Political Leadership and Local Elections: Nationalisation, Regionalisation or Localism?

Abstract

Municipal elections have traditionally been conceptualized as subordinate to the national political situation, and thus considered second-order elections. However, voters could take into account national, regional or specifically local factors in determining their vote in these elections. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the electoral impact of these factors through political leadership. Thus, using binary logistic regression, we examine and confirm the impact of national, regional and local leaders in the municipal vote in the Autonomous Region of Andalusia. The results show that local candidates have a greater impact on municipal elections than national and regional leaders, so local elections have their own autonomy.