Voters and Voting in Multilevel Systems – An Introduction

Abstract

This Special Issue, ‘Voters and Voting in Multilevel Systems', is a contribution to a better understanding of the functioning and logics of the present-day German electoral system, but its findings and consequences stretch beyond the German case. After all, Germany is ideally suited for studying multilevel voting and the interdependences and mutual repercussions of multilayer electoral systems. The Special Issue takes the challenges and changes in voting behaviour as a starting point and searches for links and causal relationships between levels. Overall, it has two major goals: first, to examine how (increasing) volatility in voting behaviour and declining participation rates manifest themselves at all layers of the multilevel system, possibly amplifying each other; second, to turn the usual perspective on its head by examining the impact of second-order elections and vote choices on parties' fortunes and electoral outcomes at the national level.

INTRODUCTION

In academic discourse, there is ample debate about the legitimacy of multilevel governance and the democratic quality of the EU. Similarly disputed are issues concerning the democratic impact of complex interdependences in multilayer political systems in general. The European Union in particular attracts much attention regarding the widespread diagnosis of its so-called democratic deficit and the observation of shrinking political support amongst the populations in European member states. In many countries, turnout at European Parliament elections decreased dramatically while (and maybe although) the institutions of the EU gained more and more political competences vis-à-vis national political systems.¹ The 2014 EP elections have shown that more than ever: even the nomination of leading European candidates by the major parties did not lead to an increase in turnout. According to the dominant perspective, the permissive consensus that had characterised popular EU support since the 1950s² has given way to what has been labelled the Post-Maastricht Blues.³

The earlier consensus rested on a mixture of basic consent to the idea of integration, on trust in political leadership and on lack of interest in and indifference to the details of EU policy-making. While general lack of interest and indifference are still dominant feelings towards the EU – most clearly visible in low and declining turnout rates – the deepened and enlarged EU can not only no longer count on majoritarian consent among citizens, but also increasingly among elites.⁴ As a result, the public legitimacy of EU institutions dropped dramatically and gave rise to a new period of Euroscepticism.⁵ In its most extreme form, authors envision the end of European integration,⁶ even the end of Europe.⁷

At the same time, national political systems have also come under stress. There is a growing concern about the present-day health of national representative democracy. Political disaffection is high; levels of trust are in decline while political support and participation rates are shrinking there, too.⁸ With regard to electoral behaviour and vote choices, the core ingredients of representative party democracy, the diagnosis – shared by many – is even more pessimistic. Germany is a prime example in this respect. Participation rates in federal elections have fallen dramatically since the 1970s. Indeed, there was never before such a steep decrease in turnout than between the two subsequent elections of 2005 and 2009. The stability which characterised German politics for decades after the Second World War has all but disappeared. The party system is in flux, and the vote share of the two major parties – Christian Democrats and Social Democrats – fell to an unprecedented low in the 2009 election. The most recent election in 2013 confirmed the impression of increasing volatility and unpredictability – and low turnout. The Christian Democrats almost gained an absolute majority, the Liberals – a stable ingredient of the post-war party system – failed to surpass the 5 per cent threshold, and an absolute newcomer, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which mobilised against the European Union, almost gained parliamentary representation.⁹ An increasingly heterogeneous electorate, applying a multitude of diverse heuristics and cues in order to arrive at the final vote decision, replaces socially and ideologically bound and loyal partisans.¹⁰

Looking at sub-national turnout and involvement rates, the situation is again not bright. In some of the German regions, particularly in the east, turnout in Land and local elections has dropped below 50 per cent.¹¹ This pervasive legitimacy crisis, at least regarding participation in elections, thus affects all layers of the multilevel system.

Whether these changes in voting behaviour signal a severe crisis of representative democracy or rather reflect only minor disturbances in popular support is still a matter of dispute. This Special Issue, however, takes these challenges and changes as a starting point and searches for links and causal relationships: whether and how possibly problematic developments on the different levels are linked and/or depend on each other in the case of Germany .

In essence, while issues of multilevel integration, interdependence and popular support are obviously of prime importance for modern European politics, the national level still attracts the most scientific (and public) attention. Even more significantly, theoretical work on the integration of the diverse layers of multilevel systems, and an analysis of their mutual repercussions with a perspective on elections and individual vote choices has only recently started¹² – and mostly deals with the situation in the UK¹³ (interestingly enough), Switzerland¹⁴ and Canada,¹⁵ but less so in Germany.¹⁶ This Special Issue aims at bringing together research traditions that could jointly provide further remedy for, or at least some better insight into, this sorry state of affairs, and focuses on the situation in Germany as one of the classic federal states within Europe.

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ISSUE

Electoral research, in Germany and elsewhere, routinely focuses on so-called ‘first-order’ elections.¹⁷ In the context of an increasing political significance of the supranational level and a growing interdependence of sub-, supra- and national levels, such a one-sided perspective is, however, no longer adequate. While there is a growing literature on the effects and challenges of interlocking governance, there is still much work to do concerning the repercussions of multilevel governance on voter rationales and individual political orientations and behavioural intentions, especially when it comes to the German case. This Special Issue is a first attempt to fill this void.

Moreover, we witness an increasing awareness concerning this new dimension of instability, fluidity, change and potential restructuring of voting behaviour and patterns of party attachment at the national level. These developments – whose implications for representative democracy are not yet clear – inspired new scientific debates and led to the implementation of large-scale national election studies in Germany and other European countries.¹⁸ While such complex and multifaceted study programmes are essential for understanding the nature of political change and its impact on the quality of representative democracy, their main focus on the national level produces a blind spot with regard to the causes and consequences of such changes and dynamics, at least on an individual level. It is, therefore, the major objective of this volume to examine how and in what respect multilevel voting contributes to an explanation for changing voting behaviour at the federal level.

As a matter of fact, stable party alignments and identifications are declining, and there are more and more late deciders and voters who change their preferences from one (national) election to the next.¹⁹ As a profession, we tend to relate these trends to macro developments such as long-term processes of modernisation, individualisation and value change.²⁰ According to standard explanations, modernisation led to the dissolution of old milieu structures, the embourgeoisement of the working class and a general increase in educational levels and socio-political skills.²¹ Moreover, secularisation – the twin process and by-product of modernisation – has reduced the role of religiosity and rates of active church involvement and led thus to a decline of religious voting and Christian party alliances.²² As a result, voting behaviour and political participation have become more individualised, volatile, critical and elite-challenging.²³

More explicitly political explanations add to this narrative by pointing to the changing supply side of politics – in terms of both the party and the media system.²⁴ Other authors highlight the ‘dark side’ of modernisation processes, i.e. significant increases in the number of precarious work arrangements, cuts in welfare programmes and the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. These developments are supposed to provoke feelings of political disaffection and apathy amongst those who see themselves as losers from structural changes.²⁵

While all these explanations add to our understanding of the nature and range of changes in voting behaviour that impact on present-day representative democracy in Germany and elsewhere, they might underestimate the significance of one element in the causal change: multilevel voting. In political systems such as Germany's, voters have the opportunity to express their preferences frequently and on four levels: there are local elections, Land elections, federal elections and finally elections to the European Parliament. Even if one takes into account that elections tend to cluster around certain points in time, Germans are called to the ballot box at least twice in between the cycle of federal first-order elections.

In times of stable party alliances, these additional electoral calls and the mobilisation efforts accompanying them, tend to strengthen and renew bonds between a political party and its constituency. Political cleavages, the essence of stable party politics, depend on regular mobilisation through the activation of the alliance between the party, on the one hand, and its electorate, on the other – across the voter's life cycle and across generations.²⁶ Thus, in periods when social change is limited, multilevel voting may contribute significantly to a reproduction of cleavage voting and party identification.

But what happens in times of rapid social change, when party identifications are more fragile and looser? Do second-order elections provide an opportunity for toying with otherwise unthinkable political options, or simply an occasion for testing how it feels not to vote at all? The German population is a target of almost permanent mobilisation efforts through diverse campaign events. At present, however, it is close to impossible to assess the impact of multilevel campaigning on multilevel voting in general, and, more importantly, the mutual effects that campaigns at one layer of the multilevel system exert on voting behaviour and the nature of campaigning at other layers. In short, it is a first major goal of this Special Issue to examine how (increasing) volatility in voting behaviour and declining participation rates manifest themselves at all layers of the multilevel system, possibly amplifying each other.

However, besides the dominant crisis discourse, there are other potential effects of multilevel electoral systems. The impact of federal-level election results and the ensuing coalition formation on subsequent elections at the sub- or supra-national level is well known. As a rule, governing parties tend to lose voters, while parties of the opposition tend to gain support.²⁷ Therefore, multilevel systems with co-governance structures, i.e. systems with representation of state governments such as the German Bundesrat tend to produce counterbalancing majorities which contribute to a further increase in functional inter-level interdependence, incremental policy changes and political de-polarisation.²⁸

By contrast, the causal link that connects sub- or supranational elections with the national level, i.e. the impact of second-order elections on first-order elections and national patterns of coalition formation and governance, is less well researched. Therefore, it is the second objective of this Special Issue to turn the usual perspective on its head by examining the impact of second-order elections and vote choices on parties' fortunes and electoral outcomes at the national level, using Germany as a case study.

GERMANY AS A CASE STUDY

This Special Issue focuses specifically on multilevel voting in Germany. In this respect, this volume is a contribution to a better understanding of the functioning and logics of the present-day German electoral system. However, the findings and potential consequences stretch beyond the single German case. Germany is ideally suited for studying multilevel voting and the interdependences and mutual repercussions of multilayer electoral systems. Unlike most other EU member states, Germany features a strong and constitutionally protected system of federalism with decentralised authority structures, regionally diverse party systems and decision-making autonomy in selected policy fields. Moreover, election results at the state or regional level impact significantly on the fortunes and the decision-making power of national governments via the Bundesrat, which has absolute veto power over a large share of the most politically significant bills. Consequentially, Germany is characterised by a high degree of co-governance and power-sharing across the layers of its own multilevel system. At the same time, German voters and politicians find themselves embedded in the larger multilevel system that is the European Union, and which should look oddly familiar to them. This institutional setup makes Germany a crucial case: if multilevel voting is as relevant as we believe it is, it should be relatively easy to demonstrate its effects within the German context. Thus, looking at the special case of Germany should produce knowledge about and insights into the nature and logic of multilevel voting in general.

STRUCTURE AND CONTENT OF THIS SPECIAL ISSUE

This issue is organised around the two major objectives spelled out above. It begins with two introductory articles. The first one by Arthur Benz discusses the logics and challenges of multilevel systems in general. This theoretical contribution highlights the recent developments in complex government structures which result from the multifaceted links between different layers of political decision-making. Looking primarily from an institutional perspective, this article develops the general analytical frame for the empirical contributions that make up the remainder of this special issue. The second contribution, by Sigrid Roßteutscher and Thorsten Faas, is a complement to Benz's piece, as it provides an introduction to the phenomenon of multilevel voting from an empirical perspective. By using a highly original three-wave panel that followed individual decision-making from the elections to the European Parliament in June 2009 across several state elections to the federal elections that took place in September 2009, the authors examine the strength and nature of voting stability and fluidity originating from multilevel election campaigns.

The other contributions in this Special Issue present detailed analyses on the dynamics and determinants of voting behaviour across multiple layers of government. The article by Heiko Giebler and Aiko Wagner ties in with the descriptive analysis of Roßteutscher and Faas and compares the rationales and determinants of voting behaviour in European and national elections, i.e. seeks a first answer to the question of why individuals vote differently (or identically) at different types of elections. Angelika Vetter investigates how turnout rates change depending upon the timing and linkage of elections with the national election or other ‘second-order’ elections.

Michèle Knodt and Michael Stoiber address the question whether elections in Germany can enhance the legitimacy of the European Union. Finally, Evelyn Bytzek's contribution challenges the orthodoxy by reversing the usual causal link and examining how the outcomes of regional elections affect party fortunes and patterns of government formation at the federal level.

Notes

1. See e.g. R. Sturm and H. Pehle, Das neue deutsche Regierungssystem. Die Europäisierung von Institutionen, Entscheidungsprozessen und Politikfeldern in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2005), and W. Wessels, Das politische System der Europäischen Union (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2008).

2. L.N. Lindberg and S. Scheingold, Europe's Would-Be-Polity. Patterns of Change in the European Community (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970). For a summary see also F. Brettschneider, J.W. van Deth and E. Roller, ‘Europäische Integration in der öffentlichen Meinung: Forschungsstand und Perspektiven’, in F. Brettschneider, J.W. van Deth and E. Roller (eds), Europäische Integration in der öffentlichen Meinung (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2003), pp.9–26; V. Kaina, Wir in Europa. Kollektive Identität und Demokratie in der Europäischen Union (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2009).

3. R.C. Eichenberg and R.J. Dalton, ‘Post-Maastrict Blues: The Transformation of Citzen Support for European Integration’, ActaPolitica 42 (2007), pp.128–152; S. Hix, What's Wrong with the European Union and How to Fix It (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); M.N. Franklin, C. van der Eijk and M. Marsh, ‘Referendum Outcomes and Trust in Government: Public Support for Europe in the Wake of Maastricht’, West European Politics 18 (1995), pp.101–17.

4. S. Hix, The Political System of the European Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005), p.151; S. Immerfall, Europa – politsches Einigungswerk und gesellschaftliche Entwicklung (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2006), p.99; V. Kaina, ‘European Identity, Legitimacy, and Trust: Conceptual Considerations and Perspectives on Empirical Research’, in I.P. Karolowski and V. Kaina (eds), European Identity. Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Insights (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2006), p.115.

5. D. Fuchs, R. Magni-Berton and A. Roger (eds), Euroscepticism. Images of Europe among Mass Publics and Political Elites (Opladen and Farmington Hills, MI: Budrich, 2009); B. Weßels, ‘Spielarten des Euroskeptizismus', in F. Decker and M. Höreth (eds), Die Verfassung Europas. Perspektiven des Integrationsprojekts (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2009), pp.50–68.

6. P. Taylor, The End of European Integration. Anti-Europeanism Examined (London: Routledge, 2008).

7. R. Dehousse, La fin de l'Europe (Paris: Flammarion, 2005).

8. P. Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens. Global Support for Democratic Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); S.J. Pharr and R.D. Putnam (eds), Disaffected Democracies. What's Troubling the Trilateral Countries (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); R.J. Dalton, Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices. The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

9. For a summary, see H. Rattinger et al., Zwischen Langeweile und Extremen: Die Bundestagswahl 2009 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2011); T. Faas, ‘Sprouting Coalitions, Drooping Social Democrats: The German Federal Election of 2009’, West European Politics 33 (2010), pp.894–903. Regarding 2013, see R. Schmitt-Beck et al., Die Bundestagswahl 2013 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2014).

10. R. Lachat, A Heterogeneous Electorate: Political Sophistication, Predisposition Strength, and the Voting Decision Process (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2007); R.R. Lau and D.P. Redlawsk (eds), How Voters Decide. Information Processing during Election Campaigns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); R.J. Dalton and M.P. Wattenberg (eds), Parties without Partisans. Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); P.M. Sniderman, R.A. Brody and P.E. Tetlock, Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); B. Weßels, H. Rattinger, S. Roßteutscher and R. Schmitt-Beck (eds), Voters on the Move or on the Run? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

11. A. Vetter, ‘Lokale Bürgerbeteiligung: Ein Thema mit offenen Fragen’, in A. Vetter (ed.), Erfolgsbedingungen lokaler Bürgerbeteiligung (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2008), pp.9–27.

12. D. Hough and C. Jeffery, ‘Introduction – Multi-level Electoral Competition: Elections and Parties in Decentralized States', European Urban and Regional Studies 10 (2003), pp.195–8; C. Jeffery and D. Hough, ‘Regional Elections in Multi-level Systems', European Urban and Regional Studies 10 (2003), pp.199–212.

13. A. Heath et al., ‘Between First and Second Order: A Comparison of Voting Behaviour in European and Local Elections in Britain’, European Journal of Political Research 35 (1999), pp.389–414; D. Trystan et al., ‘Explaining the “Quiet Earthquake”: Voting Behaviour in the First Election to the National Assembly for Wales', Electoral Studies 22 (2003), pp.635–50.

14. See P. Selb, ‘Multi-level Elections in Switzerland’, Swiss Political Science Review 12 (2006), pp.49–75.

15. P.J. Loewen and F. Bastien ‘(In)Significant Elections? Federal By-elections in Canada, 1963–2008’, Canadian Journal of Political Science–Revue Canadienne De Science Politique 43 (2010), pp.87–105; F. Cutler, ‘One Voter, Two First-order Elections?’, Electoral Studies 27 (2008), pp.492–504.

16. There are, of course, a number of pieces in the literature that deal with the German situation. But these are mostly based on aggregate data (e.g. R. Dinkel, ‘Der Zusammenhang zwischen Bundes- und Landtagswahlergebnissen’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 18 (1977), pp.348–60; S. Burkhart, ‘The Partisan Dimension of the German Joint Decision Trap. An Empirical Investigation of the Relationship between Federal and Laender Elections in Germany since 1976’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 46 (2005), p.14; D. Hough and C. Jeffery, ‘Landtagswahlen: Bundestestwahlen oder Regionalwahlen?’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 34 (2003), pp.79–94; C. Jeffery and D. Hough, ‘The Electoral Cycle and Multi-level Voting in Germany’, German Politics 10 (2001), pp.73–98). Work based on individual-level data is still extremely rare (but see M.M. Bechtel, ‘Not Always Second Order: Subnational Elections, National-level Vote Intentions, and Volatility Spillovers in a Multi-level Electoral System’, Electoral Studies 31 (2012), pp.170–83).

17. This distinction between first- and second-order elections or between low- and high-stimulus elections is framed by K. Reif and H. Schmitt, ‘Nine Second-order National Elections. A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of European Results', European Journal of Political Research 8 (1989), pp.244–55.

18. For Germany, see R. Schmitt-Beck, H. Rattinger, S. Roßteutscher and B. Weßels, ‘Die deutsche Wahlforschung und die German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES)’, in F. Faulbaum and C. Wolf (eds), Gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen im Spiegel der empirischen Sozialforschung (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2010), pp.141–72.

19. See B. Weßels, ‘Schwankende Wähler: Gefährden Wechselwähler die Demokratie?’, in E. Bytzek and S. Roßteutscher (eds), Der unbekannte Wähler? Mythen und Fakten über das Wahlverhalten der Deutschen (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2011), pp.43–57; T. Rudi and M. Steinbrecher, ‘Die Wechselwähler’, in Rattinger et al., Zwischen Langeweile und Extremen: Die Bundestagswahl 2009, pp.91–101; concerning late deciding, see e.g. R. Schmitt-Beck, ‘Kampagnendynamik bei der Bundestagswahl 2005’, in J.W. Falter, O.W. Gabriel and B. Weßels (eds), Wahlen und Wähler. Analysen aus Anlass der Bundestagswahl 2005 (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2008); R. Schmitt-Beck and T. Faas, ‘The Campaign and its Dynamics at the 2005 German General Election’, German Politics 15 (2006), pp.393–419.

20. See R. Inglehart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); R.J. Dalton and M.P. Wattenberg (eds), Parties Without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

21. P. Norris, A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in Postindustrial Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); for a summary, see M. Elff and S. Roßteutscher, ‘Stability or Decline? Class, Religion and the Vote in Germany’, German Politics 20 (2011), pp.107–27.

22. G.K. Roberts, ‘The Ever-shallower Cleavage. Religions and Electoral Politics in Germany’, in D. Broughton and H.M. ten Napel (eds), Religion and Mass Electoral Behaviour in Europe (London: Routledge, 2000), pp.61–74; S. Roßteutscher, Religion, Konfession, Demokratie. Eine international vergleichende Studie zur Natur religiöser Märkte und der demokratischen Rolle religiöser Zivilgesellschaften (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2009).

23. See, for example, Norris, Critical Citizens, and Inglehart, Culture Shift, with respect to aspects of cognitive mobilisation. With regard to changes in the structure of employment, see e.g. J.H. Goldthorpe, D. Lockwood, F. Bechhofer and J. Platt, The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), and J. Myles, ‘States, Labour Markets and Life Cycles', in R. Friedland and A.F. Robertson (eds), Beyond the Marketplace: Rethinking Economy and Society (New York: De Gruyter, 1990), pp.271–98.

24. C. Holtz-Bacha, Die Massenmedien im Wahlkampf. Die Bundestagswahl 2005 (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2006).

25. A. Schäfer, ‘Die Nichtwähler als Durchschnittsbürger: Ist die sinkende Wahlbeteiligung eine Gefahr für die Demokratie?’, in E. Bytzek and S. Roßteutscher (eds), Der unbekannte Wähler? Mythen und Fakten über das Wahlverhalten der Deutschen (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2011), pp.133–54.

26. S. Roßteutscher, ‘Die konfessionell-religiöse Konfliktlinie zwischen Säkularisierung und Mobilisierung’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Special Issue 45 (2012), pp.111–33.

27. K. Völkl, Reine Landtagswahlen oder regionale Bundestagswahlen? Eine Untersuchung des Abstimmungsverhaltens bei Landtagswahlen 1990–2006 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2009); C. Carrubba and R.J. Timpone, ‘Explaining Vote Switching Across First- and Second-order Elections', Comparative Political Studies 38 (2005), pp.260–81; E. Bytzek, Ereignisse und ihre Wirkung auf die Popularität von Regierungen. Von der Schleyer-Entführung zur Elbeflut (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2007); I. Bieber and S. Roßteutscher, ‘Große Koalition und Wirtschaftskrise: Zur Ausgangslage der Bundestagswahl 2009’, in H. Rattinger et al., Zwischen Langeweile und Extremen: Die Bundestagswahl 2009, pp.17–31.

28. See e.g. S. Burkhart, Blockierte Politik: Ursachen und Folgen von ‘Divided Government’ in Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2008); H. Schmitt and A.M. Wüst, ‘The Extraordinary Bundestag Election of 2005. The Interplay of Long-term Trends and Short-term Factors', German Politics and Society 24 (2006), pp.27–46.