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This article investigates the extent of and characteristics of localised voting in a Swedish context. Localised voting is defined as an independent act of choice in relation to local elections. Contrary to most previous research, this article suggests that localised voting should also include those who are well informed about each election but vote for the same party in the different elections and not only those that split their tickets. A citizen survey conducted in the four northernmost counties indicates that two-thirds of the voters are local; 38 percent are informed same-party voters and 28 percent split their tickets. To a large extent, the two types of localised voting are explained by different factors. The informed same-party voters tend be older and are critical of the state of democracy in their municipality whereas the split-ticket voters have weak party allegiance and generally support a small party.

The article examines to what extent the position of the Swedish state vis-à-vis the European Union (EU) has been mediated by domestic factors, and in particular how this has affected its subnational authorities, since Sweden joined the EU in 1995. It examines whether path-dependency prevented Sweden from converging with other member states. The article then examines the relevance of subnational mobilization for the relationship of the Swedish state to the EU. It provides an overview of bottom-up activism, subnational capacity building and top-down influence of the EU over conditions at the local and regional levels in Sweden. It is argued that the traditionally strong position of subnational authorities in Sweden, its institutional and administrative culture and a favourable economic situation have mediated EU influence over the Swedish state. This has also made it possible for local and regional government to bypass the state in its activities vis-à-vis the EU.

This report summarizes a review of the availability of comparable municipal level data on local politics and administration in 29 European countries (the EU member countries excluding Bulgaria, Cyprus, Luxemburg and Malta but including Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and also Israel). The information was collected through a survey of experts, mainly members of the Cost Action Project on Local Public Sector Reforms (IS1207) that was carried out 2013-2017. The report shows that data availability varies between the different countries. However, with some work it would be possible to establish, for the first time, a database, covering 18-20 countries and with selected data on local political, administrative and socio-economic conditions for a specific year. A second, and more ambitious stage, which may require recoding and processing of data, would make it possible to add further years, countries and variables. ; COST Action IS1207 Local Public Sector Reforms: An International Comparison

Although not entirely clear with regard to definitions and delimitations, the article by Savitch and Adhikari opens up for a comparative research agenda of considerable importance for better understanding the preconditions for how the metropolis can be governed. Their suggestion that public authorities are important for solving collective problems in the metropolitan areas is also relevant in a European context. There is already a tradition in Europe to establish cooperative arrangements between metropolitan local governments for tasks that requires a larger territorial scale, but Savitch and Adhikari direct our attention to private law arrangements, i.e. inter-municipal corporations. Also in Europe, these have become increasingly common, which may be understood in the light of the increasing marketization of local government. Although lacking in democratic legitimacy, they provide more flexibility and may also include private businesses in their governing body. However, knowledge about their occurrence and functions is limited, which calls for further, systematic and comparative research. In particular, it should be investigated whether they, as in the US, are more common in the metropolitan areas with the strongest resources.

Establishing democratic governance in city-regions would be facilitated if citizens had a political orientation that exceeded the borders of their own municipalities. Using citizen surveys in two Swedish city-regions, the article analyzes the occurrence of different forms of intermunicipal activism and then evaluates explanations for the observed variation. While traditional theories of public participation are shown to have some explanatory power, the integration of citizens into the city-region and their place of residence also turn out to be important. Furthermore, different forms of activism are explained by different patterns of explanations, suggesting that the complexity of the intermunicipal dimension of political participation must be taken into account when developing forms of city-regional governance.

A re-analysis of three Swedish studies of political trust at local level shows that the extent to which citizens trust the system of democracy in municipalities correlates strongly with how the employers in that area assess the state of the local business climate. This article deals with the question of how this can be understood. Three sets of underlying explanations are tested – social capital theory, a theory of local well-being and political-institutional conditions. The empirical analysis shows that only the theory of local well-being can consistently explain why political trust and a flourishing local business climate occur in concert. The study emphasizes the need to expand research on political trust to also take into account the role played by the business climate. This has been completely ignored in previous research on political trust. The findings are also directly relevant for local policy-making. There is no trade-off between attempts to improve a trusting relationship between electors and elected, on the one hand, and policies aiming at creating a better business climate, on the other. On the contrary, these may reinforce each other. In order to capture the specific mechanisms at work, case studies are suggested as the next step of research.