National-level elections receive more attention from scholars and the media than elections at other levels, even though in many European countries the importance of both regional and European levels of government has grown in recent years. The growing importance of multiple electoral arenas suggests that scholars should be cautious about examining single levels in isolation. Taking the multilevel structure of electoral politics seriously requires a re-examination of how the incentives created by electoral institutions affect the behaviour of voters and party elites.

The standard approach to analysing multilevel elections is the second-order election (SOE) model, in which national elections are considered to be first-order elections while other elections are second order. However, this model does not provide micro mechanisms that determine how elections in one arena affect those in another, or explain variations in individual voting behaviour.

The objective of this book is to explain how party and voter behaviour in a given election is affected by the existence of multiple electoral arenas. It provides original qualitative and quantitative data to examine European, national, and subnational elections in France, Germany, and Spain from 2011-2015. The volume examines party mobilization efforts across multiple electoral arenas, as well as decisions by individual voters with respect to turnout, strategic voting, and accountability. This book provides the first systematic analysis of multilevel electoral politics at three different levels across multiple countries.

Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu.

The series is edited by Emilie van Haute, Professor of Political Science, Universite libre de Bruxelles; Ferdinand Muller-Rommel, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University; and Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston.

About the Author:
Sona N. Golder, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University, Ignacio Lago, Associate Professor, Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Andre Blais, Professor, Department of Political Science, Universite de Montreal, Elisabeth Gidengil, Hiram Mills Professor, Department of Political Science, McGill University and Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship, Thomas Gschwend, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Mannheim

Sona N Golder is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Pennsylvania State University. She is co-editor of the British Journal of Political Science and co-edits the Newsletter for the Comparative Politics groups of the American Political Science Association. Her previous publications include The Logic of Pre-Electoral Coalition Formation (Ohio State University Press, 2006) and Principles of Comparative Politics, 3rd Edition (co-authored with William Roberts Clark and Matt Golder, SAGE/CQ Press, forthcoming). Her research includes political institutions, with a particular interest in electoral coalitions and government formation.

Ignacio Lago is Associate Professor of Political Science at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. His research interests include electoral systems, political behaviour and party politics. He has published in numerous scholarly journals such as Public Opinion Quarterly, European Journal of Political Economy, European Journal of Political Research, Electoral Studies, Party Politics and Social Science Quarterly.

Andre Blais is Professor of Political Science at the Universite de Montreal. He was one of the co-investigators of the Canadian Election Study from 1988 to 2005. He is the principal co-investigator of the Making Electoral Democracy Work project. His research interests are elections, electoral systems, turnout, public opinion, and methodology. His publications include Voting Experiments (co-edited with Jean-Francois Laslier and Karine Van der Straeten, Springer, 2016) and To Keep or to Change First Past the Post? (OUP, 2008).

Elisabeth Gidengil is Hiram Mills Professor at McGill University and the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship. She studies voting behaviour and public opinion, with particular interests in gender, ethnicity, and political engagement. She was a co-investigator on the Canadian Election Study from 1992 to 2008. She is a past president of the Canadian Political Science Association and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Her publications include Gender and Social Capital (co-edited with Brenda O'Neill, Routledge, 2006), and Canadian Democracy from the Ground Up (co-edited with Heather Bastedo, University of British Columbia Press, 2014).

Thomas Gschwend is Professor of Political Science at the University of Mannheim. He studies comparative politics, judicial politics, public opinion, political psychology as well as political methodology. He is particularly interested in the processes by which institutions pre-structure an individual's decision-making process and its consequences for political actors, party strategies, and election outcomes. He is recipient of the Gosnell Prize for Excellence in Political Methodology awarded by the APSA Political Methodology Section. His publications include Strategic Voting in Mixed-Electoral Systems (SFG-Elsevier, 2004) and Research Design in Political Science (co-authored with Frank Schimmelfennig, Palgrave, 2007).