CONCLUSIONS

betas). They did not affect the significance or impact of the other variables. Bulgaria stands out in this respect as being somehow different than the other four. While the signs for the betas for the other four countries are negative (more supportive of greater government involvement), the sign for Bulgaria is positive. That is, Bulgarian local of-ficials differ from their colleagues in the other countries in being much stronger in their support for privatization and a greater role for the private sector. What is consistent across all of these models, however, is the impact of gender. Therefore, our overall conclusion is that the gap associated with gender does indeed have its origins there rather than in other characteristics, and is of some importance (see table 2.21).

Table 2.21

OLS Regression Models with the Role of Government Dependent

Model 2 Model 3

Gender+social background Gender+social+cultural values

B Beta Sig. B Beta Sig.

Gender –6.640 –0.128 *** –5.250 –0.099 ***

Social Background

Higher Education 10.480 0.230 *** 8.310 0.181 ***

Age –0.160 –0.073 *** –0.031 –0.014

CULTURAL VALUES

Trust in Institutions 0.117 0.036 *

Postmaterialism 4.060 0.107 ***

Left-Right Ideology 3.080 0.248 ***

DEMOCRATIC VALUES

Democracy is the Best Govt. 2.510 0.185 ***

Minority Rights 0.762 0.074 ***

Political Tolerance 0.024 0.002

Media Independence –0.516 –0.050 ***

Public Participation 0.130 0.011

ORGANIZATIONAL MEMBERSHIP Party Member

NGO Member (Officer) COUNTRY

Estonia Hungary Poland Slovakia

Constant 68.200 *** 26.900 ***

R² 0.070 0.217

Adjusted R² 0.069 0.215

reinforced by ideological self-placement which shows women generally to the left of their male counterparts and growth in the gap from generation to generation. In this context we find that even among members of the same political party there is a small but persistent difference between male and female partisans, with women again tend-ing to the left.

Model 4 Model 5 Gender+social+values

+org. membership

G+S+V+org.+country

B Beta Sig. B Beta Sig.

Gender –5.051 –0.095 *** –4.719 –0.089 ***

Social Background

Higher Education 8.210 0.178 *** 6.818 0.148 ***

Age –0.015 –0.007 –0.042 –0.019

CULTURAL VALUES

Trust in Institutions 0.129 0.040 ** 0.179 0.056 ***

Postmaterialism 4.211 0.111 *** 3.690 0.098 ***

Left-Right Ideology 3.122 0.252 *** 3.059 0.247 ***

DEMOCRATIC VALUES

Democracy is the Best Govt. 2.595 0.191 *** 2.627 0.194 ***

Minority Rights 0.800 0.078 *** 0.885 0.086 ***

Political Tolerance –0.006 –0.001 –0.170 –0.016

Media Independence –0.523 –0.051 *** –0.640 –0.062 ***

Public Participation –0.088 0.008 –0.288 –0.025

ORGANIZATIONAL MEMBERSHIP

Party Member 2.287 0.05 *** 0.698 0.015

NGO Member (Officer) –2.257 –0.048 ** –1.010 –0.021 COUNTRY

Estonia –7.585 –0.118 ***

Hungary –9.228 –0.168 ***

Poland –6.946 –0.120 ***

Slovakia –6.911 –0.129 ***

Constant 24.600 *** 35.000 ***

R² 0.226 0.243

Adjusted R² 0.223 0.239

Source: Own calculations based on data from the LRS of the ILDGP, 2002–03.

Even when we control for a variety of other factors such as education, postmaterial-ism, age, trust in government institutions, ideology, democratic values, organizational memberships, and country (in our multiple regression), gender remains a significant but by no means the strongest predictor of political perceptions of the preferred role of government.

Although we have no direct evidence of actual policy differences or the impact of these gender differences on local and municipal councils, several hypotheses do emerge from this analysis. Women are or are close to a critical mass of local officials in all five countries (ranging from 21%–32% of elected councilors). First, since their views on the role of the state show some differences from those of their male counterparts, we expect some local policy differences to emerge, with women taking a more social democratic perspective and men leaning toward a more neo-liberal approach to social welfare issues.

Second, since women constitute a critical mass on many local councils, we expect that there will be a rise in consideration of gender-related issues such as maternal health, state-supported day care, and spousal abuse and violence. We hypothesize these will become important subjects of local legislation and policy. Third, the election of many women to local office provides a vital training ground for future leaders at higher levels.

Thus, we see the possibility of a longer-term influence of the local gender gap on national representation and policy.

NOTES

1 Funding for our research was graciously provided by the Tocqueville Research Center Foundation, under its program in Comparative Local Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe.

2 See Rule 1987; Welch and Studlar 1986; Bullock and MacManus 1991; Studlar and McAllister 1991; Studlar and Welch 1991; Chapman 1993; Caul, 1997; Maille 1990; Matland and Studlar 1996; Reynolds and Reilly et al. 1997; and Vengroff, Nyiri, and Fugiero 2003.

3 Political Rights and Civil Liberties are measured on a one-to-seven scale, with one representing the highest degree of freedom and seven the lowest. Source http://www.freedomhouse.org.

4 Lower scores mean higher ranks.

5 These data are currently housed at the Tocqueville Research Center in Budapest.

6 Even though they are significant at the 0.000 level, using Chi Square test of significance.

7 The two questions used for comparison are: “Generally speaking, how satisfied are you with the way things are going in the municipality where you are a representative of the local government?” and

“In your estimation, how will things be going in your local community five years from now?”

(1=much worse, 4=about the same, and 7=much better).

8 Respondents were asked: “Roughly how many hours in an average week do you usually devote to your activities as a councilor?” (p<0.000 using Chi-Square).

9 “How often do you [plan to] hold office hours for residents?” (p<0.000 using Chi-Square).

10 “Comparing your own personal income with others in your municipality, is it higher or lower than the average income in your municipality?” (p>0.000 using ANOVA).

11 It is possible to interpret this item in different ways because one pole is equal rights for everyone.

12 Higher score means preference for public sector.

13 “Some people would agree, and some would disagree with the following statements about the political and administrative system. Please indicate the extent to which you personally agree or disagree with them on our seven-point scale. 1 means that you completely disagree with the statement; 7 means you agree completely with the statement; and if your views fall somewhere in between, then choose one of the numbers in between: In general the private sector is more efficient than the public sector.”

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on Local Government Performance, and Why It Matters

Tania Gosselin

ABSTRACT

This chapter considers the impact of local media on local government decision-making (smoothness and efficiency) and on democratic performance (inclusiveness). Four as-pects of local media systems are considered: the number of media outlets present in the locality, the diversity of the ownership structure, the extent to which media cover local political affairs, and the size of their audience. Findings show that coverage quality, the number of outlets, and the diversity of the ownership structure are positively associated with democratic performance. Such media features, however, have virtually no impact on how quickly and smoothly local authorities reach decisions.

We also examine the hypothesis that the impact of the media on democratic perform-ance may be enhperform-anced by certain characteristics of the local civil society. In Hungary and Romania, the coverage quality and the number of local media outlets were found to exercise a greater influence on the performance of local governments in localities having more civic organizations and where citizens were more involved in public life.

Further investigations of potential mechanisms of media influence on performance reveals that beliefs of chief administrative officers and councilors regarding the influence of local media outlets do not translate into greater or lesser impact of media features on democratic performance.

The analysis shows that local media do have an impact on the democratic, inclusive character of local authorities’ decision-making practices and allows us to quantify this impact. While the available measures do not permit definite conclusions about the mechanisms through which these influences operate, initial findings lend some support to the theory that a livelier civil society contributes to the impact of political informa-tion disseminated by the media.

on Local Government Performance, and Why It Matters

Tania Gosselin

1. INTRODUCTION

People often observe that the media have an influence on the well-being of democracy, and Dawisha writes: “It can be generally assumed that the greater the independence and pluralism of the media ..., the greater will be the level of civic trust and civic in-volvement” (1996, 54). This connection is also assumed to operate at the local level, but there has been no attempt to validate this assumption, as the absence of literature demonstrates. It has become almost a truism to say that the plurality and independence of local media are important and have a positive effect on the performance of democratic local government.

If it is true that politically well-informed citizens contribute to the well-being of democracy, then such effects should be assessed. This chapter seeks to establish empiri-cally whether and how local media enhance the quality of local governance. Relying on survey data gathered within the framework of the Indicators of Local Democratic Governance Project (ILDGP), we focus our analysis on the decisional and democratic aspects of local government performance in more than 2,000 municipalities of Hungary, Latvia, Poland, and Romania. We assess the links between certain characteristics of the local media (number of outlets, ownership structure, the extent of coverage of public affairs, and audience size) and the capacity of local governments to make decisions in a timely and effective manner (decisional performance) that includes citizens in the decision-making process (democratic performance).

Following some introductory remarks about the local media landscape in the four countries included in the research, the chapter provides an overview of theories but-tressing the assumption that media and local government performance may be linked.

This is followed by an outline of the hypotheses to be tested with respect to how media presence, ownership structure, quality content, and penetration have an impact on per-formance. We then describe the data and method of analysis, followed by our findings.

The conclusion presents our interpretation of the results, suggests new hypotheses, and points towards further areas of exploration for increasing our understanding of media effects on local government performance.

In document Faces of Local Democracy (Pldal 127-135)