Independent local lists, i.e. political parties that are ‘solely locally organised’, and compete for voters in ‘one single local jurisdiction’, have increased their voter support in Western Europe in the last fifteen to twenty years. The opposite holds for Central and Eastern Europe, viz. a general decrease in voter support. ...
(Show more)Independent local lists, i.e. political parties that are ‘solely locally organised’, and compete for voters in ‘one single local jurisdiction’, have increased their voter support in Western Europe in the last fifteen to twenty years. The opposite holds for Central and Eastern Europe, viz. a general decrease in voter support. One explanation of the former pattern refers to the ‘crisis of the [established] party system’, whereas the later pattern arguably reflects the ‘consolidation of the party system and the gradual strengthening of political parties as the main players in post-communist democracy’ (Reiser and Holtmann 2008: 287-288). Regional and country specific variations therefore make a general assessment of the role of local lists difficult. Even if we limit our attention to Western Europe and accept the notion of a party system in crisis – whether or not caused by the cartelization of traditional political parties, and the gradual withdrawal of their leadership from everyday life of ‘ordinary people’ – several, alternative interpretations of independent local lists are allowed for.
For example, independent local lists may simply be an expression of discontent with the ‘big players’ in politics (Sannerstedt 2010: 98-99), a form of discontent which might be labelled populism (Mudde 2004, 2007). But, if so, the pattern is paradoxical: Local lists for instance in the Nordic countries retain organizational features typical to their ‘elitist’ competitors among traditional political parties (Ahlberger & Åberg 2014, Aars & Ringkjøb 2008: 231). Furthermore, local lists tend to cooperate with traditional parties, despite their allegedly non-establishment and non-partisan profile.
A second interpretation draws less on the presumed populist traits of independent local lists. Rather, support for them is considered as an expression of forms of civic engagement that the traditional parties have neglected, or simply failed to channel (Wollmann 2006, Meligrana 2014, Meyer & Miller 2015). Surges in non-traditional voting thus indicate a rupture in the party-system (Bäck 2010: 128): politics on the municipal level is becoming increasingly detached from the organizational framework of established political elites. The latter lose their traditional ‘integrative function’.
Both scenarios are consistent with the idea that the emergence of independent local lists indicates a new centre-periphery dimension in European politics, similarly to the green-alternative-libertarian and traditional-authoritative-nationalist dimension. Presumably these parties express not only a conflict between grass roots and old, local elites, but also a conflict between local communities and the ‘centre’ of the nation-state.
Local level studies of party systems transformation that might help us develop theoretical tools and formulate hypotheses to answer these questions are, however, lacking. Importantly, the circumstance that local lists seem to appear primarily in certain, historically speaking specific regions, has been neglected. A bottom-top approach, involving in-depth analysis of a limited number of cases, provides a way forward. The paper presents a comparative case study of two Swedish municipalities based on historical sources, statistical data, focus group interviews, and analysis of Internet-based political communication.
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