Local territorial attachment in times of jurisdictional consolidation

Hansen, Sune Welling; Kjær, Ulrik

doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102268

Cited by 9 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…The recent quasi-experimental evidence suggests that at best administrative capacity and population size constitute a trade-off between the technical efficiency in the public sector and citizens' effectiveness (e.g. Allers and Geertsma 2016;Blesse and Baskaran 2016;Cobban 2017;Blom-Hansen, Houlberg, and Serritzlew 2014;Blom-Hansen et al 2016;Bhatti and Hansen 2019;Hansen 2015;Hansen, Houlberg, Pedersen 2014;Hansen and Kjaer 2020;Lassen and Serritzlew 2011;Moisio and Uusitalo 2013;Slack and Bird 2013). Moreover, while consolidations have proven to partially ameliorate public sector technical efficiency through economies of scale (see Chapter 3), consolidations have been found to deteriorate citizens' political efficacy, support, and participation (see Chapter 4).…”

Section: Acknowledgementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent systematic reviews find "overwhelming" evidence supporting this claim (McDonnell 2020: 340;Tavares 2018: 11). The bulk of the evidence exploits the Danish quasi-experiment determining the effect of polity size on internal efficacy (Lassen and Serritzlew 2011), satisfaction with local government performance and democracy (Hansen 2015), confidence in local authorities (Hansen 2012), community attachment (Hansen and Kjaer 2020), and the voter turnout rate (Bhatti and Hansen 2019).…”

Section: Local Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Through the research articles, I regard the reform as exogenous to sub-national authorities, local constituents and companies, following prior studies exploiting the municipal amalgamations to assess the effect of population size on procedural and substantive qualities of local government (e.g. Blom-Hansen 2010;Houlberg, and Serritzlew 2014;Blom-Hansen et al 2016;Bhatti and Hansen 2019;Hansen 2015;Hansen, Houlberg, Pedersen 2014;Hansen and Kjaer 2020;Lassen and Serritzlew 2011).…”

Section: The Reform As Research Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It refers to one of the most enduring struggles in political science since Plato; to define the optimal polity size for effective representation and efficient governance shaping citizens' political efficacy, system support, and participation (Bhatti and Hansen 2019;Hansen 2012;Hansen and Kjaer 2020;Lassen and Serritzlew 2011) and hence the accountability, responsiveness, and legitimacy of local self-government (Beetham and Weir 1999). The theoretical arguments and the empirical studies, however, neglect the effects of the spatial distribution of local government administration and service institutions.…”

Section: Chapter 4 the Quality Of Local Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such, political community attachment becomes synonymous with the sentiments expressed in various concepts tapping citizens' affective attachment to the social community or geographic place, as opposed to the effective attachment based on their political function within the community (Hansen and Kjaer 2020). The main difference is that while the social community or geographic area is defined by the citizens, the political community is limited by the administrative boundaries of the territory or citizenship.…”

Section: Community Qualities or Local Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Effects of Sub-National Government Consolidations: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Large-Scale Danish Structural Reform

Høst¹

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In the Ph.D. thesis, I assess the effects of local and regional government amalgamations on the most often mentioned issues addressed in comprehensive consolidation reforms, including local public sector efficiency, the quality of local democracy and local private-sector employment. I exploit a large-scale structural reform in Denmark in 2007 that substantially reshaped the boundaries of local and regional jurisdictions and unique register and survey panel data. The Ph.D. thesis includes four self-contained research articles.In research article 1: Kommunalreformens og sanktionslovgivningens betydning for den geografiske centralisering af kommunernes administration og service, I assess the spatial redistribution of local public funds, including the employment in local government administration, childcare, primary school and eldercare until six years after the reform. I further assess how the relative power of the mayor, the financial executive committee, and the municipal managers condition the location decision. The results suggest that the local government consolidations resulted in a spatial centralisation of the local public administration. However, it had no or modest effects on the locations of the core public services, given the relative political power of the mayor, the financial executive committee, and the municipal managers. RESEARCH PAPERS AND THEIR PUB-LICATION STATUS Research articlesThis thesis comprises of four self-contained research articles together with this summary report. The four research article are listed below:Research article 1: Høst, A.K. (2018). "Kommunalreformens og sanktionslovgivningens betydning for den geografiske centralisering af kommunernes administration og service". Politik og Økonomi, 91(4): 50-63Research article 2: Høst, A.K. (2021). "Jurisdiction size and local government administrative expenditures -Quasi-experimental evidence on the effect of spatial centralization, and labor input".

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