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centralization. Otherwise, n takes the value of 1. Overall, representation can
range between 0 and 1.
In turn, the second approach captures the extent to which the structure of
political competition varies across the subnational units of any givenmultitiered
system. The intuition behind this measure of heterogeneity of political compe-
tition across subnational units (HPC) is that the larger the distance between the
center and the units in terms of the effective number of parties, the higher the
gap in patterns of political competition. The measure is computed as follows:
r
1
ENP
r
−
ENP
n
1
BP
2
=
HPC
=
(8.4)
where
ENP
r
represents the effective number of parties in region/subnational
unit r, and
ENP
n
defines the effective number of parties at the union level.
6
The models reported in
Table 8.2
include estimates in which
∧
ineq
ir
it
is interacted
with both indicators of the balance of power between the center and the units,
thereby providing additional robustness checks.
Note that these two indicators relate directly to the parameters capturing
the importance of national elections and their implications for intraparty rela-
tionships across territories, as specified in the theoretical model (
). While this
is a multidimensional phenomenon in itself, and as a result each individual
indicator is necessarily partial, I proceed on the assumption that the differ-
ent institutional aspects of representation are correlated with one another, thus
operating similarly in the continuum between centrifugal and centripetal repre-
sentation. For instance, a directly elected senate with strong legislative powers
increases the importance of regional politics relative to a case in which such
an institution does not exist. Likewise, a strongly malapportioned lower house
that facilitates the formation of local strongholds would reduce the party disci-
pline of (at least some) local leaders, thus lowering the value of
in the model.
In support of this premise, the correlation between the two indicators of the
balance of power between the regions and the center at use in this chapter is
−
0.65. Clearly they are not identical, as they capture different aspects of the
political process, but they do covary in ways consistent with the claim that the
different dimensions of political representation affect the balance of power in
similar ways.
7
The models in this section and throughout this chapter also control for
several alternative logics accounting for the decentralization of fiscal struc-
tures. The literature so far has paid particular attention to three distinctive
lines of reasoning: decentralization as a
functional
response to the growth of
6
Descriptive statistics on these two measures in a number of advanced federations are included
in Appendix D.
7
Note that the negative sign of the correlation coefficient reflects the fact that R and HPC are
scaled differently. While large values of R imply a more centripetal system, large values of HPC
imply a more centrifugal system of representation.
