The Anatomy and Drivers of Local Autonomy in a European Perspective (original) (raw)

Local Self-Government in Europe

Local Self-Government in Europe, 2021

The local governance and municipalities have always been an important system of the national administrative systems. Therefore, their analysis has had a long tradition in the European social sciences. The different regulations on the municipal administration have been compared by the books, but the approach has been changed by the evolvement of the administrative sciences: comparative local governance and the comparison of the different local socio-economic systems became recent topics of the monographs. 13 municipal systems are analysed by this book. Countries from all part of the European Union are observed by the chapters. The central element of our analysis are the standards defined by the Charter of Local Self-Government in Europe: the implementation of the Charter and the transformation and reforms of the last decades are analysed by them. However, just half of the municipal models of the EU Member States are examined by leading experts of the given countries, but the different faces of the similar trends can be observed by this book. The different ‘faces’ of centralisation and concentration can be seen. The book has a strong legal approach, but the analysis of the local governance is in focus of the book, therefore, it has a wider, social science approach, as well.

Local Government Structure and Capacities in Europe

Public Policy And Administration, 2015

This article argues that the local government capacities and local government performance in Europe clearly rank this continent to the most developed world areas from the point of local democracy. The background factors explaining this situation have a multidimensional character and one can identify as core positive factors the relative economic wealth, high human development, the long historical tradition of the subsidiarity principle in most parts of Europe, and the regulatory function of the Council of Europe. The strong development of local and regional democracy in Europe is protected and based on the principles of European Charter of Local Self Government. However, this does not mean that everything is perfect in Europe and that there would be no challenges to be addressed. It is difficult to define clear common weaknesses of the local democracy in Europe. We need to mention the core structural challenges here, for instance the continuous discussion about amalgamation versus fragmentation. Most countries also indicate one overarching threat to the local democracy in Europe today, that is, the financial crisis, which significantly decreased the level of available financial resources for selfgovernments, while the structure of responsibilities remains the same or even increases. Another core threat visible in many European countries is the trend toward re-centralization or limited real will do continue with decentralization in, both in established and emerging democracies. Regional issues differ, and we mention especially the situation of post-communist countries, where local democracy does not have a long tradition and still needs to be revitalized.

A Normative Theory of Local Government: Connecting Individual Autonomy and Local Self-Determination with Democracy

Lex Localis - Journal of Local Self-Government, 2017

The issue of local government reform is high on the agenda in many developed democracies. The discussion is often framed in narrow terms, focusing on functional efficiency. In this article, we construct a normative argument for local government that values local government because it fulfills morally desirable purposes in itself, regardless of its functional efficiency. The argument is that the same foundational value – individual autonomy – constitutes the normative underpinning of both democracy and the right to local self-government. The implication is that if we value democracy, we must defend a strong and constitutionally protected local government.

New Forms of Local Governance . A survey of 35 European States.

In recent decades, local authorities in Europe have been evolving, from a formalised, regimented and legalised notion of local government, to a looser concept that focuses on new forms and methods of governance. Local authorities, far from being an isolated tier of government, are increasingly working: Vertically, with central government in novel ways, such as central-local contracts; Horizontally, with other public authorities operating in the same local areas; and with private, civil society and voluntary bodies. This study is a survey of 35 Member States of the Council of Europe and was prepared as the background researhc memorandum to support the resolution of the same name passed by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe. The survey found that in moving to classic government to a looser governance had positive but also negative consecuences for local democracy, as seen by elected members themselves. The crisis only accelerated what is a longstanding process. The basis of this report is the responses received to the questionnaire that was circulated to the members of the Congress Governance Committee and local and regional authority associations of Council of Europe Member States. It also benefits from additional requests of information and a literature review of previous Congress reports, OECD, EU and academic papers carried out by Dr Mark McATEER from the Improvement Service for Scottish local government and Serafin PAZOS-VIDAL from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities

Prevailing tendencies in local self-governance: Scope of local public affairs and territorial trends in Europe

Bratislava Law Review

Focusing on the content of local autonomy, congruent trends could be identified in European countries. Fundamental values of local self-governance prevailing in Europe are included in the European Charter of Local Self-Government. Having regard to the constitutional principle of separation of powers, Charter takes into consideration local self-governments as part of the executive power. Even though the basic principles specify the political and institutional framework of territorial and local administration, the intergovernmental relations also show changing nature. The public administration systems of the Member States of the European Union do not fall within the scope of the EU law, nevertheless, should be analyzed to what extent these processes are in#uenced by Europeanization progress and what other factors may occur. Remarkable territorial and competence-theory changes were implemented in some States recently, like the Big Society concept in the United Kingdom and the territori...

Concept and Role of Local Self-Government in the Contemporary State

Theoretical Foundations and Discussions on the Reformation Process in Local Governments

In this study the key features of local self-government in the contemporary state will be analyzed and will be focused on European systems of local governance and particularly on Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Spain, The Netherlands and the UK. In this context the European Union will be referenced as an additional layer of governance above the state. In addition to a legal perspective, suggestions coming from other disciplines will be used such as, sociology, philosophy and especially political science. Main argument in this text is that a system of governance which includes strong local decentralisation is a good system of government fulfilling fundamental goals of constitutionalism.

Recent and Contemporary Trends in European Studies of Local Government and Local Politics

Contemporary Trends in Local Governance, 2020

The chapter reviews changing attitudes towards important theoretical concepts of local governance, such as New Public Management, shift from government to governance, multi-level governance, Europeanization and re-scaling. It shows shortcomings related to application of those theories, but also a lack of dominant alternative paradigms which could replace the older concepts. The rapidly growing number of valuable, empirical studies together with development of new methodological approaches (e.g. quasi-experimental designs) allow to expect emergence of theoretical conclusions in the near future. At the same time difficulty to follow results of numerous new published articles brings popularity of various type of meta-analysis or systematic reviews of literature, as a new type of empirical articles. In the second part the chapter reviews the most important trends in contemporary empirical studies of local governments in Europe. The selection of topics is a subjective choice of the Author and includes: renaissance of cross-national comparative research, local reactions to economic crisis, studies of territorial reforms and economies of scale, management of metropolitan areas and research on coping with deficit of local democracy.