To Be Central or Peripheral? What Matters for Political Representation in Amalgamated Municipalities?/

Municipal size and institutional design are important factors influencing representation at a local level. However, this has not been studied with regard to the long-term perspective. The article focuses on the effect of the center/periphery on the representation of units within an amalgamated municipality in local elections. The analysis is based on data from 2,298 amalgamated municipalities over three sets of elections (2006, 2010, 2014) in the Czech Republic. The article uses multilevel binomial logistic regression to estimate the effect of different types of intra-municipal (settlement) units in terms of central/periphery relations on their representation. Thanks to these unique data, the article presents information about the representation of differently disadvantaged units from the long-term perspective. The results show that political and cultural-economic centers of amalgamated municipalities, as well as settlement units of a bigger relative size, have a greater chance of being represented in the municipal council compared with political and cultural-economic peripheries and smaller units.