| Abstract [eng] |
This paper analyses the impact of the replacement of mayoral elections by direct elections on local government election campaigns. The direct election system is person-centred - a specific politician is elected for the position of mayor, giving voters the opportunity to choose the head of the municipality - and the election campaign should therefore be focused on the politician and not on the party. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the direct election of mayors changes the electoral system to a more person-centred one, whether a mayor seeking re-election uses a person-centred rather than a party-centred campaign, and whether a person-centred campaign contributes to the success of the election. The paper examines political advertising in the local press in the run-up to the 2011 municipal council elections and the 2019 municipal council and mayoral elections. Each municipality and election year is assigned a personalisation index consisting of article, logo and photo components. To summarise the main results of the study, the introduction of direct mayoral elections, which is referred to in this paper as an institutional change, adjusts the candidates' election campaigns towards the personalised side. In the local press, political advertising articles and accompanying photographs focus more on the personality and less on the logo of a party or a public committee, thus avoiding identification with a particular political group. Although the analysis has helped to show an upward trend in personalisation following the introduction of direct election of mayors, the change is still small, which can be explained by the new practice of direct election of mayors. This electoral system has only been used in two municipal elections, and it may be suggested to include data from other elections in order to obtain results for future research, which, together with the results of this study, would help to consolidate the changes in the personalisation process over an even longer period. |
