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Green Polities: Urban Environmental Performance and Government Popularity
Author(s) -
Bianchini Laura,
Revelli Federico
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
economics and politics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1468-0343
pISSN - 0954-1985
DOI - 10.1111/ecpo.12004
Subject(s) - popularity , decentralization , ideology , accountability , conservatism , local election , local government , government (linguistics) , empirical evidence , political economy , political science , economics , public economics , business , politics , public administration , market economy , law , linguistics , philosophy , epistemology
Ascertaining whether local election results are driven by incumbents' performance while in office or mechanically reflect constituencies' ideological affiliation and macroeconomic conditions is crucial for evaluating the alleged accountability‐enhancing property of decentralization. On the basis of a unique score of urban environmental performance and the results of all elections held in the major Italian cities over a decade, we investigate the role of local (fiscal and environmental) vs. national issues in municipal elections. Although the empirical evidence points to a strong ideological attachment and a somewhat weaker “fiscal conservatism,” it reveals that media reported environmental rankings have an impact on the popularity of city governments.