ABSTRACT
Over the past few decades, regionalist parties have become more and more important in many West-European countries (Fitjar 2009; Jeffery 2010; Jolly 2015). This book is devoted to explaining their political success. By this we refer not only to electoral success, but also to government participation (success in offi ce) and actual political output (policy success). In fact, it is on policy success that we shall focus the most: the achievement of regionalist parties in terms of changing collective decisions. Such change can refer to two different aspects of policy-making: its actual content, that is, change in direction, or the procedure through which decisions are taken, for example through change of location from the national to the regional capital (devolution). What matters is that some change (or the successful obstruction of change) must have occurred because of the regionalist party. Policy success in that sense is the ultimate test of a regionalist party’s impact and wider relevance: what has it actually achieved?
