The Influence of Political Parties on Policy Coordination

Despite an increasing interest in party-state relations, the functions political parties as organizations fulfill in the government apparatus are rarely theorized or empirically examined. Instead of focusing on citizen demands toward parties, this article focuses on the demands of government. It argues that party organizational linkages help integrate an increasingly complex government apparatus. To substantiate this claim, it analyzes the impact of party linkages on policy coordination within and across subnational governments in the United States, Canada, and Switzerland. The analysis shows that: (1) the extent to which processes within different policy fields are connected—policy integration—is shaped by the relative strength of party organizational linkages rather than being a mere reflection of institutional divisions and (2) depending on the party configurations predominantly governing at the subnational level, policy integration within subnational governments either facilitates intergovernmental policy coordination or accelerates cross-jurisdictional conflict between them.