Clemente J. Navarro

Participation, Representation and Expertise: Citizen Preferences for Political Decision-Making Processes

In this article, it is shown that citizen process preferences are complex and include several dimensions. The argument relies on data from a representative sample of Spanish citizens (N = 2,450) to assess these dimensions. Using confirmatory factor analysis as well as Mokken analysis, it is shown that citizen process preferences capture support for three different models: participatory, representative and expert-based. The relationships between these dimensions (where the opposition between representation and participation stands as the clearest result) and the substantive and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.

Cultural scenes, the creative class and development in Spanish municipalities

In addition to human capital and creativity, cultural consumption opportunities play an important role in explaining local development and growth. They promote the attraction of visitors, as well as the attraction of the creative class, improving local income and wages. This paper analyses the relative importance of cultural consumption opportunities, as cultural scenes, explaining income differences among Spanish municipalities. Indices to measure talent, creative class, and different kinds of opportunities for cultural consumption at the local level are proposed, using multivariate regression analysis to show their complementary impact on local income. In addition to human capital and the creative class, the main results show that different kinds of opportunities for cultural consumption (cultural scenes) have an independent impact on local income.

Culturas políticas locales: Alcaldes y nueva cultura política en perspectiva comparada

Political leadership style is one of the most important traits of local governance. This used to show the character of local political societies as rules-in-use of socio-political processes and dynamics. In this framework, the ‘New Political Culture’ (NPC) is a new leadership style against the classical ‘Class Politics’ showing different policy preferences and different interaction patterns with civil society. Socio-economic and cultural change, as well as institutional factors, are driving the growing and spread of the NPC among local political actors. Using surveys from the Fiscal Austerity and Urban Innovation Project, this article tries to show the presence of the NPC among mayors in European, North American and Latin American countries. The comparison among them could show the importance of socio-economic, cultural and institutional factors explaining the spread of the NPC.

Place Equality Regimes and Municipal Choices in Metropolitan Spain: Regional Institutions and Local Political Orientations

Spain constitutes a partial-equalization place equality regime with regional differences in a highly fragmented local government system. This chapter shows that the regime produces mixed results regarding equalization between municipalities, mainly through current transfers. First, size and socioeconomic conditions of municipalities open opportunities for ‘Tieboutian’ strategies, leading to less revenues and spending in the smallest and poorest metropolitan municipalities. Second, intergovernmental support moderates this relationship and generates opportunities for local choices. It increases expenditures among the poorest and left-wing municipalities where ‘egalitarian’ and ‘progressive’ municipal coalitions developed. However, clear differences exist between regional regimes. Intergovernmental support is high in the so-called ‘special regime’ where the region controls tax income, but the effect of intergovernmental support on spending is stronger among metropolitan municipalities in the common regime, where the central government controls tax income.