A sizeable effect? Municipal council size and the cost of local government in Canada

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between council size and municipal expenditures in Quebec's largest municipalities. Two claims commonly found in the literature are tested: the professionalization and the law of 1/n hypotheses. Using cross-sectional data, the professionalization hypothesis is confirmed: each elected official costs more in a smaller council. As for the law of 1/n, the effect of council size on total government expenditures is not significant. These results refute the cost saving argument for smaller councils and suggest that other aspects, such as quality of democratic life and efficiency in decision-making, may be more relevant to the debate.Sommaire : Cet article s'interroge sur les liens entre la taille des conseils municipaux et les d epenses publiques des principales municipalit es du Qu ebec. Il explore deux hypothèses souvent tir ees de la documentation : la professionnalisation des elus locaux et la loi du 1/n. L'utilisation de donn ees transversales permet de confirmer l'hypothèse de la professionnalisation du travail des elus locaux. Le coût d'un elu s'accroît lorsque la taille du conseil municipal diminue. En ce qui concerne l'application de la loi du 1/n, l'effet de la taille du conseil municipal sur les d epenses totales d'une municipalit e est n egligeable. Ces r esultats remettent en question l'argument d' economies budg etaires visant a r eduire le nombre d' elus locaux, et suggèrent que des arguments tels que la vitalit e d emocratique et l'efficacit e des processus d ecisionnels s'avèrent plus pertinents au d ebat.Jean-Philippe Meloche is associate professor, Ecole d'urbanisme et d'architecture de paysage, Universit e de Montr eal. Patrick Kilfoil is PhD candidate,

Local Government: A Social Ontology of Care

“…While these referents may be a confirmation of the occurrence of this concept, the presentation in Table 2 is not sufficiently structured for identifying the underlying assumptions about the nature of the phenomenon to which the concept refers . Barnett, 2011;Barnett, 2020;Barnett et al ., 2020;Hanley, 2013;Lewis, 2019;Lewis & Hendrawan, 2019;Meloche & Kilfoil, 2017 Relations between councils and chief administrative officer (CAO) Sancton, 2000b;Siegel, 2015;Meloche & Kilfoil, 2017 Role of politics; politically motivated changes; political interest Gore, 2021;King, 2014;Neumann et al ., 2014;Resnick, 2014;Warner et al ., French & Emerson, 2014;Haider et al ., 2019;Leisink & Bach, 2014 Relationships between councils and CAOs Sancton, 2000b;Siegel, 2015 Restructuring; reduced cost of administration; institutional system Abels, 2012;Cobban, 2019;Hurl, 2018 Behavioural: performance Bispham et al ., 2006, p . 146-157;DPLG, 2008;RSA, 1998c, sections 2-6;Roy, 2006Municipal jurisdictions Cobban, 2019Lewis, 2017;Koma, 2010;Meloche & Kilfoil, 2017;Alam, 2015;Elston & Dixon, 2020;Caldas et al ., 2019, p .…”