Björn Egner

Local Councillors in Europe

Local Councillors in Comparative Perspective.- Political Recruitment and Career Development of Local Councillors in Europe.- Councillors and their Parties.- The Roles Councillors Play.- Councillors and Democracy.- Who do the Local Councillors of Europe Represent?.- Councillors, Participation, and Local Democracy.- Municipal Councillors as Interest Mediators.- European Mayors and Councillors: The gender gap among local representatives.- Local councillors in different governance network arrangements.- Local councillors and administrative reforms.- Municipal priorities in urban planning and local development.

Parteien in der Kommunalpolitik

Die Analyse der Rolle von Parteien gehort zu den zentralen Gegenstandsbereichen der lokalen Politikforschung. Gerade fur die kommunale Ebene war die Rolle der Parteien allerdings lange umstritten.

Parliaments in Disguise? How German Councillors perceive Local Councils

Abstract Drawing on a survey among German local councillors, the article is discussing the question if German local councils do constitute ‘parliamentary’ bodies. To which extent do local councillors perceive the council as a parliament and themselves as members of a parliament? This question is especially interesting in Germany, where the public largely associates terms like ‘parliament’ with the local council and ‘government’ with the mayor and the executive officers, even if local institutions by law all belong to the executive branch. Despite the institutional setup, I claim that councillors perceive themselves as ‘local MPs’. By using the concept of parliamentarism, this article analyses the self-assessments of nearly 900 German local councillors. The article shows that German local councillors act in a quasi-parliamentarian style by controlling the executive, but take important decisions within the frame of ‘local laws’ and seek to implement their party’s programme. Councillors, representing their respective party in the council, also negotiate coalitions and divide themselves into ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ benches, resembling the setup of a ‘real’ parliament.

Explaining the Differences in the Role of Councils: an Analysis Based on a Survey of Mayors

Abstract Political leadership at the local level has attracted growing attention in recent years in parallel with reforms of local government and of the municipal administration, as well as the debate on a shift from government to governance. Considering the power triangle of (i) the mayor, (ii) the municipal administration (executive officers) and (iii) the council, it is surprising that the latter has gained little interest so far. This article analyses how the roles of local councils as representative bodies are assessed by mayors from seventeen European countries and how differences in the perception of councils can be explained. Can differences be explained by institutional settings, the notion of the mayor towards the role of political parties or by the kind of interaction between the mayor and the council – or are specific local conditions and idiosyncratic personal factors crucial?

Local councillors in comparative perspective

This book is about local councillors. It presents the results of the third in a series of linked cross-national research projects on comparative urban and local governance research. All three projects have been undertaken by the ‘Euroloc’ research group – a network of academics with a focus on international comparative research in local government studies. After having concluded the ‘Udite Leadership Study’ on appointed municipal chief executive officers (see Klausen and Magnier 1998; Mouritzen and Svara 2002) and a comparative study on mayors (often referred to as the polleader project) (see Back et al. 2006), the research network addressed the largest number of political actors in local government, elected councillors.

Stellung und Funktion der Räte im Bundesländervergleich

Zunachst soll in diesem Kapitel die Konvergenz der Gemeindeordnungen dargestellt werden. Hierzu wird zunachst auf die Entwicklung der unterschiedlichen Gemeindeordnungen eingegangen (Abschnitt 2.1). Weiterhin wird untersucht, inwiefern sich die seit Beginn der 1990er Jahre stattgefundenen Reformen der Kommunalverfassungen auf die Kompetenz- und Machtverteilung zwischen Rat, Burgermeister und den leitenden Kommunalbediensteten (Dezerenten u.a.) niedergeschlagen haben (Abschnitt 2.2).

Do institutions matter? Der wahrgenommene Einfluss von Akteuren auf die Kommunalpolitik im Rahmen unterschiedlicher horizontaler Machtverteilung

Selbst nach dem „Siegeszug der suddeutschen Ratsverfassung“ (Knemeyer 1999: 109) im Rahmen der Kommunalverfassungsreformen der 1990er Jahre unterscheiden sich die Gemeindeordnungen der deutschen Bundeslander immer noch deutlich voneinander.

Gemeinderäte zwischen Verwaltungsorgan und Parlamentarismus

In der offentlichen Wahrnehmung der Kommunalpolitik werden haufig Begriffe verwendet, die Analogien zu Staatsorganen auf anderen Ebenen herstellen. So wird haufig vom „Stadtparlament“ gesprochen, wenn vom Gemeinderat berichtet wird, oder die Gesamtheit von Burgermeistern und weiteren Wahlbeamten wird sogar als „Stadtregierung“ bezeichnet.

A Transferable Incumbency Effect in Local Elections: Why it is Important for Parties to hold the Mayoralty

Does the outcome of the direct election of the head of the government influence the election of the legislative body? We test whether findings from research on divided government, contamination and incumbency effects observed at the national level can be transferred to the local level. In particular, we analyse quasi-presidential local government systems with a directly elected mayor. Our main hypothesis is that the party of the incumbent mayor systematically gains votes at the next council election. For our case of the German state Hesse we find a transferable incumbency effect after the introduction of the direct mayoral elections of about 3.7 percentage points. A more sophisticated model with several interaction effects specifies this incumbency effect.

European Mayors and Administrative Reforms

Local government reforms are on the rise in Europe. All European countries are experiencing an ongoing political and academic debate on the most suitable approach to local government reform, and in many countries such reforms have already taken place or are about to be implemented. ‘Public sector reform is in fashion and no self-respecting government can afford to ignore it’ (Wright 1997: 8). The key goals of the reforms discussed and implemented are changes in the institutional settings of local government (local election systems, relationship between mayor and council, direct citizen participation by referendum), a fostering of the involvement of societal actors or inter-active policy-making and an increase in the efficiency of the local administration. However, it is of interest 0to enquire what mayors themselves think about reforms.