Municipal size and local democracy: understanding the trade-off between participation and contestation in Latin America
Municipal size affects local democracy through two mechanisms - participation and contestation. By drawing on national-level theories of democracy, this article identifies a necessary tradeoff: decreasing municipal size maximises the participatory dimension of local democracy but reduces the level o...
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Published in | Local government studies Vol. 48; no. 5; pp. 951 - 972 |
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Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Abingdon
Routledge
03.09.2022
Taylor & Francis Ltd |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Municipal size affects local democracy through two mechanisms - participation and contestation. By drawing on national-level theories of democracy, this article identifies a necessary tradeoff: decreasing municipal size maximises the participatory dimension of local democracy but reduces the level of contestation, which is similarly crucial for a healthy democracy. Employing multilevel models that simultaneously account for national-level and local-level influences, this proposition is tested using a large dataset of over 9,000 municipalities in 15 Latin American countries with competitive local elections. The evidence supports the operation of such a tradeoff in a regional comparison, and single-country analyses suggest that it is present with varying force in most countries of the region. |
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ISSN: | 0300-3930 1743-9388 |
DOI: | 10.1080/03003930.2021.2013208 |