Local Identity in Times of Jurisdictional Consolidation: Decline of Community or Huddle Around the Local Flag?

Reforming the public sector has become increasingly popular. Some of the reforms have been jurisdictional consolidations of subnational authorities such as regions and municipalities. One question which remains unanswered is whether such consolidations affect citizens’ local identity? We take a first step towards providing an answer by examining whether citizens’ affective attachment to their municipality – and other administrative and geographical areas – declined or flourished in connection with a large-scale municipal reform implemented in Denmark in 2007. Empirically, we make use of a dataset which consists of large scale citizen surveys conducted in 2001, 2009 and 2013, combined with register data on the Danish municipalities (the two surveys in 2001 and 2009 even have a panel structure). Our paper contributes to the existing literature on local identity by examining the influence of jurisdictional consolidations on citizens’ affective attachment.