Contemporary Challenges in Local Government: Evolving Roles and Responsibilities, Structures, and Processes

Abstract

Editor's Note: The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2014. This article is the first of several that will appear during the next year about the council‐manager plan to commemorate ICMA's 100th anniversary. Three contemporary leadership challenges face local governments today. The first encourages department heads to more actively work the intersection between political and administrative arenas. The second promotes collaborative work, synchronizing city and county boundaries with problems that have no jurisdictional homes. The third argues that citizen engagement is no longer optional—it is imperative—and that connecting engagement initiatives to traditional political values and governing processes is an important mark of successful community building. These three leadership challenges stem from a widening gap between the arenas of politics and administration—that is, between what is politically acceptable in public policy making and what is administratively sustainable. The gap is fueled by conflicting trends experienced locally and common internationally. Failure to bridge this gap between political acceptability and administrative sustainability results in decreasing legitimacy for governing institutions and increasing challenges.

A sentiment analysis of U.S. local government tweets: The connection between tone and citizen involvement

“…The focus of this research is on digital engagement through social media at the local government level, as local government managers face a number of contemporary challenges regarding how to better integrate citizen input into traditional service-delivery functions (Nalbandian, O'Neill, Wilkes, & Kaufman, 2013). Given that Mergel's (2013b) framework of social media deployment guides this analysis, her definitions of Mergel transparency, participation, and collaboration are given herein (and explained further later).…”

Mapping Dimensions of Governance in Smart Cities

“…In a smart city, steering can be performed directly by the local government, jointly with the others actors involved into the smart city or self-steering by the parties outside the local government. On the other hand, boundaries typically occur in complex combinations [26] and have been told as central to the administrative process, as they define what organizations are responsible for doing and what powers and functions lie elsewhere [27], especially under networking environments where the identification of boundaries is sometimes permeable [28].…”

“Crowdsourcing” as a tool for e-participation: two experiences regarding CO2 emissions at municipal level

“…To be able to deal with wicked problems [19], public administrations must have the ability to generate, introduce and implement innovations more quickly, more creatively and in a more participative fashion. Indeed, the need to integrate citizen engagement with traditional structures and processes has been defined as one of the three contemporary challenges faced by local governments [47].…”