Local government amalgamations – a crucial case for analyzing the impact of citizen’s orientations towards local governments?

An important implication of the composite nature of local governments – as service providers, political arenas and carriers of place-based identities – is that citizens may adopt highly variant orientations towards local politics and local institutions. Notably, previous research has revealed systematic differences in attitudes between citizens with predominantly “user”-based orientations on the one hand, and those with an orientation more directly geared towards local governments as arenas for political interaction. Such differences may be more pronounced and easier to analyze in some contexts than other. In our view, decisions on local government amalgamations can be seen as “crucial” and “most likely” cases (Gerring 2007:120) for testing assumptions about the impact on political attitudes of differences in orientation towards local governments. Popular support for an amalgamation proposal, from a functional or user-based orientation towards local governments, would presumably depend on a belief about improvements in service provision as a result of amalgamation. From a political or citizen-oriented perspective, support would probably depend on a belief in strengthened political capacity following enlargement whereas opposition would be linked to a perception of reduced citizen influence over local decision making. Finally, citizens with a primary orientation towards local government as carriers of place-based identities, would presumably see amalgamation proposals as threats, and so oppose the proposal. Norway is currently in the process of carrying out a broad-scale amalgamation reform initiated in 2014. The paper seeks to explain variations in citizen’s attitudes towards this reform by using indicators of citizens’ orientations towards local governments. The analysis is based on data from the recently conducted Local Elections citizen’s survey. This survey has been conducted every four years since 1995, and constitutes a very rich source material for analyzing changes in popular attitudes towards local politics in Norway. Our analytical strategy is to identify groups of citizens with distinct orientations towards local governments, and seek to assess specific assumptions concerning the relationship between these orientations and their attitudes towards the amalgamation reform and its potential consequences.