Where do we go? Explaining democratic capital location preferences

The choice of the location of the state capital in democracies can have wide-ranging consequences for representation, influencing both representatives' behaviour and centre-periphery dynamics in the electorate. While both voters and representatives have self-interested reasons to prefer a nearby location of the capital, a geographically central location has normative appeal, as it minimises the distance between voters and the seat of government. Despite the importance of the location of capitals, we have little empirical knowledge about either legislators' or voters’ preferences regarding this in democratic polities, in part because moving decisions are often taken without public debate. Four cases are analysed where the revealed preferences and constituency/residence of individual representatives and voters can be observed. I show, using parliamentary votes, parliamentary debates, and voter surveys, that the key driver of the preference for the location of the capital is proximity to the constituency a legislator represents respectively where a voter lives.