Comparing Regional and National Climate Policy Preferences: An Analysis of Political Parties in the Basque Country and Catalonia.

This article examines the relationship between political parties' center-periphery preferences and their climate policy positions in multilevel democracies, focusing on Spain's national and regional elections in Catalonia and the Basque Country between 2016 and 2021. Using an innovative coding scheme to analyze party manifestos, the study finds that parties with stronger pro-decentralization and pro-independence stances allocate more attention to climate change and adopt more favorable climate positions, particularly in regional elections compared to national ones. This pattern reflects how pro-periphery parties leverage climate policy to advance territorial autonomy and bolster their status as "nation-states-in-waiting," with regional voters' prioritization of local issues and the decentralized institutional context reinforcing these dynamics. The findings highlight the importance of considering multilevel governance structures when analyzing party competition on climate issues and suggest that climate policy serves as a strategic arena for expressing broader political and territorial demands in regions with distinct identities.