Pathways to Demographic Adaptation by Josefina Syssner

Author:Josefina Syssner
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030340469
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Implications for Politics and Democracy

Many of those who engage in politics do so from a desire to develop their own community. None of the numerous politicians I have interviewed have had it as their main ambition to reduce quality, delimit accessibility or raise costs for citizens. Still, every politician I have interviewed testified that they have had to manage issues such as the closure of schools and other public facilities, budget cuts and efficiency issues. In many cases, the politicians’ ideals collide with the reality they have to manage.

Many informants stress that it is hard to communicate the decisions that local government has to make when the population decreases (Syssner and Siebert in press). Even if responding to shrinkage would require the involvement of many stakeholders (Hospers 2013: 1514), some of my informants claim that there is nothing to gain from a dialogue on tough decisions, since in any case citizens do not understand why these decisions need to be taken. Some state that it is depressing to constantly think about savings and budget cuts and that it would be more interesting to work with new start-ups and growth. In my interviews, these conditions are understood to have implications for the recruitment of new politicians in depopulating areas. Being an elected politician in such an area is described as a hopeless and difficult task that involves nothing but decisions on budget cuts (Syssner 2018).

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