Territorial political orientations in Swedish city-regions

This article is concerned with local political orientations of citizens living in city-regions. Initially, a typology is developed in which three orientations are identified-metropolitan, intermunicipal, and municipal. This is followed by an empirical analysis of the occurrence of intermunicipal and municipal political orientations in two Swedish city-regions and how they vary. The analysis shows that the variation to a large extent can be explained by a combination of civic voluntarism, territorial identity, and city-regional integration. In addition, intermunicipal orientations turn out to be most common among suburban dwellers in large city-regions. The results of the study are significant for our understanding of citizenship in city-regions, as well as policy implications because they emphasize the need to develop democratic measures that make it possible for citizens to exert influence over collective matters in the city-region as a whole.