Are municipal mergers an antidote to recruitment problems for local political office?

Michael A. Strebel
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Michael A. Strebel: University of Bern

No cyrtm_v1, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Local governments in many countries struggle to find candidates for elected office. In the resulting uncontested elections, voters cannot choose between different candidates and hold local representatives accountable. Amalgamation might be a solution for this challenge to democracy since larger jurisdictions need fewer elected officials per voter. Combining data on all Swiss local government mergers in the 21st century with data on local executive elections, this article assesses whether amalgamation reforms indeed increase candidate supply and hence local electoral contestation. Staggered difference-in-differences regressions show that amalgamation increases the number of candidates/seat. The underlying mechanisms seem to go beyond a ``mechanical'' effect that results from a mere expansion of the candidate pool. This study, thus, provides first empirical evidence that local government amalgamation might contribute to mitigate a hidden supply side crisis of electoral democracy at the local level.

Date: 2025-11-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:cyrtm_v1

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/cyrtm_v1

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