Reforming Local Government in Europe

1. Front Matter

   Pages 1-10

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2. Democracy versus efficiency? Comparing local government reforms across Europe

   • Angelika Vetter, Norbert Kersting

   Pages 11-28

3. Local government reforms in the Nordic countries. Bringing politics back in?

   • Harald Baldersheim

   Pages 29-38

4. Local government reform in Great Britain

   • Helen Sullivan

   Pages 39-63

5. A new role for municipal councils in Dutch local democracy?

   • Bas Denters, Pieter-Jan Klok

   Pages 65-84

6. German local government under the double impact of democratic and administrative reforms

   • Hellmut Wollmann

   Pages 85-112

7. Cities and municipalities in the Austrian political system since the 1990s. New developments between “efficiency” and “democracy”

   • Werner Pleschberger

   Pages 113-135

8. Local government reform in Switzerland. More for than by — but what about of?

   • Daniel Kübler, Andreas Ladner

   Pages 137-155

9. The French Republic, one yet divisible?

   • Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot

   Pages 157-182

10. Subsidiarity: fall or premise of “local government reforms”. The Italian case

    • Annick Magnier

    Pages 183-196

11. Twenty-five years of democratic local government in Spain

    • Carlos Alba, Carmen Navarro

    Pages 197-220

12. Local government reform in Greece

    • Nikolaos-Komnenos Hlepas

    Pages 221-239

13. Local government reforms and the capacity for local governance in Hungary

    • Gábor Soós

    Pages 241-260

14. Thirteen years of reforming sub-national government in the Czech Republic

    • Michal Illner

    Pages 261-281

15. Reforming local government in Poland. Top-down and bottom-up processes

    • Paweł Swianiewicz

    Pages 283-307

16. Local government reform in the Baltic countries

    • Edvins Vanags, Inga Vilka

    Pages 309-332

17. Reforming local government. Heading for efficiency and democracy

    • Angelika Vetter, Norbert Kersting

    Pages 333-349

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.

• Europe
• Europäisierung
• Governance
• Kommunen
• Nation
• Regionen
• democracy
• politics
• transformation

• Institute for Political Science, Philipps-University Marburg, Marburg, Germany

  Norbert Kersting

• Department of Social Science. Institute for Political Science, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

  Angelika Vetter

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