Territorial politics and the multi-level party

Territorial politics and the statewide party, Regional Studies. The literature on political parties has been affected by a national bias. However, the multilevel nature of party organizations deserves one's attention because parties have responded as well as contributed to the rise in regional authority across most Western democracies. This paper considers statewide parties from a double perspective: as organizations subject to a range of pressures in a multilevel environment, and as actors influencing multilevel political systems. It concludes with a call for stronger links between traditional areas of party and policy research and multilevel party research and for more comparative data collection on multilevel parties and policy positions.