Local public spending, electoral consensus, and sustainable structural change

This paper explores electoral consensus regarding local public spending as a way for policymakers, particularly in western democracies, to secure long-term electoral support to govern the sustainability of structural change. Public spending is perceived by local electoral constituencies as immediately affecting people’s lives and thus strongly influences individual voting behaviour. Focusing on the case of Italy, this paper explores the electoral consensus–public spending nexus on the municipal level. The results show that, on average, an increase in local public spending is associated with a reduction in electoral consensus towards anti-system parties, whereas an increase in local public spending does not yield a significant raise in electoral consensus for pro-system parties. We find nevertheless heterogeneous effects across different geographical areas and spending categories for both anti-system and pro-system party consensus. The results yield insights for scholarly debate and implications for policymaking to garner the electoral consensus needed for sustainable structural change.