Local Political Competence in Europe: A Resource of Legitimacy for Higher Levels of Government?

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Abstract
In order to be successful, the process of European unification has to be paralleled by a growing legitimacy of European polities, politics, and policies in the eyes of the European citizenry. However, with the political institutions moving away from the citizens' daily lives, understanding politics will get more complicated, and the chances to influence politics directly will weaken. In this situation the local political level gains importance because the link between the citizens and politics is closest here. Concentrating on feelings of political competence and using aggregated micro data from 1999 for twelve European countries, this article first investigates the role of the local level as a resource of political legitimacy for higher levels of government. Second it looks for causal links between structural factors such as local autonomy, the integrative capacity of the local political structures and/or size of locality, and the socialization function of local politics. The analyses support the function of the local level as a ‘training ground’ for democracy, but the consequences of local autonomy for this function are ambivalent.

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