Local autonomy, municipal size and local political participation in Europe

ABSTRACT

Local autonomy in Europe has, on average, increased since 1990 and has decreased (a little) since 2009. The average population size of a European municipality has increased continuously during the last two decades. European countries with larger municipalities do not have more local autonomy. Citizens of large municipalities are less interested in local political matters. Inhabitants of small municipalities tend to be more interested in local political matters when their municipalities have more local autonomy while a similar strong correlation between local autonomy and local political interest cannot be established for larger municipalities. Finally, a discrepancy exists between the stated policy objectives of many European countries that support both decentralization and (more) local political participation on the one hand and actual policy results on the other hand that are not necessarily in line with increasing local autonomy and stimulating local political participation.

KEYWORDS:

• Local political participation
• municipal size
• local autonomy
• decentralization
• Europe

Notes

1 For example, when 10% of the population in a given European country frequently discusses local political matters while 20% in that same country frequently discuss national political matters, our index is (10/20) × 100 = 50. If only 5% frequently discusses national political matters, our local political interest index for this country would be (10/5) × 100 = 200.

2 As far as the choice for these three countries is concerned, as we have seen, Swiss municipalities have the most amount of local autonomy in Europe, British municipalities have a limited amount of local autonomy, while Dutch municipalities are included somewhere in the middle.

3 Of course, the level of decentralization in Switzerland depends on the canton, but nevertheless, as Ladner, Keuffer, and Baldersheim (2015) have shown, in general, Switzerland can be said to be the most decentralized European country.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pepijn van Houwelingen

Pepijn van Houwelingen works as a researcher within the research group ‘Participation, Culture and Living Environment’ of the Netherlands Institute for Social Research. In 2009, he received his PhD from Hiroshima City University for his thesis, entitled ‘Social Capital in Japan’ with a special focus on participation within Japanese neighborhood associations. His research involves social cohesion, decentralization, political participation, public opinion and civil initiatives.