Abstract
In this chapter, we scrutinise the enduring relevance of the social base of political recruitment for contemporary European mayors. Whilst unravelling potential patterns in gender, age, education and profession, it also probes deeper into similarities and differences over time and across space. The chapter shows that similar background characteristics continue to colour the political life history of our population. Mayors are still disproportionally male, middle-aged, university educated and predominantly coming from talking and brokerage professions. From a descriptive perspective, continuity thus prevails over change. From an explanatory point of view, both continuity as well as change appear. The occurrence of diversity underneath social selectivity pertains with a diversified mixture of institutions, locality and partisanship persistently mattering. When it comes to the social base of the European mayor, from the few are (still) chosen the few.
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Notes
- 1.
With mayors in Central and Eastern Europe tending towards this model.
- 2.
We have chosen to analyse separately horizontal and vertical power relations without combining them, but we cannot avoid that there might be latent relations between some of our independent variables (namely education and profession) and both approaches. We know that recruitment and career are more dependent on personal characteristics that are important within political parties than within bureaucracies. Knowing that there are different demands for the executive mayor and the political leader, the relationship between vertical relations and education or profession might be hiding a relationship also with horizontal power relations. However, the distribution of our data (slightly concentrated on high LAI and strong mayor form, compared to other combinations) makes it difficult to primarily disentangle such relations. The multivariate analysis can ultimately help to estimate the relative effect of each of the variables included.
- 3.
We found 8.7 per cent of women in the first round and 14.6 per cent for the present round, this difference being significant by Chi-square test (p < 0.000) and Cramers’ V = 0.9 (p < 0.000).
- 4.
For details of weighting and empirical decisions regarding the clustering of the LAI, please consult the official report of Ladner et al. in: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/information/publications/studies/2015/self-rule-index-for-local-authorities-release-1-0.
- 5.
For example, the group of countries with low local autonomy includes only seven mayors of Cyprus and 11 of Ireland. This fact implies that some of the mean per cent of clusters of local autonomy in Table 3.1 may not coincide with other pooled data which takes into account the whole sample of mayors.
- 6.
Cramer’s V = 0.095, and p value = 0.000 (N = 2383). Eta = 0.011.
- 7.
Compared means of a factor, with Levene’s test significant at 0.000.
- 8.
Cramer’s V = 0.161 and p-value = 0.000. Eta = 0.161 (N = 2321).
- 9.
Cramer’s V = 0.94 and p-value = 0.000. Eta = 0.097 (N = 2385).
- 10.
ANOVA p-value = 0.000. Eta = 0.139 (N = 2358).
- 11.
ANOVA p-value = 0.613 (N = 2213).
- 12.
Chi-square test p-value = 0.000, Cramer’s V p-value = 0.000 and Eta = 0.118 (N = 2202).
- 13.
Chi-square test p-value = 0.005, Cramer’s V p-value = 0.005 and Eta = 0.101 (N = 1985).
- 14.
With modest but significant effects: ANOVA p-value = 0.045 and Eta = 0.059 (N = 2317).
- 15.
The differences on gender between groups are significant: Chi-square test p-value = 0.000, Cramer’s V p-value = 0.000 and Eta = 0.128 (N = 1354).
- 16.
In fact, regarding ages we find similar statistical effects if we look at age as continuous variable (mean) or in clusters. For the mean age between parties: ANOVA p-value = 0.000 and Eta = 0.140 (N = 1354); and for clusters: Chi-square test p-value = 0.000, Cramer’s V p-value = 0.000 and Eta = 0.131 (N = 1354).
- 17.
This is a dichotomous variable (Yes-No), which allows us to control for particularities that might derive from the presence in the town hall, and therefore the exercise of the role, following the idea of Guérin and Kerrouche (2008), when consider being a full-time mayor as one of the indicators of professionalisation.
- 18.
It should be noted that in the first round, effects for an age above average were estimated whereas in the second this was the case for belonging to the middle-aged group.
- 19.
In the first round, effects were estimated for belonging to the politically agglutinated subgroup of the talking and brokerage professions considered as a whole in the second.
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Steyvers, K., Medir, L. (2018). From the Few Are Still Chosen the Few? Continuity and Change in the Social Background of European Mayors. In: Heinelt, H., Magnier, A., Cabria, M., Reynaert, H. (eds) Political Leaders and Changing Local Democracy . Governance and Public Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67410-0_3
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