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internal conflict, so does the existence of different legislative and executive institutions.
Parties may find themselves in government at one level and in opposition at the other,
meaning that the different tiers of the party organization have different strategic
priorities. But this is probably the mildest problem statewide parties face: other
combinations are much more complex.
First, if a party is in government at both regional and national level, there may be
conflicting interests over policy. The regional government may favour an activist role
requiring high public expenditure, whilst the central government seeks to limit spending:
this is especially likely when the revenue function is controlled at the central level, as in
most non-federal arrangements. These are the kind of distributional battles likely in any
political system, but which acquire greater potency because of the democratic legitimacy
enjoyed by elected regional institutions.
Regional governments in ethnically heterogeneous states may also adopt policies
(often of a symbolic nature) which reinforce the territory’s cultural distinctiveness. If
such policies are unpopular outside that territory, party leaders at the national level face a
dilemma: opposing the policies will cause internal conflict in the party and alienate voters
in the culturally distinctive territory, whilst supporting the policies may alienate voters in
the rest of the state. One possible response is for statewide parties to recognize these
tensions and adopt formally ‘federal’ internal structures (Roller and van Houten 2003).
This runs the risk of undermining the party’s cohesion at the national level, and
potentially threatens its continued existence as a single organization.
These kinds of tensions become particularly visible when statewide parties face
different coalition dynamics at different levels. For instance, the party may be able to
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