Studies of second-order elections using aggregate data have predominantly focused on examining the extent to which European parliament elections and regional elections are dominated by the national, first-order arena, and paid scarce attention to the analysis of municipal elections. In addition the study of second-order elections is dominated by looking at the impact of first-order factors whilst ignoring the impact of arena-specific factors. This article addresses these shortcomings by analyzing the impact of national and local factors on the performance of national parties in the Dutch municipal elections of 2010. Our analysis shows that there are significant effects of local factors. Most parties lose votes when having been in local government and in some cases as well when having in addition lost an alderman as a result of a political crisis. Parties also lose vote share as a result of the entrance of new national and local parties in a local election, with the effect of new national entrants being larger than that of new local entrants. Our analysis corroborates earlier findings that point to a dominance of national factors, while at the same time showing that it is vital to include local, arena specific factors in order to get to a better estimation of the second-orderness of non-national elections. We discuss our results with respect to the recurring debate about the nationalisation of the Dutch municipal elections.

Federal systems are characterised by compound and complex forms of democratic representation. The federal level addresses citizens both as members of the federal polity and as members of a constituent unit. This paper takes into account the existence of these multiple public identities of federal citizens by systematically comparing the degree of subfederal representation in 13 federal systems with QCA. The analysis shows that, apart from the EU, also traditional federal systems have a high degree of subfederal representation. Additionally, the paper looks in which kinds of federal systems we observe this. It shows that a heterogeneous society combined with low national pride or high economic diversity is sufficient to observe a high degree of subfederal representation. From there on conclusions are drawn on the EU and the Low Countries.

China’s outward investment policy has attracted attention not only for policy reasons, but also in academic debate on the role of source-country institutions in foreign investment. Formal institutions in the form of government policy and regulations have been central to China’s outward investment. This paper is based on a detailed analysis of Chinese policy and regulatory documents, which provide evidence of the motivations, substance and outcomes of investment policy. The paper argues that the factors determining investment policy are complex and evolving, and that elements of the policy may not be coherent and can be conflicting. It also argues that unintended outcomes are frequent, and that enterprises, including state-owned enterprises, attempt to escape the constraints of government policy and regulation. Thus, the relationship between institutions in China and enterprise behaviour is complex, and is not simply one of restriction or promotion of outward investment.