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Elites by design? How organisational structures shape assignment concentration in local government.

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Τίτλος: Elites by design? How organisational structures shape assignment concentration in local government.
Συγγραφείς: Erlingsson, Gissur Ó1 (AUTHOR) Gissur.erlingsson@liu.se, Wittberg, Emanuel2 (AUTHOR)
Πηγή: Local Government Studies. Sep2026, p1-26. 26p. 2 Illustrations.
Θεματικοί όροι: *Organizational structure, *Corporatization, *Local government, *Power (Social sciences), Democracy
Γεωγραφικοί όροι: Sweden
Περίληψη: Local government is often celebrated as democracy’s training ground, yet political authority at this level can be far more concentrated than democratic ideals suggest. This article examines how political offices accumulate among a few individuals in Swedish municipalities – a critical case given Sweden’s strong democratic norms and exceptional decentralisation. If oligarchic tendencies emerge here, they are likely to appear anywhere. Using original data from 27 strategically sampled municipalities, we map political assignments across councils, committees, and municipally owned corporations, and introduce a novel measure of ‘assignment inequality’ that captures top-heaviness in local power structures. Our findings challenge the widespread assumption that elite concentration primarily results from small scale or limited recruitment pools. Instead, institutional design – particularly corporatisation – proves decisive. Municipalities with extensive corporate networks exhibit systematically higher concentration and more skewed distributions of political authority. Local elites, we conclude, emerge by design, not default. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Local Government Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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  Data: Local government is often celebrated as democracy’s training ground, yet political authority at this level can be far more concentrated than democratic ideals suggest. This article examines how political offices accumulate among a few individuals in Swedish municipalities – a critical case given Sweden’s strong democratic norms and exceptional decentralisation. If oligarchic tendencies emerge here, they are likely to appear anywhere. Using original data from 27 strategically sampled municipalities, we map political assignments across councils, committees, and municipally owned corporations, and introduce a novel measure of ‘assignment inequality’ that captures top-heaviness in local power structures. Our findings challenge the widespread assumption that elite concentration primarily results from small scale or limited recruitment pools. Instead, institutional design – particularly corporatisation – proves decisive. Municipalities with extensive corporate networks exhibit systematically higher concentration and more skewed distributions of political authority. Local elites, we conclude, emerge by design, not default. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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  Data: <i>Copyright of Local Government Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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      – Code: eng
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        PageCount: 26
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      – SubjectFull: Local government
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              M: 09
              Text: Sep2026
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              Y: 2026
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