Political representation in local governance: A survey analysis of councillor attitudes and behaviour in Belgium

Verhelst, Tom; Reynaert, Herwig; Steyvers, Kristof; Rynck, Filip De

doi:10.1057/ap.2013.12

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…The distinction between governing and opposition parties is a crucial factor in understanding executive-legislative relations and legislative behaviour (Louwerse et al 2017). Opposition councillors in Belgium were found to emphasise scrutinising the municipal executive much more than coalition councillors (Verhelst et al 2014). We expect that opposition councillors use council tools more intensively than coalition councillors to scrutinise the executive board's actions.…”

Section: Coalition-opposition Dividementioning

confidence: 94%

“…Rather than directly examining local councillors' behaviour, many studies have focused on their role orientations. This has resulted in studies on how important local councillors deem specific aspects of representation (Copus 2008;De Groot, Denters, and Klok 2010;Karlsson 2012;Rao 1998;Verhelst et al 2014). A survey in fifteen European countries and Israel has enabled the comparative study of local councillors (Egner, Sweeting, and Klok 2013b), leading to insights into councillors' notions of democracy (Heinelt 2013), their responsiveness (Denters and Klok 2013), and their representative style (Karlsson 2013b).…”

Section: What We Know About Local Councillorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Scrutiny and policymaking in local councils: how parties use council tools

Otjes

Nagtzaam

Well

2022

Local Government Studies

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In recent years, political scientists have gained greater understanding of how national parliamentary parties use their parliamentary tools: that is under what conditions they submit parliamentary questions or amendments to legislation. We know surprisingly little about how local councillors use the tools at their disposal: under what conditions do these local councillors submit questions to the local executive? When do they submit amendments to local ordinances? We examine to what extent the use of amendments and questions reflects differences between local party groups' ideologies in terms of anti-elitism and the left-right dimension, and differences between coalition and opposition parties. On the basis of an analysis 454 local council groups in 53 Dutch municipalities we find considerable evidence for differences in the use of council tools between coalition and opposition parties.

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Section: Coalition-opposition Dividementioning

confidence: 94%