“No Countries for Municipalities?” – Old and New Faces of Centralisation in the Time of Crisis

Abstract

Public service provision and administration have been transformed by digitalisation and the application of information and communication technologies (ICT). The article will focus mainly on the impact of these changes on regulatory issues. New approaches have been developed: “soft power” issues, like regulation and standards of public service provision, and central financial tools have become new elements of centralisation reforms, and the concentration of local public services and local administration has become a new issue, especially in Northern and Western Europe. Similarly, the “platformisation” of local services can be interpreted as a new form of centralisation. A “Northern” and “Southern/Eastern” approach to centralisation can be distinguished, and these are analysed in the article.