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Do Multi-Party Municipal Councils Improve Local Governance? Municipal Councillors’ Opinions in El Salvador
[journal article]
Abstract As decentralisation reforms devolved greater responsibilities to local governments, improving local governance has become central to strengthening democracy. With the promise of increasing citizen representation and government transparency at the local level, in 2015 El Salvador implemented a new el... view more
As decentralisation reforms devolved greater responsibilities to local governments, improving local governance has become central to strengthening democracy. With the promise of increasing citizen representation and government transparency at the local level, in 2015 El Salvador implemented a new electoral system. The new system allowed for the election of opposition parties in municipal councils for the first time. In the context of El Salvador, we examine how opposition parties’ numerical representation influences the views of governing and opposition party members about multi-party councils’ effectiveness to improve local governance. To test our hypotheses, we rely on data from an original elite survey of 303 municipal councillors in 101 municipalities, which we complement with qualitative information. Contrary to what the literature suggests, we do not find evidence that a stronger opposition leads to more negative evaluations among members of governing parties, notwithstanding the country’s polarised party system.... view less
Classification
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
Free Keywords
El Salvador; local governance; elite survey; decentralisation; local political institutions
Document language
English
Publication Year
2021
Page/Pages
p. 192-218
Journal
Journal of Politics in Latin America, 13 (2021) 2
ISSN
1868-4890
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed