Decentralisation and political participation: An empirical analysis in Western and Eastern Europe

Abstract

A major justification for bringing government “closer to the people” is that it improves the opportunities for and frequency of citizen participation in the political system. This article first reviews the major arguments for decentralisation and why it is credited with increasing participation. I then perform statistical analyses in 22 states with country-level decentralisation data and public opinion data drawn from the 2006 European Social Survey. The findings generally fail to support the conventional wisdom that decentralisation improves political participation.