The impact of the central government’s intervention on local democracy

ABSTRACT

Does the central government’s intervention in the operation of failed local authorities affect the functioning of local democracy? We examined the theoretical and practical factors associated with the opportunities and risks inherent in an intervention policy in Israel called convened committees. We developed an index called the Effective Number of Council Parties by Seats at the Municipal Level (ENCPSML) and a number of measures that together express the degree of democratic representation, governability and voter turnout. We compare the functioning of democracy before and after the convened committees in 31 local authorities and a control group of 191 local authorities during four elections in 2003-2018. Contrary to what one might expect, convened committees did not hurt the exercise of democracy and in some cases, improved it. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of these findings in the context of multi-level governance, local democracy, regulation and coping with local crises.

KEYWORDS:

• Central government’s intervention
• convened committees
• democratic deficit
• representation
• governability
• effective number of council parties at the local level (ENCPSML)
• local crisis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We omitted regional councils because they have a different political system that consists of two layers based on the polling areas of the towns’ boundaries. Elections for regional councils usually take place on different dates than those for cities and local councils.

2. The measure normalises the size of the local councils in terms of the number of residents and number of seats.

3. In Israel, local elections are held every five years. In these elections, voters cast one vote for the party list, which is allocated seats on the council relative to the amount of support it receives, and one vote for the mayoral candidate. To be elected mayor, a candidate must receive 40% of all the valid ballots. If no candidate receives 40% of the votes, a runoff election between the two candidates with the most votes is held two weeks later.

4. The relatively large rise in political participation in 2018 can also be attributed to the fact that Election Day for the local elections became a statutory holiday for the first time that year.