Public law and municipal leadership and territorial public self-government: legal, institutional and communicative aspects

Abstract

This article reveals the public law concept of “leadership”, theoretical grounds of municipal leadership, its role within the system of municipal democracy and territorial public self-government from the perspective of integral legal understanding and a communicative approach towards law. The goal of this research consists in the analysis of conceptual and normative legal framework of the institutions of public law and municipal leadership, impact of the institution of leadership upon development of the forms of municipal democracy in the context of Russian and foreign experience, as well as peculiarities of the influence of the institution of public law leadership upon the forms of governance in territorial public self-government The subject of this research is the scientific views, normative legal framework of regulation, organizational practice of the institution of public law and municipal leadership in territorial public self-government in the context of functionality of the forms of municipal democracy. The article employs the formal legal and comparative analysis, methods of dialectics, municipal legal hermeneutics, communicative approach, and critical rationalism in legal studies, which allows viewing the municipal leadership as a complex interdisciplinary legal and administrative institution that assists the implementation of the forms of municipal democracy, and improves the effectiveness of the territorial self-government in cooperation with branches and officials of the local self-government. The following conclusions are made: the institution of public law leadership should be viewed as interdisciplinary, which incorporates the sphere of public law on the one hand, and the sphere of state and municipal administration on the other hand; the works of the Russian and foreign researchers indicate that the  concepts of transformational leadership, leadership-service and adaptive leadership can be analytically applied to the institution of municipal leadership; it is necessary to improve the institution of public law and municipal leadership, and ensure new spheres of juridification of the requirements for the heads of territorial self-government on the federal and municipal levels.