Hubert Heinelt

Typologies of Local Government Systems

Local government systems are usually perceived as independent variables when considering (possible) differences in recruitment patterns, professionalisation, the position of mayors in local and multi-level governance arrangements (or horizontal and vertical policy networks), the interpretation (or notion) of democracy, problem definition as well as attitudes and opinions towards decentralisation or centralisation and reforms (‘modernisation’) of the public sector (‘new public management’). However, a decision on the most suitable conceptualisation or typology of local government systems for joint research such as that undertaken here is more problematic than might be assumed: firstly, a lot of typologies are available in the scholarly debate, and secondly, it proves difficult to apply the available typologies because none of them cover the whole spectrum of countries included in this study, and many do not include the ‘new democracies’ in Middle-Eastern Europe. Therefore, existing typologies will necessarily have to be adjusted and updated.

Legitimacy and urban governance: A cross-national comparative study

1. Introduction and main findings 2. Sustainability and policy challenge: the cases of economic competitiveness and social inclusion 3. Measuring institutional performance in achieving urban sustainability 4. New urban leaders and community involvement: The Italian case studies 5. Between urban leadership and community involvement: Impacts of EU policies and strong mayors in Greek local government 6. Traces of Governance: Policy networking in Norwegian local government 7. The interplay of central and local: Social inclusion policy from above in Swedish cities 8. Uneven partnerships: Polish city leaders in search of local governance 9. Tackling community leadership in the confined spaces of local governance in England 10. Strong mayors and policy innovations - lessons from two German cities 11. Between vision and consensus: urban leadership and community involvement in the Dutch cases 12. New Zealand: articulating a long-term vision for community well-being 13. Community involvement and legitimation in urban governance: an empirical analysis 14. Local leadership in multi-level governance in Europe 15. Restrictions, opportunities and incentives for leadership and involvement 16. City political culture - what is expected from policy actors? 17. Institutional conditions for complementarities between urban leadership and community involvement 18. The role of political leadership in the promotion of legitimation in urban policy: opportunities and constraints.

Politik in europäischen Städten

Die zentrale Thematik der Veranstaltung war die Fragestellung: Sind lokale Politik bzw. die lokale Ebene aktuell einem Veranderungsprozes unterworfen — und zwar im Hinblick auf eine gestiegene Bedeutung und eine Gewichtsverlagerung bei den Gegenstandsbereichen (Politikfeldern).

Legitimacy and urban governance

1. Introduction and main findings 2. Sustainability and policy challenge: the cases of economic competitiveness and social inclusion 3. Measuring institutional performance in achieving urban sustainability 4. New urban leaders and community involvement: The Italian case studies 5. Between urban leadership and community involvement: Impacts of EU policies and strong mayors in Greek local government 6. Traces of Governance: Policy networking in Norwegian local government 7. The interplay of central and local: Social inclusion policy from above in Swedish cities 8. Uneven partnerships: Polish city leaders in search of local governance 9. Tackling community leadership in the confined spaces of local governance in England 10. Strong mayors and policy innovations - lessons from two German cities 11. Between vision and consensus: urban leadership and community involvement in the Dutch cases 12. New Zealand: articulating a long-term vision for community well-being 13. Community involvement and legitimation in urban governance: an empirical analysis 14. Local leadership in multi-level governance in Europe 15. Restrictions, opportunities and incentives for leadership and involvement 16. City political culture - what is expected from policy actors? 17. Institutional conditions for complementarities between urban leadership and community involvement 18. The role of political leadership in the promotion of legitimation in urban policy: opportunities and constraints.

Modernisierungstrends in lokaler Politik und Verwaltung aus der Sicht leitender Kommunalbediensteter. Eine vergleichende Analyse

Die zentrale Fragestellung dieses Buches — namlich die nach den Auswirkungen verschiedener „Modernisierungsstrange“ (Durchsetzung des suddeutschen Modells der Kommunalverfassung, um sich greifende Verwaltungsmodernisierung nach dem „New Public Management“-Modell und Verbreitung partizipativer Politikformen) — soll im folgenden Beitrag unter den Gesichtspunkten aufgegriffen werden, wie leitende Kommunalbedienstete die fraglichen Veranderungen thematisieren, sich zu ihnen verhalten und ihr Rollenverstandnis definieren.

Introduction: The Role Perception and Behaviour of Municipal Councillors in the Changing Context of Local Democracy

Political leadership at the local level has attracted growing attention in recent years in parallel with reforms of local government and of municipal administration, as well as the debate on a shift from government to governance. But this debate has been mainly focused on sole leaders, i.e. mayors or executive officers. Taking into account the power triangle of (i) mayor, (ii) municipal administration (executive officers) and (iii) council, it is surprising that councillors have so far received little by way of attention. It is amazing that case studies like the one carried out in the 1960s by Eulau and Prewitt (1973) on the 82 city councils in the San Francisco Bay area have not been replicated in recent years. The aim of this special issue is to reflect on the role and task perception, as well as the behaviour, of councillors in the changing context of local democracy. The articles collected for this special issue use a common conceptual framework sketched out in Figure 1. We start from the hypothesis that the role perception and behaviour of councillors, as well as their attitudes towards reforms at the local level, cannot be seen as being determined directly by (i) both formal and informal institutional structures and/or by (ii) personal characteristics. Instead, we argue (in line with Fishbein and Ajzen 1975 and Ajzen and Fishbein 1980) that councillors’ role perceptions and behaviour depend on their notion of democracy as an expression of their basic beliefs about appropriate behaviour and subjective norms.

URBAN PROBLEM DISCOURSES: UNDERSTANDING THE DISTINCTIVENESS OF CITIES

ABSTRACT: Despite the insistence in interpretive policy analysis that the discursive construction of problems must be understood in terms of their historical and spatial context, it remains an open question how cities provide such a context. We argue that cities as a distinct form of sociation enable certain (discursive) actions, while restricting others. Taking both the interest of interpretive policy analysis in the social construction of political reality and holistic concepts of approaching the distinctiveness of cities as starting points, we scrutinize how the cities of Frankfurt/Main, Dortmund, Birmingham, and Glasgow provide distinct contexts for the construction of local policy problems. Based on an inquiry into urban discourses we ask, first, how problematizations involve locally specific attributions of problem causes and responsibilities for problem solving and, second, how this is related to a locally distinct understanding of the city’s past, present, and future.

Welches Demokratieverständnis haben deutsche Ratsmitglieder und wie schlägt es sich in ihren Handlungsorientierungen nieder

Stadt- und Gemeinderate werden hauptsachlich als Reprasentationsorgane angesehen, d.h. als Kerninstitutionen eines bestimmten Verstandnisses bzw. Modells von Demokratie – namlich der reprasentativen Demokratie. Zunachst wird im Folgenden untersucht (in Abschnitt 6.1), welches Demokratieverstandnis Ratsmitglieder haben und ob es diesem Modell entspricht.

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?

Governance und Wissen

In der politikwissenschaftlichen Debatte hat nicht nur seit den 90er Jahren der Begriff Governance Konjunktur.1 Im Kontext der „kognitiven Wende” (Nullmeier 1997; Edmondson/Nullmeier 1997) ist zeitgleich in der Politikwissenschaft auch Lernen im Hinblick auf Prozesse der Präferenzformierung und -transformierung thematisiert und auf die Bedeutung von Wissen im Zusammenhang der Veränderung institutionell gegebener „Imperative” (oder Pfadabhängigkeiten) eingegangen worden. Im Folgenden werden zunächst Entwicklungslinien in der Governance-Debatte nachgezeichnet (Abschnitt 1) und dann (im Abschnitt 2) konzeptionelle Überlegungen dazu präsentiert, wie Governance-Arrangements als Handlungsarenen zu begreifen sind. Mit Rückgriff auf diese Überlegungen wird schließlich (im Abschnitt 3) versucht, die Bedeutung von Wissen für die Strukturierung solcher Handlungsarenen und der in ihnen ablaufenden Interaktionen darzulegen.