The Impact of Territorial Fragmentation on Local Elections: Evidence from the Municipal Splits in Poland

Debates on the impact of jurisdiction size on local democracy have a very long tradition, but in spite of numerous empirical studies, the results are still far from conclusive. Earlier studies focused predominantly on the amalgamation reforms, while in Central and Eastern Europe the opposite changes – the splits or “divorces” of municipal governments have been at least equally popular. Our paper attempts to analyze the impact of 12 municipal splits which took place in Poland in mid-1990s on the local electoral behavior in the subsequent electoral cycles. We look at the voter turnout, the supply of candidates to the local councils and the electoral competition measured by the number of candidates per one seat. Following the assumption that “size matters”, we apply a quasi-experimental approach, using Difference-in-differences design with continuous treatment (i.e. change of the population size). Such an approach allows addressing the role of jurisdiction size without selecting the control group (which may be exposed to the argument of arbitrary selection). In addition, we check to what extent the effects of splits differ between the municipalities which initiated the split and the municipalities which were “abandoned”. Our hypothesis suggests a stronger mobilization of both voters and candidates in the municipality which has initiated the split.