The Geography of Politicians' Neighborhoods

• In Event: Who Represents Whom in Local Elections

Abstract

A representative democracy is founded on the idea that elected officials represent a group of people, but how such representation should be conceptualized is not straightforward. Discussions of descriptive representation has focused on characteristics such as education, gender, and ethnicity (e.g. Besley et al., 2011; Chattopadhay and Duflo, 2004; Pande,1999). However, where politicians live and whether they are geographically representative for their district has received considerably less attention. Yet, multiple studies have found that legislators support is higher in their home town (Gimpel et al., 2008; Fiva and Smith, 2017), and experimental evidence further supoorts the notion that voters value geographic representation (Campbell and Cowley,2014). We investigate to what extent local politicians are geographically representative, to the extent that they live in neighborhoods similar to their constituents in Sweden, where elections are held using proportional multi-member districts.

Unlike other individual characteristics, the geographical representation is to some extent an institutional matter. While single-member districts ensure geographic representation and transparent accountability, proportional multi-member districts are typically believed to lead to little regional representation (Muller and Saalfeld, 1997; Farrell, 2011). However, there is empirical evidence that party lists in proportional systems often balance candidates from different locations in the district (Gallagher and Marsh, 1988), which may be due to strategic concerns (Latner and McGann,2005).

In general, politicians’ geographic location may be important for two reason. First, interacting with their neighbors may influence their beliefs and preferences. Contextual theories of politics argue that social interactions provide political information and guidance (McPhee et al., 1963). Empirical studies also show that individuals are aware of the conditions in their neighborhood (Baybeck and McClurg, 2005), and that perceptions of national conditions are influenced by what individuals observe in their own place of residence (Bisgaard et al., 2016). Looking at political elites, there is evidence that politicians are responsive to public opinion (Caughey and Warshaw, 2018; Butler et al., 2011), but their perception of their constituents’ opinions is not always accurate (Broockman and Skovron, 2018).

Second, if politicians favor their own neighborhoods, their location can influence the distribution of public resources. Politicians may favor their own neighborhood simply because they have friends and family there, because they have more information about the needs, or due to strategic re-election incentives. There is plenty of evidence that politicians in majoritarian systems favor their home areas by directing more public funds there (e.g. Aidt and Shvets, 2012). Since their home towns overlap with their district, this behavior may be mainly driven by re-election incentives. However, looking at proportional systems there is also evidence that politicians particularly target their home towns, even when it is only a sub-part of their constituency (Fiva and Halse, 2016). In this case the behavior might, rather, be driven by information bias or the motive to favor the politicians own network.

In sum, the neighborhood of politicians may influence both politicians’ perception of public opinion and the distribution of resources. If politicians generally live in wealthier areas compared to their constituents, this could lead them to misperceive public opinion to be more conservative than it actually is (in line with findings by Broockman and Skovron, 2018). If politicians also favor their own area, this type of behavior will further enhance inequalities between affluent and poor areas. Yet, we know very little about what type of neighborhood politicians live in, mainly due to lack of detailed data on whom individuals live around. We rely on population wide administrative register data from Sweden that covers the geographic coordinates of all elected and nominated politicians 1982-2010. Our data allows us to measure exactly how far residents live from each other, and construct multiple measurements (with varying distances) of politicians’ neighborhood.

We find that local politicians generally are concentrated to certain areas within a municipality, compared to all residents, suggesting that some areas are unrepresented. Looking at neighborhood characteristics we observe that politicians indeed live in more affluent neighborhoods (neighborhoods characterized by higher earnings, higher housing prices, fewer foreign born individuals) compared to either the average resident in the municipality or their voters. If politicians’ neighborhood influence their policy preferences and actions, this pattern may contribute to rising geographic inequality.

Authors

• Linna Marten, Uppsala University

• Olle Folke, Uppsala University

• Johanna Rickne, Stockholm University