The question of why local democracy is established and consolidated in some places rather than others is not only practically important but also presents us with a theoretical puzzle. Why do some government elites choose to allow citizens a greater voice in local decision making by establishing and fostering local democratic institutions? What accounts for the wide variation in the approaches of government elites in bringing about local democracy? As described in Chapter 1, the argument that I seek to develop and test throughout the book is that implementing local democratization provides government elites with a means of ensuring the effectiveness of local intermediaries who play an important role in mobilizing votes for higher-level politicians. However, local democratization bears political costs for government elites and is thus less attractive when less-costly channels for building an effective base of local intermediaries are available. One important alternative channel could in principle be presented by political parties – in particular, party organizational networks play an important role in providing government elites with a means of monitoring and disciplining local intermediaries without implementing local democratization. Thus, I argue that the ability of government elites to gain access to, and co-opt, effective party organizational networks is an important variable in explaining the decision of government elites to implement local democratization.

Stated as such, the argument seems to leave open several puzzling questions that need to be addressed. First, how can the desire to “discipline” local intermediaries be the driving force behind government elites” decision to implement local democratization? The argument seems paradoxical since, as described in Chapter 1 much of the existing literature has assumed that local democratization is motivated by a need to increase the independence of local political actors. The second question is: Why and under what conditions would a chief executive choose to build a more effective base of local intermediaries by introducing or increasing local competitiveness rather than through channels that do not increase the ruling party's political vulnerability? Finally, why might government elites have difficulties co-opting or gaining access to effective party organizational networks? This argument also seems puzzling given the widespread assumption of parties as unitary actors. This chapter seeks to address these questions and in doing so highlights several observable implications of the argument that are explored through the rest of the book.