Do Multi-Party Municipal Councils Improve Local Governance? Municipal Councillors’ Opinions in El Salvador

Abstract: As decentralisation reforms devolved greater responsibilities to local governments, improving local governance has become central to strengthening democracy. With the promise of increasing citizen representation and government transparency at the local level, in 2015 El Salvador implemented a new electoral system. The new system allowed for the election of opposition parties in municipal councils for the first time. In the context of El Salvador, we examine how opposition parties’ numerical representation influences the views of governing and opposition party members about multi-party councils’ effectiveness to improve local governance. To test our hypotheses, we rely on data from an original elite survey of 303 municipal councillors in 101 municipalities, which we complement with qualitative information. Contrary to what the literature suggests, we do not find evidence that a stronger opposition leads to more negative evaluations among members of governing parties, notwithstanding

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Journal of Politics in Latin America ; 13 (2021) 2 ; 192-218

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Politik

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (who): SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
• (when): 2021
• Creator: Córdova, Abby ; España-Nájera, Annabella

Further information

• DOI: 10.1177/1866802X211015506
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2023090410285926522998
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 25.03.2025, 1:48 PM CET