ABSTRACT
Over the last few years, there has been a renewed interest in the role of political parties for the workings of federal and other multi-level systems. To be sure, the parties–federalism nexus has been recognized since the writings of the “Federalist Papers”. The classical assumption has been that political parties are important motors of national integration and coordinated policy-making (see Caramani 2004). In debates on democratic theory, this assumption led liberal thinkers to look for institutional incentives to safeguard federal democracy from the “mischiefs of faction” (Madison), while majoritarian thinkers applauded parties for their assumed capacities of being able to organize and execute the political will of a state majority, or “demos”, despite federal divisions of power. Many of these arguments have been re-adapted to current debates (see Bednar et al. 2001; Filippov et al. 2004; Stepan 2001).
