Changing Local Political Leadership: The New Zealand Mayor in Contemporary Local Governance

Abstract

Recent local elections have drawn attention to local political leadership in New Zealand. This article situates local political leadership in the context of recent theorising about typologies of local government and also in the context of changing styles of political leadership. The requirements of leadership are evolving as the role of local government and government more generally has been shaped by new public management and in particular the increasing emphasis on joined-up government and partnerships. The emergence of systems of local governance where political activities extend beyond the institution of ‘local government’ to encompass nongovernmental institutions and networks of institutional actors highlights the need for a more facilitative style of local political leadership. As well as the need to manage relationships with these networks, local political leadership and representative democracy more generally cannot be viewed in isolation from citizen participation and community involvement, and, indeed, these are now complementary aspects of local governance. This article examines recent literature on local political leadership and presents findings from a recent research project which examined leadership styles and the interface between leadership and community involvement.