A Democracy of Scale

Size and Representative Democracy in Swedish Local Government

Authors

  • David Karlsson School of Public Administration, University of Gothenburg

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.v17i1.16141

Keywords:

Size and democracy, Local government, Representative democracy, Political representatives, Sweden

Abstract

Two central mechanisms of representative democracy are A) the identification of the people’s will by elections and B) the process wherein elected representatives enforce pol- icies preferred by the voters. This article demonstrates that municipal size is of vital importance for how these two mechanisms function in Swedish local democracy. A prerequisite for mechanism A is that voters are provided with a variety of political alternatives to choose from. If the political alternatives are limited, voters will have trouble deciding which parties or candidates reflect their political opinions. To interpret election results as a manifestation of the people’s will in such situations is highly problematic. The study shows that the manifestation of political alternatives in local politics increases significant- ly with the size of the municipality. The results also show that the political knowledge and influence (in relation to national and local bureaucracies) of local political leaders correlate positively with municipal size. The conclusion is that the success of local political leaders in their endeavour to identify and enforce the will of the people depends on the size of the municipality they govern.

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Author Biography

David Karlsson, School of Public Administration, University of Gothenburg

David Karlsson is Associate Professor in Public Administration at School of Public Administration, University of Gothenburg. His research is focused on local and regional politics and democracy, especially the attitudes and practices of local representatives. This article is written within the project Local Political Leadership at the School of Public Administration, University of Gothenburg. The project is financed by The Swedish Research Council. As David Karlsson is the co-editor of this special issue, the ordinary editors of SJPA were responsible for the review process and publication decision regarding this article. E-mail: david.karlsson@spa.gu.se

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Published

2013-03-15

How to Cite

Karlsson, D. (2013). A Democracy of Scale: Size and Representative Democracy in Swedish Local Government. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 17(1), 7–28. https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.v17i1.16141

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