Beyond Trustees and Delegates: Size and Representative Roles in Local Government

How do the councillors of smaller municipalities differ from those in larger cities in how they conceive their representative roles? The question regarding size has been a long-standing debate on the design and organisation of ancient and modern democracies (Dahl & Tufte, 1973). However, although there is a substantial body of empirical work on the relationship between size and local democracy, the connection between size and representation remains largely unaddressed (Denters, 2020). Representative roles have been widely discussed from multiple perspectives and different research questions; however, the underexamined connection with size is surprising considering that representation is the main arrangement in local politics. Size is a feature that determines the empirical variation between municipalities and encompasses a variety of direct and mediated effects, that give us a particular image of how democracy works in rural areas and small-scale municipalities (Denters et al., 2014; Gendźwiłł & Steyvers, 2021, McDonnell, 2019; Olivier et al., 2012). Size is linked with different citizen attitudes and administrative capacities, many of which may relate to representation, both due to differential difficulties in governing large and small scales and because intrinsic and extrinsic incentives differ for those running for these offices. However, the question about representative roles demands to be related to contemporary political theory, as it highlights that representation may involve significant complexities in how it operates. Empirical political science has remained largely disconnected from the debates highlighted by political theorists, hindering a more nuanced understanding of this linkage (Wolkenstein & Wratil, 2021). The aim of this study is to empirically understand the relationship between size and representative roles, drawing upon sources in contemporary political theory. Methodologically, I rely on survey data of a representative stratified sample of local councillors in Catalonia, which incorporates alternative ways of measuring representative roles. Catalonia is a pertinent context to study due to its uneven local landscape: from small and rural municipalities with fewer than 500 inhabitants to large cities in the metropolitan region of Barcelona. This degree of fragmentation, alongside the fact that it has not gone through recent amalgamation processes, allows for a wide range of variation of size as a factor.