Exogenous and endogenous determinants of Spanish mayors’ notions of democracy: a multilevel regression analysis

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21308/recp.46.03

Keywords:

notions of democracy, mayors, elite, ideology, career.

Abstract

A common ground in the literature on elite’s notions of democracy is (1) that leaders’ notions of democracy can be successfully captured by a representative-participatory dimension, and (2) that the way leaders view democracy is paramount to understand their behavior. Taking on an institutional perspective, the most common model combines an endogenous and exogenous origin of leaders’ notions of democracy. The theory assumes that both local institutional arrangements and personal characteristics may have an impact on the way local leaders perceive democracy and behave. However, while some evidence has been found to support the exogenous aspect of this theory (leaders’ ideology influence their notions of democracy), the impact of local institutional arrangements on leaders’ notions of democracy has received more limited empirical support. In this paper we provide a model of endogenous and exogenous factors on local elite’s notions of democracy. In particular, we show that local leaders’ political experience endogenizes the effect of ideology on their notions of democracy and on their support to democratic reforms. We test our model using survey data from a sample of mayors in Spanish municipalities and find empirical support for our model. One of our main findings is that the effect of ideology on mayors’ support for particular views of democracy decreases with political experience.

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Author Biographies

Joan-Josep Vallbé, Universitat de Barcelona

Politólogo con un fuerte componente empírico dedicado al análisis de instituciones y comportamiento político. Profesor agregado de ciencia política en la Universidad de Barcelona. Sus principales campos de investigación incluyen el comportamiento político; toma de decisiones en entornos organizativos; gobernanza urbana y metropolitana; análisis cuantitativo de datos textuales; indicadores de calidad institucional; visualización de datos; sociología política. Sus publicaciones y proyectos recientes tratan sobre los siguientes temas:

  • el impacto de la geografía económica sobre la fragmentación del voto de clase en sistemas políticos descentralizados
  • el efecto de la movilidad residencial en la participación cívica en procesos de suburbanización metropolitana (Magre, Vallbé, Tomàs, 2014)
  • el efecto de la movilidad residencial y la escala municipal sobre la participación electoral (Vallbé, Magre, en revisión)
  • la interacción de factores individuales y contextuales en la determinación de la identidad y las orientaciones políticas sobre gobernanza metropolitana (Vallbé, Magre, Tomàs, 2015)
  • el análisis de la toma de decisiones y el comportamiento en entornos organizativos (Vallbé, 2015)
  • la relación entre escala de las comunidades locales y la representación
  • el análisis de la relación entre transparencia y confianza en el gobierno

Ángel Iglesias, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

Profesor titular de Ciencia Política y de la Administración, profesor visitante de la Universidad de Münster (Alemania). Asimismo, ha impartido docencia de grado y de postgrado en diversas universidades de Europa, Estados Unidos y América Latina. Su ámbito de investigación se focaliza principalmente en los gobiernos locales desde una perspectiva comparada, habiendo participado en diversos proyectos competitivos de ámbito nacional y europeo y publicado sus resultados en revistas y editoriales nacionales e internacionales de alto impacto. Ha participado como asesor de diversos gobiernos europeos y latinoamericanos, nacionales, regionales y locales, en materia de reforma del gobierno local.

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Published

2018-03-23

How to Cite

Vallbé, J.-J., & Iglesias, Ángel. (2018). Exogenous and endogenous determinants of Spanish mayors’ notions of democracy: a multilevel regression analysis. Revista Española De Ciencia Política, (46), 49–75. https://doi.org/10.21308/recp.46.03

Issue

Número 46, marzo 2018

Section

Monographic Section

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Copyright (c) 2018 Joan-Josep Vallbé, Ángel Iglesias

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