How best to open up local democracy? A randomised experiment to encourage contested elections and greater representativeness in English parish councils
How best to open up local democracy? A randomised experiment to encourage contested elections and greater representativeness in English parish councils
Interventions aimed at increasing the supply and representativeness of elected officials range from facilitative to the formally authorised. This paper reports on a field experiment aimed at testing the effect of facilitative approaches at the local level based on a collaboration between parish councils and the research team. We randomly allocated 818 parish council clerks across five counties in Southern England, either to receive information and the opportunity for member training for recruitment, or not to receive this contact. We investigated the effect of this intervention on political recruitment. Despite evidence of an effect on use of social media, our results suggest that there are significant institutional and structural barriers to participation in local politics that cannot easily be overcome using facilitative measures.
766-787
Ryan, Matthew
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Stoker, Gerard
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John, Peter
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Moseley, Alice
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James, Oliver
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Richardson, Liz
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Vannoni, Matia
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2018
Ryan, Matthew
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Stoker, Gerard
209ba619-6a65-4bc1-9235-cba0d826bfd9
John, Peter
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Moseley, Alice
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James, Oliver
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Richardson, Liz
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Vannoni, Matia
b952f0ce-3646-4edd-aafe-9384fa99b66e
Ryan, Matthew, Stoker, Gerard, John, Peter, Moseley, Alice, James, Oliver, Richardson, Liz and Vannoni, Matia
(2018)
How best to open up local democracy? A randomised experiment to encourage contested elections and greater representativeness in English parish councils.
Local Government Studies, 44 (6), .
(doi:10.1080/03003930.2018.1473769).
Abstract
Interventions aimed at increasing the supply and representativeness of elected officials range from facilitative to the formally authorised. This paper reports on a field experiment aimed at testing the effect of facilitative approaches at the local level based on a collaboration between parish councils and the research team. We randomly allocated 818 parish council clerks across five counties in Southern England, either to receive information and the opportunity for member training for recruitment, or not to receive this contact. We investigated the effect of this intervention on political recruitment. Despite evidence of an effect on use of social media, our results suggest that there are significant institutional and structural barriers to participation in local politics that cannot easily be overcome using facilitative measures.
Text
recuitment paper final version
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 27 April 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 2 July 2018
Published date: 2018
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 420459
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/420459
ISSN: 0300-3930
PURE UUID: e8bfd482-402b-48d3-b850-1b3688d05c7f
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Date deposited: 08 May 2018 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 06:34
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Contributors
Author:
Peter John
Author:
Alice Moseley
Author:
Oliver James
Author:
Liz Richardson
Author:
Matia Vannoni
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