Citizens and local government legitimacy in Sweden: individual and contextual variations

Transcription

1 Citizens and local government legitimacy in Sweden: individual and contextual variations Presenteras vid XX Nordiska Kommunforskarkonferensen november, Göteborg Katarina Roos, fil.dr Anders Lidström, professor Statsvetenskapliga institutionen Statsvetenskapliga institutionen Umeå universitet Umeå universitet Umeå Umeå Telefon: Telefon: E-post: E- post: Arbetsversion, var vänlig citera ej utan tillstånd.

2 Abstract How do citizens generally perceive their local government? Does it live up to their expectations? Do citizens see it as a legitimate political institution that produces satisfactory political outcomes? Do they trust their elected representatives and their ability to respond to the demands of their voters? These are key questions in the study of local democratic governance. The main contribution of this paper is empirical; the paper aims at describing variation between individuals and municipalities with regards to how citizens evaluate local government. Who are the satisfied and demanding citizens? The empirical question touches upon several theoretical concepts, such as political satisfaction, political participation and influence, trust and political legitimacy. This paper elaborates on the latter. Unlike states, local governments do not gain legitimacy through independent evaluations or external criteria. Thus local legitimacy is interpreted as a relation between local government and the citizens. The empirical outcomes in this paper are citizen attitudes to possibilities to influence local political decision-making (input-legitimation), citizens perceptions of the openness of institutions and processes (throughput-legitimation) and citizens satisfaction with local policy outcomes (output-legitimation). The analysis is based on survey data from Sweden. The material used is The Statistics Sweden citizen survey, a survey which covers a large sample of individuals in a great number of municipalities. The data is analyzed using multilevel modeling in MlwiN. 2

3 Introduction 1 Social scientists do not fully understand the relationship between satisfaction with day-to-day government and support for democracy as a regime, but one thing is clear: the future of democratic governance matters very much. (Nye, 1997: 4). This article takes interest in the democratic performance of local government, or rather how it is seen by its citizens, i.e. perceived performance. The main aim is to examine the variation in support between different groups of citizens. Who are the supportive versus the critical citizens? These are key questions in this paper. The political setting of the scene is Sweden and Swedish municipalities. Local government is the tier of government which is closest to the citizens. This implies a challenging position, between the regulations of the central government and - the sometimes conflicting - demands of the citizens. Moreover, as Sharpf argues: the democratic legitimacy of self-governing territories is under stress because of an increased economic interdependence which reduces the ability of all governments to achieve the purposes, and to solve the problems, that have high salience for their citizens. This in turn may generate growing dissatisfaction with the government of the day, and perhaps a more general disaffection with the democratic political system as such, reflected in political abstention, alienation or growing support for system-critical movements (Sharpf 1998, 5). This description was originally intended to describe the situation of states but is also valid for local governments of today. It may seem as a long way between Kiruna (the northern-most municipality in Sweden) and the financial centers of the world. But despite the great spatial distances, Swedish municipalities have been affected by the disturbing course of events in the global economy and the recent development in for example Greece. Many local governments in Sweden have adjusted their budgets to fit growing unemployment and reduced tax revenues (Swedish Radio, ; This short description serves as an example of the complex reality that local government is part of, and which as Sharpf points to, may affect peoples perceptions and support. Representative institutions rely on the support of their citizens (Maier 2011) in order to be considered legitimate, but what happens if the citizenry are becoming ever more critical to the power relation? Research has indeed shown that citizens in the western part of the world are becoming less trusting (Nye et. al. 1997, Norris 1999, Holmberg 1999), more reluctant to participate in traditional politics and less satisfied with democracy (Klingemann & Fuchs 1995, Dalton 2004). This is well documented in the case of national governments, but not so much with regards to local government. The theoretical concept which this article mostly relies on is legitimacy, or rather legitimation. Democratic legitimacy is closely linked to democratic performance and concerns how power may be 1 This study is carried out within the Research project 2008:1556 on Local Government Legitimacy, financed by the Swedish Research Council, and lead by Professor Anders Lidström, Dept. of Political Science, Umeå University, Sweden. We are grateful to Statistics Sweden that has made the data set on The Statistics Sweden citizen survey ( Medborgarundersökningen, year ) available for research, and to the Regional Ethics Committee at Umeå University which has given us permission to use the data as intended (ref no Dnr Ö). 3

4 used in ways that citizens consciously accept (Gilley 2006, 499). According to Haus and Heinelt (2005) local government performance, or rather failure should be analyzed in terms of legitimacy, efficiency and effectiveness. A lack of legitimacy is usually related to a loss of trust in the problemsolving and interest-mediating capacity of representative institutions, a lack of effectiveness is usually seen as the actual inability of these institutions to implement decisions taken by these representative institutions (Haus & Heinelt 2005, 13). Hence we need to look at both the input- and the output-side of the political system if we wish to analyze the performance of local government. The fact that local governments are not sovereign like states may be one of the reasons why the concept of legitimacy traditionally has been associated to the latter. They are however elected and held accountable by their citizens, and just like states, they form independent relations with their citizenry. Furthermore sub-national government builds on representative, democratic institutions and must exert their powers under the rule of law in the same manner as states; no matter how extensive or restricted those powers may be (Lidström & Eriksson 2009; Lidström & Roos 2010). Moreover, in many European countries local governments are responsible for essential societal functions (Lidström 2003). Sweden (and the Scandinavian countries) is of particular interest in this regard because of the long and strong tradition of self-governing municipalities that are responsible for the lion part of the societal welfare services. Hence Sweden is a suitable context for the study of legitimation of local government. Another advantage to study the sub-national level within one specific country is that the institutional setting and national conditions, which sometimes may be difficult to measure, are held constant and thereby controlled for (Pettersson & Lundåsen 2009). But is it reasonable to believe that citizens form independent evaluations of local government or does peoples support simply reflect evaluations of the national government? Jennings argues that subnational government is portrayed by citizens as more accountable, more accessible, and more responsive than the central government (1998). According to Wolak and Kelleher Paulus it is reasonable to expect that citizens evaluate local government from a specific set of criteria since subnational governments have different responsibilities, make different sorts of policies, and are more proximate to voters than the national government (2010). If however legitimation of local government is a simple reflection of the legitimacy of the central government, this has implications of what local government can do in order to improve their democratic performance (see Wolman & Goldsmith 1992). Sharpf argues that governments respond to the growing interdependence (as described above) by putting emphasis on the output-dimension of legitimation, i.e. they try to gain legitimacy by being efficient. But the increase in output effectiveness seems to have a high price in terms of input-oriented legitimacy (Sharpf 1998). What he describes is a tradeoff between democratic and efficiency values. The understanding of legitimation in this paper is empirically oriented. Legitimation is seen as a constant process in which citizens evaluate local government. This evaluation is done with regards to how open citizens believe that the system is for political participation and influences (inputlegitimation), to what extent they see the institutions and processes as transparent and predictable (throughput-legitimation) and with regards to how satisfied they are with the capacity to deliver efficient solutions in terms of services (output-legitimation). The main aim is to study the variation in citizens perceptions of local government performance by using the three dimensions of legitimation defined by Sharpf (1999) and Haus and Heinelt (2005), and to analyze whether this variation can be explained by individual level determinants. 4

5 Theoretical approach Traditionally, the concept of legitimacy has been used to describe the fundamentals for power exercising of states. In this paper however, the power relation between citizens and local government is under study. Many scholars have devoted their time to study why peoples confidence in (central) government rises and falls and others have analyzed the variation over time and between different national contexts (Wolak & Kelleher Palus 2010). There are also a substantial number of studies of citizens trust in local government (see for example Denters 2002, Norén Bretzer 2005, Rahn & Rudolph 2005, Lidström 2008). These and other studies have contributed to a better understanding of how citizens evaluate government, but they tend to focus on the input-side of the political system (Lidström & Eriksson 2009). Other studies have rather focused on the output-side, focusing on citizens evaluations of system delivery (Rothstein 2010). Legitimacy as it is perceived and operationalized in this paper, offers a more comprehensive and multi-dimensional approach since it enables us to consider legitimation processes both in the input-, throughput- and the output-side of the local political system. The concept of legitimacy There are two main approaches to the concept of legitimacy; a more normative and a more empirical understanding. The first one is more philosophically oriented and focuses on why, and under which conditions, citizens ought to subordinate themselves under political rule, while the latter tries to answer questions of how and why citizens comply (Ansell 2001). Weber (1947) defined legitimacy as the willingness to comply with a system of rule. This definition emphasizes that the compliance must be based on a belief in the legitimacy of the political system, as opposed to compliance that adheres from fear, tradition or affection. Beetham (1991) has redeveloped the Weberian understanding of the concept. According to Beetham a power relation is not legitimate because people believe in its legitimacy, but because it can be justified in terms of their beliefs (Beetham 1991, 11). He identifies three criteria for a legitimate power relation; legality, justification and acts of consent. First of all government must conform to established rules, and it has to acquire and exercise political power in accordance with rules and regulations. This condition creates a situation where the political system is predictable and its actors are held accountable (Gilley 2006). Secondly the practice of power is justified by a common framework of belief (Beetham 1991, 69) between rulers and the ruled. This is sometimes describes as a social contract between citizens and the state. Thirdly citizens must support government by positive actions that acknowledges the state s right to practice its power (Beetham 1991, xx?). The government is illegitimate if it does not respect the law; a legitimacy deficit emerges if there is a discrepancy in the moral discourse between the different parts of the power relation; and a situation of de-legitimation emerges if the public does not support government with their actions (Gilley 2006). The weaker its legitimacy, the less a government can rely on the obedience or support of its subjects when it comes under stress, or requires their particular cooperation to effect its policies (Beetham & Lord 1998, 9). Thus a democratic political system requires the support of its members for its long term survival. The concept is relative as it ranges from weak to strong. The stronger citizens believe that a political authority rightfully hold and exercise power the more legitimate it is 2 (Gilley 2006). 2 Strong legitimacy is usually associated with strong democracy, but an authoritarian regime may also enjoy support among its citizens, but in that case it reflects how strongly such regimes are holding on to power ( ) 5

6 Legitimacy is on the one hand a belief held by the subjects, a conviction that the exercise of power is legitimate. On the other hand it is a property of or rather a claim made by the governing authority (Barker 1990, 59). This paper relates to the first one of these two, as it studies legitimacy, or rather legitimation, from the perspective of the citizens. The framework used is developed by Haus and Heinelt (2005) but draws on the work of Easton (1965a, 1965b, 1975). The authors argue that government failure is either linked to problems related to representative institutions or to problems associated with the complexity of modern societies. A number of questions need to be posed in order to analyse government performance or its opposite, failure. The first question is whether political decisions solve the problems which they were intended to, is local government capable of identifying suitable political strategies and to follow those strategies? This question addresses effectiveness in relation to problem-solving. The second question is whether the social environment of the political system, accepts and supports it? This question relates to legitimacy which Haus and Heinelt summarizes as acceptance, trust and support as well as political justifiability and enforceability (2005, 14). The third question relates to efficiency: does local government organise their activities so that resources are handled rationally and efficiently? This is described in terms of three dimensions of governability. In their general form they could be applied to any political system, but in relation to democratic systems they are translated into three dimensions of legitimation. The first dimension is input-legitimation. A democratic system must provide real opportunities for public participation so that citizens can voice their consent or dissent in the making of policy. It is about getting one s voice heard and one s vote counted (Haus & Heinelt 2005, 15). The second dimension is output-legitimation, which refers to the effective problem-solving capacity of the political system. These two dimensions were originally identified by Sharpf (1998, 1999), who developed a theoretical framework for the analysis of the legitimacy of the European Union. According to this line of reasoning, a political system should be judged by the performance of its representative institutions, whether they provide opportunities for participation and whether they deliver effective policy outcomes. However, Haus and Heinelt (2005) argue that a third dimension needs to be added: throughput-legitimation. This relates to the transparency of institutions and processes. The procedures of political decision-making which transforms input into output must be transparent and open for scrutiny so that one can trust that procedures are just and fair (Haus & Heinelt 2005, 14-15). The three dimensions of democratic legitimation can be summarized as follows: Table 1. Dimensions of legitimation. Principle Criteria Phenomena of crisis Input-legitimation Participation Consent Decrease of voter turnout Throughput-legitimation Transparency Accountability Opaque institutions Output-legitimation Effectiveness Problem-solving Policy failure Source: Haus and Heinelt 2005, 15. Together these three dimensions stand for the complex requirements of a sufficient problemsolving capacity of democratic self-government (Heinelt & Haus 2005, 14, see also Scharpf 2000). As Haus and Heinelt point out, they are reflected in the attempts of modern governments to vitalize regardless of whether citizens are so intimidated by the government that they cannot openly express their distrust or whether citizens attitudes have been shaped by the information and propaganda manipulated by the government (Won et al 2011, 263). 6

7 representative democracy. It is rather telling that the means that have been identified as solutions to problems which democratic regimes are facing are more or less the same: different ways of enhancing public participation (participation in elections, citizen panels and audits, participatory budgeting etc.) and restoring the publics trust in political institutions, the creation of more transparent procedures and institutions and the creation of market-oriented ways of organizing public activities and service production (New Public Management) in order to enhance efficiency. In sum these attempts are means to increase consent, accountability and problem-solving capacities, which are identified as criteria of legitimation in table one. The concept of legitimacy describes a static property (the acceptance of a political order) of a system or a static state. The use of the more dynamic term legitimation represents a process-oriented approach which describes the process by which the governing authority gain acceptance by justifying its own authority (Sharpf 2000). In this sense, the term legitimation and delegitimation imply the more active processes by which legitimacy is created and maintained or eroded and lost (Ansell 2001, 8706). How do the three dimensions of legitimation relate to each other? Is one of them more important in creating legitimacy than the others? Neither Sharpf (1999, 2000) nor Haus and Heinelt (2005) provide any clear answers to that question. A non-democratic system might sustain if it manages to deliver on the output-dimension, but it is difficult to portray a democratic political system without popular consent. It is reasonable that the three dimensions and their criteria may not be equally important at all times for all systems. It is also possible that strength in one dimension can make up for deficits in another. Efficient output could, at least for shorter periods of time and at least theoretically, make up for poor input-legitimation. The dimensions may also stand in conflict at times. There may be situations where it is difficult to create efficient solutions while at the same time achieving popular support for those solutions, causing a trade-off between input-legitimation and output-legitimation. This scenario is the one that Sharpf describes (1998) which was mentioned in the introduction of this paper. The somewhat lame conclusion is thus that all three dimensions are important for the longterm survival of democratic political systems. The theoretical framework that has been described above will be used to structure the analysis of the empirical data. Legitimation is seen as a continuing evaluation of the democratic performance of local government made by the citizens with regards to the inputs-, throughputs- and outputs of the political system (Lidström & Eriksson 2009). The next section discusses how the different concepts in the framework are operationalized empirically. Methodological considerations Measuring legitimation There are two ways of analysing legitimation; the process by which local government achieves consent, accountability and problem solving. The first way is to study how citizens act in relation to local government (political participation/action) and/or by how they think of the local authority (political attitudes). Studies of behaviour would imply looking at activities that are carried out by citizens in an attempt to support or undermine the present order (Lidström & Eriksson 2009, Lidström & Roos 2010). Signs of weak public support could for example be that citizens organise into protest, organise private ways of solving collective problems, refrain from voting, or simply move. It 7

8 is however difficult to find unambiguous indicators. Low turnout can for example be interpreted as citizens turning their backs to power. But it could also be seen as passive support of the current political order. Furthermore, low turnout may reflect weak political interest and poor political knowledge, rather than distrust and cynicism. Studies of political attitudes on the other hand are associated to other problems. Firstly, there is the risk of capturing temporary attitudes rather than more fundamental, stable values (Norén Bretzer 2002, Maier 2011). The use of panel- and time series data is one way to tackle this problem. The data which is used in this article is based on a large number of cases which minimizes the risk that specific conditions and events will affect the results significantly (Lidström & Eriksson 2009). Secondly, legitimation is an abstract theoretical concept which is not easily measured empirically. As described earlier, the framework developed by Sharpf (1999, 2000) and Haus and Heinelt (2005) is used as a means of structuring the empirical analysis. According to this framework we should take interest in three principles; participation, transparency and efficiency, and three criteria; consent, accountability and problem-solving. In this article we do this by studying the evaluations of local government made by citizens with regards to input, throughput and output. This study builds on citizens perceptions of these principles and criteria; how they evaluate possibilities for participation, how they perceive possibilities for public control, and what they think of the service delivery of local government. Their answers are based upon their expectations, beliefs and experiences. This is described into greater detail after the next section in which the data set is presented. The Citizen Survey The empirical data which is used in this paper is collected from an extensive data base held by The Swedish Statistics Agency (SCB). Since the autumn of 2005 SCB has conducted a citizen survey (postal questionnaire) twice a year; The Statistics Sweden Citizen Survey, which targets residents in Swedish municipalities. So far, the majority, 230 out of 290 municipalities have participated, and 155 have taken part more than once. Depending on the population size in each locality, a simple random sample of 500 or 1000 respondents is selected. The response rate is on average around 60 percent. The survey is administered and analyzed by SCB but it is financed by the participating municipalities and its primary purpose is to provide the latter with indicators for urban planning. The sample is based on self-selection, which is a potential problem. As the majority of all municipalities have participated, this is a minor problem though. The survey has been carried out in twelve waves; spring and autumn every year from the start in In this article the ones conducted in spring 2009 and spring 2010 will be used. 3 Earlier surveys are somewhat limited with regards to background information about the respondents. Since 2009 however, SCB adds socioeconomic variables for every individual to the data set, thereby making it more useful for research. The data set is naturally hierarchical as the citizens are nested within municipalities. The respondents have been selected using cluster sampling; municipalities have been identified first, and a random sample of individuals has been selected in those localities. The primary focus in this article is not to 3 The data from the second survey in 2009 will be added at a later stage when it has been completed with some additional variables. The questionnaire was redesigned for the second survey in 2010 and therefor data collected during this occasion cannot be used in this article. 8

9 explore variation between municipalities but to study the effects of individual level characteristics on the outcomes. Both the natural hierarchy and the selection procedure motivate the use of multilevel analysis since there are strong reasons to believe that observations are systematically correlated. Multilevel modeling takes into account and models variation at different levels in the hierarchy simultaneously (Hox 2002, Snijders & Bosker 2004, Eriksson 2007). Operationalizing legitimation citizens evaluations of local government performance Since this is a reanalysis of data that has been collected for other purposes, there are some limitations as to what can be achieved in terms of research. The throughput-dimension of legitimation would ideally be measured using questions about institutional transparency and fairness in political procedures. There are however no items in the survey that measure this dimension in a satisfactorily manner, only a set of questions about municipal information (that are turned into an additive index), and thus we will mostly focus on the input- and output-dimension of legitimation. These two dimensions are operationalized as citizens evaluations of local government performance with regards to the input- and the output-side of the system. The questionnaire has a whole series of questions regarding opportunities for political participation and the responsiveness of, and trust in local politicians. An index was created using those questions. This index correlates strongly with one single question (r=0.815) which measures citizens satisfaction with the opportunities to influence local government, and thus the latter will be used to operationalize the input-dimension of legitimation. Output-legitimation relates to citizens evaluations of the public services, delivered 4 by local government. The survey has an extensive section of questions which deal with the quality of different public services. An analysis 5 showed that the attitudes to these are clearly separated into two dimensions; welfare services that municipalities are obliged to provide (compulsory) and services that are voluntary. It is clear that citizens evaluate public services differently depending on the nature of them. Thus, two indices are calculated: one for compulsory welfare services such as education and care for the elderly, and one for voluntary services such as cultural facilities and rescue services. The dependent variables are presented more into detail in table 1. To each of the individual questions, respondents have been asked to indicate their answers on a scale ranging from one to ten, one representing not at all satisfied and ten representing very satisfied. The two output-indices are additive and the dependent variable is the mean. An observation is considered as missing only if all questions in the index are left unanswered. 4 The public services are delivered, but not necessarily produced, by local government. Market-oriented solutions are common in Swedish municipalities. The services are financed by tax revenues but often the producers of these services are actors within the private sector. 5 Confirmatory factor analysis Principal Component Analysis (Varimax rotation) generated two factors that account for 63 percent of the total variance. Correlations (r xy ) between variables in the welfare service index vary between and and between variables in the voluntary service index between and KMO=

10 Table 2. Operationalization of the dependent variables. DIMENSION Operationalization Citizens evaluations of: Input-legitimation Output-legitimation Opportunities to influence municipal decisions and activities Compulsory welfare services Pre-school/childcare Compulsory school Upper-secondary school Care for the elderly Social services Voluntary services Streets and local roads Bicycle- and pedestrian roads Sports and recreational facilities/services Cultural facilities/services Environmental services and recycling Water and sewage Waste and refuse collection Rescue services Note: see Appendix A for further information about the variables. We are not interested in how well local government manages to fulfill personal needs and wants, but rather how the collective good is realized. Personal experiences may be reflected in citizens evaluations of local government, but legitimation is about the capacity of the system to meet collective, not private demands (Lidström & Roos 2010). The questions in the questionnaire are framed in such a way that this should be clear. What affects citizens evaluation of local government? If we look at the neighbouring concept of trust, there are broadly speaking two approaches to the question above (Mishler & Rose 2001, Wong et al 2011). According to the first - the cultural approach - trust in political institutions is seen as exogenous to the political domain. Thus trust originates in interpersonal trust, deeply seeded cultural norms which are socialized in early age and later in life transmitted to political trust, creating a civic culture in society (Almond & Verba 1963, Inglehart 1997, Putnam 1993, 1995). If we translate this into legitimation, consent is seen as exogenous, as something that is independent of the actions of local government but rooted in cultural norms and values. This perspective has been criticized because of its deterministic feature. The institutional approach on the other hand, considers trust as a result, not as a cause of institutional performance. Thus it is politically endogenous, a function of the extent to which these institutions produce desired outcomes (Wong et al 2011, 265). According to this line of reasoning, trust is a rational response of citizens to policy outcomes. Political institutions which are considered to do well will be trusted by citizens. Thus in terms of output-legitimation, local government receives its support by performance. The two approaches are often portrayed as competing but in practice they can be used simultaneously in order to generate hypotheses. The cultural approach identifies early childhood learning by socialisation while the institutional focus on adult learning with the performance of 10

11 political institutions. A key difference is durability. Attitudes learned by the individual in early life are more likely more durable than the ones learned later in life by experience. In addition micro-institutional theories recognize that evaluations of performance reflect not only the aggregate performance of government but also individual circumstances and values (Mishler & Rose 2001, 36). Social position and personal background can have an influence on how one assesses policy outcomes. Citizens evaluations of local government may vary with regard to both individual and contextual characteristics. Different individuals may have different opinions because of who they are in terms of gender, social background, values and experiences. Both the cultural and the institutional approach suggest that micro-level processes are of importance (Mishler & Rose 2001). The very way to describe legitimacy in terms of citizens evaluations of local government reflects an institutional understanding of the concept. At the same time some of the predictors in the model are within the cultural tradition. Social capital is not something that is elaborated extensively in this paper, but some of the predictors in the model touch upon the concept. But first and foremost, this study emphasises micro-level processes which shape the individuals perception of local government. Gender, age and socioeconomic characteristics In this article we are primarily interested to explore individual level characteristics that can explain variations in support of local government. The first variable which we focus on is sex. Much has happened in terms of gender equality during the last decades in Sweden, but women still tend to take greater responsibility for the household, for taking care of children and the elderly. Thus women are generally more likely to have frequent contacts with the municipality in terms of their different roles as care takers, both in their personal lives but also professionally as employees. Moreover, research has shown that Swedish women participate more in politics than men do. This might also be reflected in their perception of possibilities to influence local government and of welfare services. The second predictor that we want to examine is age. It is reasonable to assume that different age groups are more or less supportive of local government. The life-cycle hypothesis assumes that individuals are being socialized into political attitudes and behaviours all through their life. As individuals grow older, they will become more supportive of government as they learn more about political life and conditions (Almond & Verba 1963). Over course of time, citizens learn social capital (Norén Bretzer 2005). A second way of describing the relationship between age and political attitudes is that every generation holds similar values and attitudes, which they cling on to as they grow older (see for ex Inglehart 1990). The first perspective implies that citizens support would change over time while the second assumes that differences between age effects adhere to cohort effects. Moreover, the individual will have different experiences of local government during different periods of life; as a pupil, as a parent, as a pensioner. It is nearly impossible not to consider the socioeconomic status model (SES) in the analyses. According to this sociological perspective, political attitudes and behaviours of individuals are related to their social position in society (Verba et al 1995). Socioeconomic factors may have a direct or indirect effect on the evaluation of local government. Studies of political trust have shown that people with high incomes and higher education are more trusting than others. People with a strong socioeconomic position are assumed to have resources, which enables them to cope with the risk that is associated with trusting others (Pettersson & Lundåsen 2009). A different perspective is offered by Norris and others (1995) who argue that as citizens have become more educated they 11

12 become more critical to, and less supportive of the political systems. Unfortunately we do not have access to data about the respondents educational level. The indicator used is personal income. Those who have higher incomes are expected to be more supportive of local government than those who belong to low-income groups. Another predictor which is used in the model is origin, which tells us where (which country or which continent) the respondent was born. On an aggregate level origin is highly correlated to socioeconomic status. Numerous studies have pointed to the great difficulties immigrants face when they are trying to integrate socially, politically and economically into Swedish society (Utanför demokratin, Integrationsverkets rapportserie 2000:16). It is for example well known that immigrants participate less in politics and that they have greater difficulties than Swedes to establish themselves on the labour market. This clearly motivates the inclusion of the predictor in the model. It is not an easy task to predicate whether citizens of foreign descent will be more or less supportive of local government than Swedes. It is also reasonable to expect that persons of different cultural backgrounds will make different evaluations. Civil status is also included in the model. Previous research has illustrated the importance of social networks for political attitudes and behaviours (Verba et al 1995). Therefore, persons in relationships (married, partner, cohabiting) are expected to make more positive assessments of local government than those who live alone. Evaluating local government from within Two more control variables are added to the model. The first one is whether the respondent is elected and holds a seat in any municipal assembly or board. Elected politicians are most likely more supportive of local government as they evaluate themselves in some sense. Secondly, being employed by the municipality may provide citizens with better opportunities to influence local authorities than other citizens, which can make them more supportive of the local authority. On the other hand, dissatisfaction with work related issues, may cast a shadow on the evaluation of local government. In the model where satisfaction with compulsory welfare services is the dependent variable, two more predictors are added. One is a dummy for personal experiences as a user of childcare, school, and care for the elderly and/or the social service. The second is a dummy for personal experience via a relative or next of kin who is a user of those services. All respondents are asked to answer the questions of service quality, but those who have experience, personal or via a relative, might have different opinions as compared to those who are not users. Local well being Wolman and Goldsmith (1992) have developed a theory of urban well-being (see also Lidström 2008). The latter is seen as an individual type of welfare; the satisfaction an individual derives from the life circumstances he/she experiences (Wolman & Goldsmith 1992, 22). This satisfaction has both a monetary dimension (income) but also a non-monetary dimension which relates to other values, such as social ones, but also to the physical environment. This is not a community characteristic, but an individualistic conception of welfare (1992, 23). The well-being of a city or a municipality is simply the aggregate sum of the well-being of all residents. The authors argue 12

13 however that the distribution of well-being among the citizens of the community is essential. The more equal the distribution is, the higher the community well-being is. The questionnaire includes a set of questions about the municipality as a place to live and work in; its geographical location and nature and surroundings, questions of possibilities for leisure and recreation, and questions of the labour market and opportunities for higher education and so forth. All of these factors most likely affect citizens in their daily lives and also reflects in the assessments of the political aspects of local government. Those who are more satisfied with the municipality as a place to live in are assumed to be more supportive of local government. 6 The questionnaire also includes a question of personal safety. 7 This may also be seen as an indicator of well-being. Another way to think of it is to see it as a crude proxy of social capital. Feelings of personal safety are most likely related to high levels of personal trust, while feelings of un-safety are related to low personal trust. Respondents, who do not feel safe in the municipality, are not very likely to trust others in the same locality. In a more general sense, personal safety may also have an indirect effect on the individual s assessment of local government. Feelings on safety and un-safety may have an effect on the individuals more general sense of quality of life, which in turn may affect the assessment of local government. Previous research has shown that in places where social capital is strong, where interpersonal trust and civic engagement is high, citizens are generally more trusting in sub-national levels of government (Woland & Kelleher Palus 2010). The full regression model As previously mentioned multilevel modelling will be used as the data set is naturally hierarchical and since one of the aims is to explore the variation in the dependent variable between municipalities. The regression model that will be run is the following: y ij ~N(XB, Ω) y ij = β 0ij + β 1 Sex woman ij + β 2Age 15thru29ij + β 3 Age 30thru49ij + β 4 Age 65thru85ij + β 5 Origin Nordicij + β 6 Origin Europeij + β 7 Origin Americaij + β 8 Origin Asiaij + β 9 Origin Africaij + β 10 Civilstatus singleij + β 11 Income lowij + β 12 Income mediumhighij + β 13 Income highij + β 14 Electedpolitician ij + β 15 Employed ij + β 16 Satisfaction lowij + β 17 Satisfaction mediumij + β 18 Safety lowij + β 19 Safety mediumlowij + β 20 Safety mediumhighij β 0ij = β 0 + μ 0j + e ij μ oj ~N 0, Ω μ : Ω μ = σ 2 μ0 6 The next step to develop this paper may be to study the effects of aggregate well-being, i.e. to explore the contextual variation between municipalities. 7 The question is formulated in the following way; To what extent are you satisfied with your municipality with regards to how safe you and your next of kin are in general? There are two more questions about personal safety; To what extent are you satisfied with your municipality with regards to how safe a) you feel when you are outside during night time and ) you feel against crimes such as burglary and theft. The three variables are highly correlated (r xy = thru 0.816) but instead of using an additive index only the first question is used. The question about safety during night time is designed for respondents living in an urban setting, and therefore this variable has many missing cases. 13

14 e oij ~N(0, Ω 0 ): Ω e = [σe 2 e0 ] The notation (ij) indicates that this is random intercept model in which the intercept, i.e. the grand mean for all of the municipalities, is allowed to vary. The mean value for citizens satisfaction with compulsory welfare services may for example vary between different municipalities due to contextual differences. In an ordinary regression model only one residual would be calculated, the residual which regards the unexplained variation between individuals (e). But in a multilevel model, a second residual will also be calculated (μ), which captures unexplained variation which adheres to contextual characteristics. Individual and contextual variation in citizens evaluation of local government It is now high time to take a closer look at the data. The first part of the empirical section of this paper gives a brief description of how Swedish citizens, at least in the 84 surveyed municipalities, evaluate local government on the input, - the throughput-, and output-side of the local political system. The second part is a multivariate analysis which decomposes and seeks to explain the variation in citizen satisfaction. Input-legitimation is as previously mentioned operationalized using one single question about citizens satisfaction with the opportunities to influence municipal decisions and activities. The mean score for this variable is 4.7. There is however a larger set of questions in the questionnaire which relates to citizens evaluations to the input-side of the local political system and we shall now take a closer look at them. Five of the items concern citizens attitudes toward opportunities for residents to influence local decision making. These are marked out in dark grey in Figure 1. The remaining aim to measure citizens trust in their local politicians, and are marked out in brighter grey. The scale ranges from a minimum of one to a maximum of 10. The mean values for the nine items is however more limited as it ranges between 4.4 and 5.4. None of the means are close to the top- or bottom end of the scale. Thus it is fair to say that the respondents in general are neither very satisfied nor dissatisfied with the opportunities for citizens to participate in- and to influence local policy making. The majority of the citizens are correspondingly, neither very trusting nor distrusting in relation to their political representatives. The respondents seem to think that it is fairly easy to make contact with local politicians, which is reasonable with regards to the closeness between elected and electorate at the local level. They are however, generally more critical to the possibilities for citizens to influence municipal decision-making and are also fairly skeptical to the responsiveness of the politicians. Making political contact is in other words considered to be easier than having an influence on local policy making. 14

15 Figure 1. Citizens satisfaction with opportunities for political influence and trust in local politicians. Mean values. 10,0 9,0 8,0 7,0 6,0 5,0 5,4 4,7 4,4 4,4 5,0 5,4 4,9 5,0 5,0 4,0 3,0 2,0 1,0 Note: Satisfaction: Contacts=opportunities for citizens to get into contact with local politicians, Responsiveness=how well local politicians consider opinions of the residents, Influence decisions/activities=opportunities for citizens to influence municipal decisions/activities, Representativity=whether opinions are represented among the local, political parties. Trust in local politicians: Public interest=to what extent local politicians act in the public interest, Knowledge=knowledge among local politicians, Responsibility=to what extent local politicians act responsible, Implementation=whether municipal decisions are implemented. The mean for the questions concerning trust in local politicians is also about five on the scale. The respondents are more confident that politicians act in the interest of the public but less confident in their knowledge, sense of responsibility and power to implement political decisions. The survey used is as previously mentioned, somewhat limited in terms of indicators of the throughput-dimension of legitimation. A set of questions about different aspects of municipal information is used. As shown in Figure 2 the respondents make fairly similar evaluations of these aspects. The mean value is about six for all of the items. Figure 2. Citizens satisfaction with five aspects of municipal information. Mean values. 10,0 9,0 8,0 7,0 6,0 5,0 4,0 3,0 2,0 1,0 6,0 5,9 5,9 5,8 Quality Time Extent Clarity Access 6,2 15

16 Note: Citizens satisfaction; Quality=assessment of quality of municipal information, Time=whether the municipality informs in due time, Extent of information, Clarity of information and Access to information. The mean scores for all of the questions that concerns municipal information is higher than for the items that were used previously as indicators of input-legitimation. Citizens are more confident in how the municipality informs about forthcoming decisions and activities than in their possibilities to influence local politics. The variation in citizens attitudes to welfare service delivery is greater. As previously mentioned, a distinction between compulsory and voluntary tasks is made since the two dimensions are empirically distinct. The respondents were asked to evaluate a number of compulsory tasks; school at different stages (pre-, compulsory-, upper-secondary school), care for the elderly and social services. These are marked out in darker grey in Figure 3. The voluntary tasks encompass a number of different areas, such as various forms of infrastructure and leisure and cultural facilities and activities. These are marked out in brighter grey. The mean satisfaction is lowest with regards to care for the elderly and highest in the case of water-, sewage-, and rescue services. Generally, citizens seem to be somewhat more satisfied with voluntary services than compulsory ones. The overall mean for the latter is 6.1 and 6.7 for the first group of welfare tasks. Figure 3. Citizens satisfaction with welfare service delivery at the municipal level. Mean values. 10,0 9,0 8,0 7,0 6,0 6,8 6,4 6,5 5,7 5,4 5,5 5,8 6,8 6,3 6,8 8,0 6,8 7,9 5,0 4,0 3,0 2,0 1,0 Note: for more information about the questions see Appendix A. Individual respondents may evaluate the different outcomes very differently, but this presentation shows that the variation on aggregate level is fairly moderate. The majority of citizens in the surveyed municipalities are neither very satisfied nor dissatisfied with regards to these outcomes. If 16

17 they were, the mean scores would be closer to the top and bottom ends of the scale (which ranges from one to ten). In Table 3, the variables in Figure 2 and Figure 3 have been collapsed into the three separate additive indexes; one throughput-index, one output-index which concerns compulsory welfare services, and one output-index which intends voluntary tasks. The respondents have been classified into three groups; low satisfaction, medium satisfaction and high satisfaction depending on the value of the four outcomes. This summarizes the picture already painted. The vast majority, more than 60 percent, of the respondents belong to the group in the middle. Table 3. A classification of citizens in three groups depending on their evaluations of local government. INPUT THROUGHPUT OUTPUT - COMPULSORY OUTPUT - VOLUNTARY Low (1-3) 26,8 12,9 10,8 2,2 Medium (4-7) 63,2 62,8 64,4 70,8 High (8-10) 10,1 24,4 24,8 27,1 N This way of illustrating the data illustrates more clearly that there is something special with the input-dimension. Only ten percent of the respondents are very satisfied with regards to the possibilities for citizens in general to influence local policy making. About one out of four respondents are dissatisfied with the possibilities. The picture is reverse in the case of the respondents evaluation of throughput and outputs. Ten percent are dissatisfied and approximately 25 percent is very satisfied. Who are the supportive and who are the critical citizens? Four regression analyses are presented in Table 4. The dependent variables are indicators that operationalize the input-, throughput-, and output-legitimation of perceived local government performance. The full model in which all variables are included is represented. The constant represents the grand mean for each of the four outcomes. This shows, as previously mentioned, that the respondents are generally less satisfied with the possibilities to influence politics and more satisfied with municipal information and with the quality of welfare services. The mean value for input (on the scale which ranges from one to ten) is about 5.7. The mean score for the rest of the outcomes is over 7. 8 This is a considerable difference. There are some interesting differences in the support for local government between different groups of citizens and also between the different outcomes. The single most important predictor in all of the four regression models is the citizen s general sense of satisfaction with the municipality as a place to live in. There are indeed big and significant differences between different groups of people. Citizens who are discontent score on average more than two points lower on the scales of the four outcomes. Those who are somewhat satisfied with the municipality as a locality score on average around one point lower on the same outcomes. The second most important predictor is safety. As hypothesized 8 The mean values differ from the ones presented earlier. The reason is that all cases with missing values on any of the variables in the regression model have been omitted from the file prior to the multivariate analysis. This enables comparisons between different models with the same dependent variable, but leaves us with a significantly smaller number of observations. This also affects the grand mean of the outcomes. 17