Reforming Local Government in Europe: Closing the Gap between Democracy and Efficiency PDF
Preview Reforming Local Government in Europe: Closing the Gap between Democracy and Efficiency
Urban 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 Das Werk einschlie8lich aHer seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschiitzt. Jede Verwertung au8erhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulăssig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere fiir Vervielfaltigungen, Ubersetzungen, Mik roverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. 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 10
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