Democratic Preferences of the Indirect Elected Mayor, Open or Locked-in. A Contribution to the 'Difference Hypothesis'

The directly elected mayor is a prominent feature of the democratic structural change of the local sphere. According the „mayoral saga“ (Marsh) the institutional change generates an array of advantages for local democracy (e.g. personalisation of power, going outwards to citizenry, direct involvement of citizens). The well established „difference“-hypothesis of the survey grounded research shows few slight differences between the democratic preferences of the directly resp. indirectly elected mayor. We chose the city of Vienna to investigate the difference hypothesis in a longitudinal study of eight referenda from 1973 until 2013. The indirectly elected mayor has been pressed to demonstrate political leadership. What is the interpretative repertoire that the mayor in office was using in talking about direct democracy? Do preferences change or are they still a manifestation of a constant lock-in to the representative local democracy? interpretative study of debates in the local council and related media coverage.