Who Supports Metropolitan Reform? Citizens' Attitudes in Four West European Countries

Decentralization processes occupy many countries since World War II. An intertwined process that affects countries’ multilevel governance structures is the rise of metropolitan areas. The way metropolitan areas should be governed has stirred a lot of debate. While metropolitan reformers advocate the consolidation and political integration of local governments in metropolitan areas, public choice scholars emphasize the virtues of politico-administrative fragmentation. To date, only little is known about citizens' attitudes towards the political organization of metropolitan areas. In this paper, I thus identify the supporters and opponents of metropolitan integration reforms. Due to the scarcity of research on metropolitan reforms attitudes, I draw on established theories of European integration attitudes and apply them to the metropolitan context. I distinguish utilitarian, ideational, and cognitive motivations for metropolitan reform support. Using data from a unique population-based online-survey administered on 5,000 respondents from eight metropolitan areas in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom in 2015, I show that attitudes towards consolidation and mergers, inter-municipal cooperation, and the introduction of a metropolitan government form one latent dimension of metropolitan reform support in all eight metropolises. The empirical analysis further suggests that support for metropolitan integration is contingent on socio-psychological rather than utilitarian considerations. Respondents identifying predominantly with their municipality and supporters of right-wing populist parties are skeptical of metropolitan reforms. Moreover, citizens more exposed to metropolitan issues hold more favorable attitudes towards metropolitan reforms and they extrapolate their support for metropolitan reforms from their trust in local government. By contrast, economic self-interest and pocketbook issues are not associated with metropolitan integration support. These findings suggest that attitudes towards political integration hinge on similar factors across different territorial scales. This has implications for our understanding of the conditions under which citizens support the reform of multilevel governance structures – within and beyond the state.