Territorial Consolidation Reforms – European Experiences of 21st Century

Swianiewicz, Paweł

doi:10.18509/gbp.2015.48

Cited by 14 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 6 publications

(9 reference statements)

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“…For example, whereas consolidation in metropolitan areas is a relatively rare event in the United States, many Western European countries have successfully engaged in large-scale territorial reforms. In contrast, in Central and Eastern Europe, the large majority of the so-called transitional countries fragmented their local government structures during the 1990s to promote local democracy as a reaction to territorial consolidations imposed under former communist regimes (Swianiewicz 2010). Another trend resulted from the European integration efforts of the past three decades with crossborder cooperation becoming a major issue of interest, both for researchers and practitioners ( de Sousa 2013;Szmigiel-Rawska 2016).…”

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confidence: 99%

Applying an Institutional Collective Action Framework to Investigate Intermunicipal Cooperation in Europe

Tavares

Feiock

2017

Perspectives on Public Management and Governance

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Over the last few decades, European countries have dealt with problems of regional governance in very different ways. A common theme is the debate between supporters of local government mergers to expand the capacity and efficiency in service provision and those favoring local government autonomy and self-determination to protect democracy and government responsiveness. The significant number of scholarly contributions to this debate between mergers and fragmentation contrasts with the scarcity of theoretical attention to decentralized self-organizing mechanisms. This article fills this lacuna by developing an extension of the Institutional Collective Action (ICA) framework for the European context. The framework defines two dimensions to understand intermunicipal cooperation: the type of urban integration mechanism (imposed authority, delegated authority, contracts, or social embeddedness) and the degree of institutional scope (narrow, intermediate or complex). The resulting typology composed by 12 cells is illustrated with examples of intermunicipal cooperation for solving governance dilemmas in the European setting. We advance theoretical propositions rooted in historical, cultural, and institutional differences to explain the variation in the adoption of intermunicipal cooperation by Northern versus Southern as well as Eastern versus Western European countries. A research agenda using the ICA framework is advanced for framing the studies of regional governance in Europe.

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confidence: 99%

Applying an Institutional Collective Action Framework to Investigate Intermunicipal Cooperation in Europe

Tavares

Feiock

2017

Perspectives on Public Management and Governance

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“…In addition, the political science literature on inter-municipal cooperation has emphasized the methodological difficulties of building a common comparative framework (Hulst & Van Montfort, 2007;Swianiewicz, 2010) able to interpret different outcomes in Europe. The reasons are connected to the different national institutional frameworks, and, consequently, with the different role played by national and sub-national actors in this issue.…”

Section: What Does (Not) the Literature Explain?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Between national constraints and the legacies of the past: explaining variations in inter-municipal cooperation in Italian regions

Casula

2016

Regional Studies, Regional Science

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In recent years, Italian policy-makers launched several austerity policies to rationalize local government. One of the most controversial of these is obliging small municipalities to manage local services cooperatively, 1 due to the historic Italian tradition of local self-government. Its first provision (decree-law No. 78/2010), extended a number of times, is that municipalities must compulsorily manage their basic functions in municipal unions (MUs) or in covenants, each representing a different degree of institutionalization. While the former are enti locali (local entities) with their own political and technical bodies, the latter are simple formal agreements for managing one or more services. Following Hulst and Van Montfort (2007, p. 12), public and private actors in the context of inter-municipal cooperation are assumed to be goal-oriented and rational, pursuing their interests, using their powers to achieve their goals. In the current Italian inter-municipal cooperation context, local administrators' main objectives are to conform to regional/national regulatory ABSTRACT despite the historical tradition of inter-municipal cooperation in several regions, the italian policy maker has for the first time decided to oblige small municipalities to co-manage their basic functions. although controversial because of its overly top-down logic, this provision is driving a "new" era of inter-municipal cooperation in italian regions: around 70% of italian municipalities must choose between a municipal union and a covenant in order to manage these functions. Regions can direct their municipalities towards different forms of inter-municipal cooperation with the use of monetary incentives, regulatory restrictions or persuasion. the paper develops an analytic framework to explore this process in two regional cases. the analysis highlights that despite the national constraints, the different regional strategies are increasingly conditioned by the legacies of the past.

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“…This is evidenced in Germany in Blatter (2006), while Swedish boundary reform is described in Hinnerich (2009), Danish municipal reform in Blom-Hansen (2012) and UK urban governance reform in Slack and Côté (2014). Country-profiled local government reforms in Central European states can be found in studies in Klimovský (2010), Swianiewicz (2010) and practices of decentralising government from all across Europe are given in Buček, Ryder (eds.) (2015).…”

Section: Administrative Amalgamation -'Is Bigger Better?'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Inner boundary reform in Kosice: The most fragmented city in Slovakia

Csachová¹

2016

Geogr Pannon

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In the first part of the paper the aim is to provide the reader with a theoretical insight into models of government structure at the local level and provide evidence from European countries that underwent reforms during the second half of the 20 th century. In the Slovak Republic (Slovakia) the renewal of local self-government in 1990 brought changes to the administrative boundary map with more than 200 municipalities re-established bringing the current number to 2,929 local administrative units. This has resulted in some discussion regarding a reduction in the number of local government units in this country. The second part of the paper is focused on Košice; the second largest city in Slovakia with 234,000 inhabitants. The city is organised at two administrative levels; one covering the whole city, the other covering 22 wards. When compared to cities of a similar size, Košice has been criticised for its high number of city wards and councillors, with the concomitant financial inefficiency it can bring. There has been an ongoing debate on reducing their number since 2010. The paper reports on the search for an administrative structure that would best tailor to the citizens´ needs and provide effective management in Košice. It uses traditional methods of qualitative research (historical method, content analysis and synthesis) accompanied by statistical data organised in tables and figures.

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Territorial Consolidation Reforms – European Experiences of 21st Century

Cited by 14 publications

References 6 publications

Applying an Institutional Collective Action Framework to Investigate Intermunicipal Cooperation in Europe

Applying an Institutional Collective Action Framework to Investigate Intermunicipal Cooperation in Europe

Between national constraints and the legacies of the past: explaining variations in inter-municipal cooperation in Italian regions

Inner boundary reform in Kosice: The most fragmented city in Slovakia

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