Local elections and representativeness

Abstract

Local elections are often treated as second-order, subordinate to the national electoral arena in a similar manner as the elections of the European Parliament are. Yet, local elections and political representation at the local level do not just “copy” the regularities well-known from the national level. Apart from observing peculiarities of local politics and “small-scale democracies”, the large number of local jurisdictions provides researchers with a unique opportunity to investigate the consequences of electoral rules and the relationship between electoral outcomes and policies using quasi-experimental designs. The papers in this panel explore the role of incumbency in local elections, and institutional drivers of the incumbency advantage. One of the papers examines the impact of descriptive female representation on land-use policies.

Title	Details
Local incumbency advantage versus national incumbency disadvantage – refining the second-order election model with arena-specific features	View Paper Details
Incumbents elected in proportional representation system struggle in majoritarian elections. Quasi-experimental evidence from Polish municipality elections	View Paper Details