ABSTRACT
The study of multi-level political systems, their regional institutions, and political elites has gained salience in the last decades. Sub-national politics, institutions, and their political processes and elites are nowadays studied not as a by-product of the national ones, but as entities that deserve close attention given their specific traits and political relevance. In this regard, this chapter focuses on national and regional parliaments, descriptively exploring how both levels interact from the point of view of parliaments’ vertical integration. We focus on comparing two different countries regarding the level of decentralization: Spain and Portugal. Findings show that, in both cases, formalized institutional mechanisms are not very effective and that political parties are much more efficient instruments for parliaments’ vertical integration.
