The presence and influence of peripheral elites in national political institutions are frequently handled by the press. Indeed, it is not unusual to read newspapers focusing on the geographic origin of cabinet ministers or on the regional politicians present at the head of national parties. However, the lack of a comprehensive vision of this issue tends to feed flashy titles alerting about the influence of the ‘Scottish Raj’ in London, the ‘Breton lobby’ and the ‘Corsican connection’ in Paris, the Catalan and Galician pressure groups in Madrid, or the ‘Bavarian power’ in Berlin.

This issue is of great interest for political science, since it shows the importance — real or not — of some peripheral groups in national politics, and as such, it deserves a specific treatment based on a scientific methodology. This paper aims to draw a comprehensive overview of the literature dealing with the presence and the influence of those regional elites in the central institutions of Western European countries (including executive, legislative, and judiciary).

In concrete terms it questions this phenomenon through five perspectives: • access: how do peripheral elites come to power at the central level? What is the role of clientelist networks, political parties, and consociational arrangements? • integration: are peripheral elites conscious of their specificity? How do they strengthen their ties within the state institutions? • presence: where are peripheral politicians located in the state apparatus? Are there differences from one country to the other? • representation: are peripheral elites state- or region-oriented? • influence: what is the nature of their power and under which circumstances is it activated?