Political allies in power gain real edge in elections and governance
When local and regional governments share the same political party, the ruling party wins more power and stays in office longer, a study of Spanish elections shows. The finding challenges assumptions about neutral administration and suggests partisan alignment shapes both electoral outcomes and governance stability in ways that matter for policymakers monitoring democratic fairness.
Originaltitel: Powers that be?: Political alignment, government formation, and government stability
<p>We study how partisan alignment across levels of government affects coalition formation and government stability using a regression discontinuity design and a large dataset of Spanish municipal elections. We document a positive effect of alignment on both government formation and stability. Alignment increases the probability that the most-voted party appoints the mayor and decreases the probability that the government is unseated during the term. Aligned parties also obtain sizeable electoral gains in the next elections. We show that these findings are not the consequence of favoritism in the allocation of transfers towards aligned governments.</p>