Party nationalization and the provision of public goods in democracies : a theoretical and empirical investigation

Abstract

The project investigates the extent to which political parties' organizational coverage and electoral geography - the degree to which they are successful at gaining electoral support throughout all regions within a country - affects both the incentives and opportunities of parties to engage in particularistic spending towards favoured regions. In political science, political party nationalization has figured prominently on the theoretical agenda, and scholarly assertions abound on the significance of party nationalization in determining the geographical 'scope' of national policy. However such claims regarding the importance of political parties' geographic 'linkages' for public policy, have rarely been subject to empirical scrutiny.