Oliver Dlabac

Vertical relations after the financial crisis

This chapter explores the dynamics of vertical power relations before and after the financial crisis of 2007, as perceived by city mayors across Europe. Against the thesis of a convergence of intergovernmental relations in the ‘North’ and ‘South’ of Europe, we show how countries from different state traditions have actually followed different paths of decentralisation and centralisation. Differences between North and South persist with regard to not only power relations, but also mayors’ rescaling strategies for enhancing their scope of action. Mayors in the North try to defend their role in the national political system, whereas mayors in the South and East rely heavily on attracting external resources. The investigation of variation within countries suggests that financially troubled cities in the South were more likely to experience a trend towards recentralisation, whereas cities in economic hardship in Central Eastern Europe show signs of complementing their economic rescaling strategy with a political strategy for resisting centralisation.

Mayoral scalar strategies and the role of the central state after the financial crisis

ABSTRACT Much has been written about state rescaling, politics of scale and the rise of cities and regions in Europe. Little is known, however, about the impact of the financial crisis on these processes. By taking the view of city mayors, this paper presents a comprehensive and timely re-evaluation of central tenets of this literature in the turbulent aftermath of the financial crisis. The analysis shows the variegated pathways of state rescaling before and after the financial crisis, the multifaceted scalar strategies with which mayors have responded in different countries and cities, and the impact of such strategies on their perception of a centralisation towards the national state. The paper concludes by emphasising the continued dominance of the central state, whereas potentials for the rise of cities are rather to be sought at subnational than at European or global scales.

Metropolitan challenges and reform pressures across Europe – the perspectives of city mayors

ABSTRACT Metropolitan governance arrangements and their policy purposes have been a matter of debate among researchers and practitioners around the globe. While we may trace three broad schools of metropolitan governance – reform school, public choice theory and new regionalism – with each still having its proponents, we are interested to learn whether there are assumptions on metropolitan governance that have today become general knowledge among urban political elites. By investigating the attitudes and perceptions of city mayors across Europe, we show that functional multipurpose governance bodies are indeed more generally associated with equitable service distribution, whereas the preconditions for cost-efficiency and sustainable development are more equivocally placed at different modes of governance. Moreover, we show that a perceived general lack of problem-solving capacities does not automatically translate into pressures for metropolitan reform, but it is only in combination with a general disaffection with the governance structures currently in place.

Bedrängte lokale Schulbehörden

Bei aller Aufregung uber HarmoS, Lehrplan21 und Pisa-Studie: Oft vergessen wird die Ebene der Gemeinden und Schulen, wo die Reformen umgesetzt und Schulqualitat taglich geschaffen werden muss. Dabei sind gerade auf lokaler Ebene grosse Umwalzungen im Gange, welche grundlegende Fragen zur demokratischen Verankerung der Volksschule aufwerfen.

Lokale Autonomie und Milizprinzip unter veränderten Vorzeichen: Neue Modelle der Gemeinde- und Schulorganisation

Die Schweizer Staatstradition der Gemeindeautonomie und des Milizprinzips in der Gemeinde- und Schulfuhrung (ehrenamtliche Laienbehorden) sieht sich zunehmend herausgefordert durch erhohte gesellschaftliche Anspruche bei gleichzeitig abnehmender Bereitschaft zur Ubernahme offentlicher Amter. In diesem Beitrag wird argumentiert, dass die Mitwirkung ubergeordneter Staatsebenen und die einsetzende Professionalisierung in der Gemeinde- und Schulorganisation nicht zwingend der lokalen Autonomie und dem Milizprinzip zuwiderlaufen mussen. Problematisch erscheint vielmehr die Situation in den zahlreichen kleineren Gemeinden mit ausgeweiteten Milizstrukturen. Anhand quantitativer Analysen wird aufgezeigt, dass letztere kaum noch in kompetitiven Wahlen besetzt werden. Der Autonomie, der lokalen Demokratie und dem Milizprinzip ware mit einer Entlastung und Straffung der Milizstrukturen besser gedient.

Liberal and Radical Democracies: The Swiss Cantons Compared

Abstract This article examines the widespread hypothesis that German-speaking Swiss cantons exhibit radical-democratic characteristics, while the Latin cantons possess stronger liberal-representative democratic profiles. Empirical and multi-dimensional measuring of the quality of democracy in the cantons shows that this hypothesis does not do the complexity of cantonal democracy justice. Today’s position of the cantons along the axes of liberal and radical democracy is best explained with reference to the strong liberal and democratic constitutional movements within the cantons during the middle of the 19th century.