How "local" are the municipal elections in Uruguay? estimating independence of results and electoral behaviors

Abstract

The dissociation between municipal and national elections has modified the pathway by which citizens elect their departmental governments. This article tries to answer whether municipal elections are local elections or not in terms of its independency from the national political competition. In order to compare political competition in both national and local levels are used data of electoral volatility and vote consistency at the district level. First, it is presented a review of the literature concerned of the relationship between national and local elections. Second, there are presented some estimations of intra-cycle and inter-cycle independency of municipal elections from national elections. This is done both for political parties’ intra-block competition and inter-block political competition. Finally, it is conclude that the local competition is affected by the political tendencies of the national level; specifically it is mainly affected on the inter-block competition and less on the intra-block competition.