The consociational political system, which was implemented to tame centrifugal tendencies, has been losing its balance over the last decade, with pro-autonomy stances ceding ground to secessionist pressure in the German-speaking intra-ethnic arena. Adopting a contextual and strategic perspective on self-determination, this article traces the evolution of ethno-regionalist party strategies on the territorial and European dimension of party competition through a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of their electoral manifestos in the period between 1993 and 2013. In line with newest research on party strategies, the article empirically shows the strategic capacity of ethnic minority parties to challenge each other not only by shifting their positions on the different issue dimensions but also by the re-framing of issues. While the increasing competition on the center-periphery axis leads to a new territorial frame, the rise of secessionism is accompanied by an end to the pro-European elite consensus.
Regional & Federal Studies, Apr 2014
The results of the 2013 South Tyrolean elections, held on 27 October, caused major changes in the... more The results of the 2013 South Tyrolean elections, held on 27 October, caused major changes in the political system of the autonomy. For the first time since the Second World War the South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP) lost its absolute majority. While the German secessionist parties increased their electoral support, the Italian parties suffered heavy electoral losses, thus leading to an under-representation of Italian speakers in the political institutions. The election report shows how the electoral results affect the South Tyrolean system of ethnic proportional representation, which is characterized by an increasing asymmetry.
Chapters by Matthias Scantamburlo
Europe and the Left. Resisiting the Populist Tide, 2020
This chapter discusses the German SPD’s European election campaign in 2019 and its atrocious resu... more This chapter discusses the German SPD’s European election campaign in 2019 and its atrocious results. Germany’s political class and the large majority of its public are avowedly pro-European. However, since the global financial crisis of 2008, the SPD, while continuing to support European integration, had backed off some of its commitments to “Social Europe”, mindful of the constraints of public opinion. The 2019 manifesto saw a pivot back to endorsement of Social Europe, but the party found itself in a crowded space. Its election campaign failed to resonate, and it was outflanked by other parties: by the Greens on climate change, by the Alternative for Germany amongst voters hostile to immigration, and even on Social Europe the party’s record in government with the CDU/CSU undermined the credibility of its message. The party’s key theme in its lacklustre campaign, that European integration was a good thing, was far too bland and unprepossessing to cut through. The results proved a disaster, and led to the resignation of the party’s leader, and subsequent election of a more left-wing party leadership, as a majority of members had concluded that a more distinctive profile was required.
En busca del poder territorial. Cuatro décadas de elecciones autonómicas en España, 2019
Politika 19. Südtiroler Jahrbuch für Politik, 2019
This chapter focuses on the political supply (i.e. parties and issues) in the run-up to the 2018 ... more This chapter focuses on the political supply (i.e. parties and issues) in the run-up to the 2018 South Tyrolean regional elections and explores a series of hypotheses dealing with political representation and the behavior of political parties in multi-level systems. Using Regional Manifestos Project data, the chapter shows that the South Tyrolean parties have strongly adapted to the political context by regionalizing their political agendas and by mainly addressing the voters’ most important concerns. The salience of issues beyond the ethno-territorial cleavage confirms the thesis that, in the process of moving from dissociative to associative conflict resolution, ethnic issues in South Tyrol are having less influence not only on electoral demand but increasingly also on electoral supply. This trend is confirmed by the positional convergence between the South Tyrolean People’s Party and the Lega, with a particular novelty being the pro-peripheral position of an Italian statewide party belonging to the (populist) radical right.
Politika15. Südtiroler Jahrbuch für Politik, May 2015
The SVP and the Scottish National Party have been the only ethnic-regional parties represented at... more The SVP and the Scottish National Party have been the only ethnic-regional parties represented at the European Parliament since the introduction of direct elections in 1979. The SVP succeeded in confirming this success with the European elections in May 2014. We notice from electoral plans that national parties (PD, Tsipras List) set their points almost solely within a European context, while SVP – that ranks 20% stronger than Freiheitlichen – adds to programs also the regional level. The political dividing line that separates the German-mother-tongue speaking South Tyrolean parties, can be identified in a positive, skeptical, or even negative attitude towards the European Union, as much as in a support or refusal of a delegation of powers at an supranational level. The European vote has been highly characterized by debates on “domestic policy” focusing on the scandal around life-time payments to be granted to politicians. A scandal that has heavily reduced citizens’ trust in politics. At the same time, a thesis has been reconfirmed, the one claiming that success ora lack thereof do not depend on a European dimension, but on the political and social situation present within the single national States, and in our case, inside the Province of Bolzano.
La Svp, insieme allo Scottish National Party, è l’unico partito etno-regionale rappresentato nel parlamento europeo dall’introduzione dell’elezione diretta nel 1979. La Svp ha potuto confermare questo successo in occasione delle elezioni europee del maggio del 2014. L’analisi dei programmi elettorali indica che i partiti nazionali (Pd, Lista Tsipras) collocano i loro temi quasi esclusivamente in un contesto europeo, mentre la Svp con il 20 per cento, forte il doppio rispetto ai Freiheitlichen, inserisce nel proprio programma anche il livello regionale. La linea di demarcazione politica tra i partiti altoatesini di lingua tedesca si può tracciare anche rispetto alla loro posizione positiva, scettica o addirittura negativa nei confronti dell’Unione europea; così come rispetto all’appoggio o al rigetto della delega di competenze a livello sovranazionale. Il voto europeo è stato fortemente caratterizzato dai dibattiti “di politica interna” riguardanti lo scandalo dei vitalizi che ha fortemente ridotto la fiducia dei cittadini nella politica. In questo modo quindi è stata anche confermata la tesi secondo la quale il successo o l’insuccesso non dipendono tanto dalla sfera europea, bensì dalla situazione politica e sociale presente nei singoli stati nazionali, nel nostro caso nella provincia di Bolzano.
Politik in Tirol. Jahrbuch, Jan 2015
Matthias Scantamburlo und Günther Pallaver analysieren die EU-Wahl 2014 in Südtirol, bei der die ... more Matthias Scantamburlo und Günther Pallaver analysieren die EU-Wahl 2014 in Südtirol, bei der die Südtiroler Volkspartei erfolgreich ihren Kandidaten durchsetzen konnte. Die SVP ist neben der Scottish National Party die einzige ethno- regionale Partei, die seit der Direktwahl 1979 ohne Unterbrechung im EU-Parlament vertreten ist. In diesem Zusammenhang untersuchen die beiden Autoren in einer Längsschnittanalyse, welche Auswirkungen der Europäisierungsprozess auf die Politik der SVP gehabt hat.
Review Articles by Matthias Scantamburlo
Nazioni e Regioni, 2019
Il dibattito sulla cittadinanza austriaca per i sudtirolesi, nel gergo politico e giornalistico c... more Il dibattito sulla cittadinanza austriaca per i sudtirolesi, nel gergo politico e giornalistico chiamato semplicemente doppio passaporto (Doppelpass), è iniziato nel 2006, quando l'Italia ha concesso agli ex cittadini italiani nei territori ceduti alla Jugoslavia (oggi Slovenia e Croazia), l'acquisizione della cittadinanza italiana senza che costoro dovessero rinunciare alla cittadinanza originaria (Denicolò -Pallaver 2018: 256). I deputati al Parlamento italiano della Südtiroler Volkspartei (SVP) hanno colto l'iniziativa italiana come occasione per chiedere all'Austria la concessione della cittadinanza austriaca ai sudtirolesi.
Evolving Nationalism (EvoNat) Research Briefs, Nov 2015
South Tyrol, together with the province of Trentino, forms one of the five Italian ... more South Tyrol, together with the province of Trentino, forms one of the five Italian regions with a special statute, out of 20 regions in total. It is often considered to be a model region in terms of how to deal with violent ethnic conflict through the implementation of group rights and territorial autonomy. Implemented to tame centrifugal tendencies, the consociational system has for a decade been losing its balance, with pro-autonomy stances ceding ground to secessionist pressure in the German-speaking arena. Focusing on their strategic behaviour, this brief examines the centre-periphery dynamics and the sovereignty proposals of South Tyrolean ethnic minority parties. Challenged by the electoral success of the secessionist opposition, the hegemonic and autonomist South Tyrolean People’s Party (SVP) is responding with a new pro-European devo-max objective. The rise of secessionism is accompanied by an end to the pro-European elite consensus.
Book Reviews by Matthias Scantamburlo
Nazioni e Regioni 12, 2018
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Articles by Matthias Scantamburlo
Chapters by Matthias Scantamburlo
La Svp, insieme allo Scottish National Party, è l’unico partito etno-regionale rappresentato nel parlamento europeo dall’introduzione dell’elezione diretta nel 1979. La Svp ha potuto confermare questo successo in occasione delle elezioni europee del maggio del 2014. L’analisi dei programmi elettorali indica che i partiti nazionali (Pd, Lista Tsipras) collocano i loro temi quasi esclusivamente in un contesto europeo, mentre la Svp con il 20 per cento, forte il doppio rispetto ai Freiheitlichen, inserisce nel proprio programma anche il livello regionale. La linea di demarcazione politica tra i partiti altoatesini di lingua tedesca si può tracciare anche rispetto alla loro posizione positiva, scettica o addirittura negativa nei confronti dell’Unione europea; così come rispetto all’appoggio o al rigetto della delega di competenze a livello sovranazionale. Il voto europeo è stato fortemente caratterizzato dai dibattiti “di politica interna” riguardanti lo scandalo dei vitalizi che ha fortemente ridotto la fiducia dei cittadini nella politica. In questo modo quindi è stata anche confermata la tesi secondo la quale il successo o l’insuccesso non dipendono tanto dalla sfera europea, bensì dalla situazione politica e sociale presente nei singoli stati nazionali, nel nostro caso nella provincia di Bolzano.
Review Articles by Matthias Scantamburlo
Book Reviews by Matthias Scantamburlo
La Svp, insieme allo Scottish National Party, è l’unico partito etno-regionale rappresentato nel parlamento europeo dall’introduzione dell’elezione diretta nel 1979. La Svp ha potuto confermare questo successo in occasione delle elezioni europee del maggio del 2014. L’analisi dei programmi elettorali indica che i partiti nazionali (Pd, Lista Tsipras) collocano i loro temi quasi esclusivamente in un contesto europeo, mentre la Svp con il 20 per cento, forte il doppio rispetto ai Freiheitlichen, inserisce nel proprio programma anche il livello regionale. La linea di demarcazione politica tra i partiti altoatesini di lingua tedesca si può tracciare anche rispetto alla loro posizione positiva, scettica o addirittura negativa nei confronti dell’Unione europea; così come rispetto all’appoggio o al rigetto della delega di competenze a livello sovranazionale. Il voto europeo è stato fortemente caratterizzato dai dibattiti “di politica interna” riguardanti lo scandalo dei vitalizi che ha fortemente ridotto la fiducia dei cittadini nella politica. In questo modo quindi è stata anche confermata la tesi secondo la quale il successo o l’insuccesso non dipendono tanto dalla sfera europea, bensì dalla situazione politica e sociale presente nei singoli stati nazionali, nel nostro caso nella provincia di Bolzano.