The Saliency of Regionalization in Party Systems. A Comparative Analysis of Regional Decentralization in Party Manifestos

The article centres on the saliency that regional decentralization has had for British, Italian, and French political parties in the last sixty years. A longitudinal analysis of the emphasis that parties have assigned to this issue in their manifestos confirms the hypothesis that some environmental factors influence the changes of attention of parties on regionalization in their electoral discourse. Electoral threats and institutional reforms notably have a relevant impact and are mediated by the nature of party goals (policy, vote or office-seeking).