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Using Sweden as an example, we propose the hypothesis that local candidate lists rest on a different rationale compared to national party lists, more specifically a rationality that has developed as a result of an altered relationship between the local and national levels and is expressed in terms of localism. The emergence of new local lists is most likely an effect of the challenges to the welfare state posed in the past 40 years. However, although local lists are essentially a recent phenomenon, our examples suggest that their existence can also be explained in terms of historical patterns of dissent from and resistance to state intervention at the local level.