Abstract
This paper analyses the political career of a key executive body in the Slovenian local self-government system – the mayor. The paper first introduces incumbency advantage theories. These theories argue that the probability of electoral victory or defeat is not homogeneously distributed among the candidates, as several factors influence the possibilities of success of some candidates and the failure of others (seniority, membership of political parties, electoral performance, etc). Based on an analysis of objective data and data from an empirical survey conducted among mayors of Slovenian municipalities, we look at the re-election of mayors in Slovenian local self-government with the emphasis on their seniority. We find that the re-election of mayors is a frequent occurrence in Slovenia and is a trend that is also increasing with every local election from 1998 onward.
Highlights
Paper constitutes the analyses of executive political leaders’ careers in Slovenian local self-government system
Since municipalities are the only units of local self-government in Slovenia and represent the level of political authority closest to the citizens, this paper analyses the development of the key local government politician’s career, i.e., the mayor
We were interested in the number of mayors who were re-elected at the local elections in the period from 1998 to 2014
Summary
This paper highlights the leadership continuity in Slovenian municipalities with particular interest in the seniority of mayors. The studying of political careers offers researchers an insight into the key aspect of democratic representation and it helps assess the power of electoral connection between voters and political leaders, as well as the scope of use (or lack thereof) of votes as a means of rewarding or punishing the (in) action of political officials [Kukovič, Haček 2013]. With respect of abovementioned reasons of importance for researching political careers, we analyse trends of seniority and continuity of mayoral leadership in Slovenian municipalities. The mayor is an individual body, a political official directly elected, for a term of office lasting four years, by secret ballot cast by voters who have permanent residence in the municipality for at least one year prior to local elections (Local Self-Government Act, Article 42). Slovenian mayor certainly plays very central role in the Slovenian system of local self-government and, due to the fact that the mayor is an individual body, the citizens often find that he or she is the most recognisable figure in the municipality
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