Table Of ContentUrban and Regional Research International 4
Norbert Kersting
Angelika Vetter
Reforming Local
Government in
Europe
Closing the Gap between Democracy
and Efficiency
Reforming Local Government in Europe
Urban Research International
Editors:
Hellmut Wollmann, Berlin
Harald Baldersheim, Oslo
Peter John, London
Editorial Board:
Susan Clarke, Boulder
Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot, Bordeaux
Michal lllner, Praha
Annick Magnier, Firenze
Vol. 4
Norbert Kersting
Angelika Vetter (eds.)
Reforming Local Government
in Europe
Closing the Gap between
Democracy and Efficiency
Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2003
Gedruckt auf săurefreiem und alterungsbestăndigem Papier.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
ISBN 978-3-8100-3958-3 ISBN 978-3-663-11258-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-663-11258-7
© 2003 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
Ursptiinglich erschienen bei Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2003
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Contents
List of contributors ........................................................................................... ?
Preface ................................................................................................... 9
Angelika Vetter and Norbert Kersting:
Democracy versus efficiency? Comparing local government
reforms across Europe ................................................................... 11
Harald Baldersheim
Local government reforms in the Nordic countries. Bringing
politics back in? ............................................................................ 29
Helen Sullivan
Local government reform in Great Britain .................................... 39
Bas Denters and Pieter-Jan Klok
A new role for municipal councils in Dutch local democracy? ..... 65
Hellmut Wollmann
German local government under the double impact of
democratic and administrative reforms ......................................... 85
Werner Pleschberger
Cities and municipalities in the Austrian political system
since the 1990s. New developments between
"efficiency" and "democracy" ..................................................... 113
Daniel Kubler and Andreas Ladner
Local government reform in Switzerland. More for than
by-but what about of! ............................................................... 137
Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot
The French Republic, one yet divisible? ..................................... 157
Annick Magnier
Subsidiarity: fall or premise of "local government reforms".
The Italian case ........................................................................... 183
5
Carlos Alba and Carmen Navarro
Twenty-five years of democratic local government
in Spain ....................................................................................... 197
Nikolaos-Komnenos Hlepas
Local government reform in Greece ............................................ 221
Gabor So6s
Local government reforms and the capacity for local
governance in Hungary ............................................................... 241
Michal Illner
Thirteen years of reforming sub-national government
in the Czech Republic ................................................................. 261
Pawel Swianiewicz
Reforming local government in Poland. Top-down and
bottom-up processes .................................................................... 283
Edvins Vanags and Inga Vilka
Local government reform in the Baltic countries ........................ 309
Angelika Vetter and Norbert Kersting
Reforming local government. Heading for efficiency and
democracy ................................................................................... 333
6
List of contributors
Prof. Carlos Alba, Department of Political Science and Administration. Fac
ulty of Law. University Aut6noma of Madrid. Spain.
Prof. Harald Baldersheim, Department of Political Science. University of
Oslo. Norway.
Prof. Bas Denters, School for Business, Public Administration and Technol
ogy. University of Twente. Enschede. The Netherlands.
Prof. Nikolaos-Komninos Hlepas, Department of Administrative Science.
Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration. National Univer
sity of Athens. Greece.
Prof. Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot, Research center on power, public action
and territory. Institute of Political Science. University of Bordeaux.
France.
Prof. Michal IIlner, Institute of Sociology. Academy of Science of the Czech
Republic. Prague. Czech Republic.
Dr. habil. Norbert Kersting, Institute for Political Science. Philipps
University Marburg. Germany.
Pieter-Jan Klok, School for Business, Public Administration and Technology.
University of Twente. Enschede. The Netherlands.
Dr. Daniel Kubler, Institute of Political Science. University Zurich. Switzer
land.
Dr. Andreas Ladner, Center of Competence for Public Management. Univer
sity of Bern. Switzerland.
Prof. Annick Magnier, Department of Political Science and Sociology. Uni
versity Florence. Italy.
Prof. Carmen Navarro, Department of Political Science and Administration.
Faculty of Law. University Aut6noma of Madrid. Spain.
Prof. Werner Pleschberger, Department for Economics, Politics and Law.
University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences. Vienna. Aus
·tria.
Gabor Soos, TocqueviJle Research Center Budapest. Hungary.
Prof. Pawel Swianiewicz, Centre for European Regional and Local Studies.
Warsaw University. Poland.
Dr. Helen SuJlivan, University of the West of England Bristol. Great Britain.
Prof. Edvins Vanags, Department of Public Administration. University of
Latvia. Riga. Latvia.
Inga Vilka, Department of Public Administration. University of Latvia. Riga.
Latvia.
Dr. Angelika Vetter, Department of Social Science. Institute for Political Sci
ence. University of Stuttgart. Germany.
Prof. Hellmut Wollmann, Institute for Social Science/ Political Science.
Humboldt-University Berlin. Germany.
7
Preface
Worldwide processes of transnationalization are accompanied by new chal
lenges for the democracies of the Western world. On the one hand these proc
esses ask for more efficient and effective ways of policy-making. On the other
hand the legitimacy of the political systems is also challenged by growing dif
ficulties of bringing the citizens (back) to politics. This gets more and more
difficult with the increasing transfer of formerly national political competen
cies to supra-national institutions. Thereby the political decision-making
processes loose their transparency and the chances of the man in the street to
understand and influence the political process decline. But not only in West
em Europe political systems have to enhance citizens' support by increasing
their input- and output-legitimacy. This holds as well for the "new" democra
cies in Central Europe, which had to rebuild their systems after the fall of
communism in the beginning of the 1990s. Facing these problems of political
legitimacy structural and procedural reforms are on the agenda in almost all
European democracies.
Local authorities are one of the main actors in this context of public sector
reform. The different political and administrative reforms of local govern
ments during the last decades were implemented with regard to their positive
consequences for at least one of the goals mentioned above. The territorial re
forms, for example, which have been taking place in many European coun
tries since the early 1950s are one of the first and far reaching reforms head
ing mainly for efficient local service delivery. Since then they have been ac
complished by a more or less general wave of decentralization: The more cen
tralized states implemented additional layers of government in order to facili
tate the coordination between center and periphery while the more decentral
ized states delegated more competencies to the lower levels in order to opti
mize the service delivery function of local government. These vertical re
forms were complemented by stronger cooperations between local govern
ments and even private actors. Additionally, administrative reorganizations
following for example the new public management concept and/or new means
of participation like the direct election of mayors or new modes of direct par
ticipation were implemented not only with the focus on efficiency but also on
local democracy and citizens' participation.
The conference on Local Government Reform, which took place in Sep
tember 2002 in Stuttgart, provided an overview of all kinds of projects and
reform strategies actually being on the agendas across Europe. The Fritz
Thyssen-Foundation financed the conference. The workshop was organized
9
by the Research Committee 05 ("Comparative Studies on Local Government
and Politics") of the International Political Science Association (IPSA), by
the German Political Science Association (DVPW) workgroup "Local Gov
ernment Research" and the Institute of Political Science at the Stuttgart Uni
versity. The conference aimed at bringing together practitioners and academ
ics that are interested in a systematical and comparative analysis of local gov
ernment reform strategies in Europe.
The lively discussions in the workshop highlighted the variations in local
government reform strategies with regard to the different national administra
tive and legal settings as well as the political-cultural diversities, although we
also found similarities in the ways to cope with the problems mentioned.
We would like to thank all participants involved and especially the Fritz
Thyssen-Foundation for its financial support. Together with the helping hands
of Kristina Fabijancic, Kerstin Held, Alexandra Moessner, Carol in Roelle and
Me ike Vollmar the conference became an enriching and stimulating event.
We also would like to thank Tobias Bumm for proofreading and for support
ing us with his knowledge of the English language. Intercultural discussions
can sensitize to multicultural understanding. This study can only be a building
block for further comparative research. Any oversights are ours alone.
Angelika Vetter and Norbert Kersting Stuttgart/Marburg, August 2003
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