How local is decentral politics? Variations in the supply of municipal policies

Local democracy is theoretically based on political parties offering different policies across and within sub-national geographical units. However, local democracy is embedded within a multilevel party and institutional structure that may compromise this endeavour. This study develops three expectations of policy variation: within party variation in political positions across geographical units; differences in policy positions across parties within geographical units; and that parties adjust their supply of policy over time possibly based on structural, social, or party features. It is argued that the presence of these variations is important for local democracy considering multilevel party institutions and their existence is tested using 1,002 Danish municipal party election manifestos from the local elections in 2013 and 2017, covering all 98 Danish municipalities. The first two types of variation are clearly present, the third is only present between parties, and this suggests that local politics is at least somewhat local.