1 March 2021
Nuno F. da Cruz, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at LSE Cities, has published a new paper in Local Government Studies. The article, titled 'The quality of local democracy: an institutional analysis' is co-authored by Luís de Sousa, a research fellow at the University of Lisbon’s Institute of Social Sciences, and Daniel Fernandes, a doctoral researcher at the European University Institute.
The article develops a conceptual framing of the quality of democracy and tests it in all 278 local governments in mainland Portugal. It then explores the relationship between local democracy and a range of political and socioeconomic factors. The results suggest that municipalities led by independent mayors, with larger populations and higher levels of multiculturalism are likelier to be associated with ‘better’ local democracy.
You can access the article here.