Are Regional Elections Really ‘Second-Order’ Elections?

This article critically assesses the applicability of the second-order election model to regional elections. It offers first a critique of the second-order election model, arguing that the model has imported an inappropriate ‘nationalizing’ bias into the study of regional elections. Second, the article conducts an empirical analysis that shows that second-order election predictions do not appear to hold for regional elections which take place (1) in political settings where regional elections do not have the potential to signal a future alternation of government at the national level; (2) in authoritative, powerful regions; and (3) in regions where non-state-wide parties compete in regional elections.