Direct Election Of Mayors Research Articles

Fiskalische Effekte der Kommunalverfassungsreformen der 1990er Jahre in Deutschland / Reforming Local Constitutions in Germany during the 1990s – Their Fiscal Effects

Summary Most German states changed their local constitutions during the 1990s in order to become more citizen-friendly. To reach that goal, many local constitutions now allow for the direct election of mayors, initiatives and referenda, and vote-aggregation as well as vote-splitting. Simultaneously, the five-percent threshold was abolished lowering entry barriers. This contribution asks whether these reforms had any effects on local fiscal policies. Based on the reforms that took place in Schleswig-Holstein, Bavaria and Hesse and drawing on a structural break test it is shown that the direct election of mayors has led to lower government spending. The introduction of direct democratic elements, on the other hand, has led to higher expenditures. The empirical results concerning direct democracy substantially deviate from the findings regarding both Switzerland and the U.S.. It is argued that the difference might be due to the lack of fiscal referenda in Germany.

A Transferable Incumbency Effect in Local Elections: Why it is Important for Parties to hold the Mayoralty

Does the outcome of the direct election of the head of the government influence the election of the legislative body? We test whether findings from research on divided government, contamination and incumbency effects observed at the national level can be transferred to the local level. In particular, we analyse quasi-presidential local government systems with a directly elected mayor. Our main hypothesis is that the party of the incumbent mayor systematically gains votes at the next council election. For our case of the German state Hesse we find a transferable incumbency effect after the introduction of the direct mayoral elections of about 3.7 percentage points. A more sophisticated model with several interaction effects specifies this incumbency effect.

THE (IN)COMPATIBILITY OF INSTITUTIONAL REFORM AND INCLUSIVENESS: THE CASE OF THE NETHERLANDS

The quest for a more democratic political system in the Netherlands since the 1960s led to emotional debates in both chambers of Parliament. Discussion, however, mainly took place in a long list of committees, beginning with expert committees in the 1970s and 1980s, committees of party leaders in the 1990s and committees of lay citizens in the first decade of this century. Different political parties, however, were committed to different types of policies. Parties on the left argued successfully for more participatory types of political arrangements such as referendums and consultative types of policy making. Women's groups were also moderately successful in their demands for the inclusion of women in politics where incremental policies and voluntary quotas in political parties preempted the need for mandatory quotas. A third type of policy, concerned with the accountability of the political system, introducing constituencies in the electoral system and direct election of mayors and other types of officeholders, was less successful. The authors argue that these debates largely evolved alongside each other, and that the question whether political reform enhances the inclusiveness of the political system in terms of gender, and even more in terms of ethnicity, has been sadly absent from the political agenda.

TOWARDS A DIRECT ELECTION OF MAYORS IN BELGIUM: GIVING UP REPRESENTATION OR GIVING IN TO POLITICAL RENEWAL?

Direct election of mayors is a popular issue in ‘political renewal’ in many European countries. The authors argue that the desire to implement this type of policy is usually inspired by a mix of motives: one motive is to establish strong and direct linkage, legitimacy and responsiveness between citizens and mayor while giving a face to fragmented policy processes. Another motive is to concentrate executive leadership in the hands of mayors to ensure that ‘new mayors’ function both as figureheads and focal points in local decision‐making. In their analysis of policy debates in Belgium in both the Flanders and the Walloon region, they show that these debates not only develop differently in different regions, they are only remotely connected to empirical findings as well. The selection of mayors in Belgium has over the years developed from an authoritarian into a democratic mode; the functional component has taken a similar course. The result is that mayors in Belgium are now in most cases ‘vote champions’ already, while their most important role is to be leaders in local politics. Policy debates do not only largely ignore these changes in the selection and in the mandates of mayors, they also ignore possible negative effects of direct elections on the chances of women and ethnic minorities in local politics.

Institutional Overshooting in Italian Urban Politics

The introduction of direct mayoral elections in Italy altered the balance of power between political parties and their local candidates. Previously powerless mayors suddenly began to challenge the centre. However, they ultimately overestimated the extent of their newfound autonomy. The paper presents macro- and micro-level analysis of the ‘mayors' movement’ that emerged, tracing the effects of the ‘institutional overshooting’ and the readjustment to party power. Both aggregate accounts and individual career paths show a resulting equilibrium, in which personalism has increased, but in less radical ways than believed in the period after the reform.

Exploring the limits of institutional change: The direct election of mayors in Western Europe

The process of local institutional reform that different Western European countries underwent starting in the 1990s converged towards the direct election of mayors in Italy, England, Austria and Germany. Using a comparative analysis of those countries and including in it Belgium and the Netherlands (where the introduction of directly elected mayors is planned) and Greece and Portugal (with a long tradition of it), the article examines why countries with such different municipal traditions have tended towards the same institutional solution. The answer runs through the text implicitly: the institutional tradition of each country appears to have a greater capacity for explaining the outcome of the reform rather than isomorphism in the introduction of the direct election of mayors.

MODERNISING LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Reform of local government has been a central part of the Blair governments’‘modernisation’ agenda. This article examines four specific aspects of the modernisation of local government: the implications of constitutional change for councillor roles; the direct election of mayors; new arrangements for the scrutiny of executive action; and the dilemmas and challenges facing local government officers. It argues that the Blair reforms have brought about significant changes to the organisation and operation of local authorities, but whether the reforms have achieved the government's objectives remains open to question.

In a Double Bind: Conflicts over Education and Mayoral Election Outcomes

Many European countries have decentralised governance structures to local communities with the direct election of mayors by local residents. This article provides a case study from Israel to assess the interplay between education and local politics. It investigates election outcomes for 75 locales, with a focus on the unique tensions involved in the dual loyalties of mayors to local parents, on the one hand, and state officials, on the other. Mayors who developed conflict relationships with both the local parents and state officials were found most likely to leave office. Conflicts over education are a clear indicator of impending political defeat, but amicable relations with parents and state officials are no automatic guarantee for re-election.

The direct election of mayors: an assessment of the institutional reform following the Italian municipal elections of 2001

On 13 May 2001, the same day as the general elections, municipal elections were held in more than 1,000 municipalities, including all the major Italian cities (Rome, Milan, Naples, Turin). Incumbents already re-elected once could not stand because of the two-term limit. This in many cases opened the way for a renewal of mayoralties. This article aims to provide a balanced assessment of the process of direct mayoral elections by using data relating to electoral behaviour, stability and mayoral recruitment inside the 103 Italian provincial capitals (the capoluoghi ) to complement an analysis of the reform of 1993. On the basis of the theoretical analysis and the empirical evidence provided, it is argued that the direct election of mayors, and more generally the neo-parliamentary system of government, represents an example of a successful institutional reform.

Features and Implications of Semi-Parliamentarism: The Direct Election of Italian Mayors

An important electoral and institutional reform has been introduced in Italian local government since 1993: the direct election of the mayor and of the president of the provincial government, but with the possibility that the legislature may pass a vote of no confidence in them. Through this reform a new system of government has been established: semi-parliamentarism, institutionally different from the established democratic systems of government. So far, this system appears to have had positive effects on the stability of Italian local government, although it did not reduce (as it was not expected to do) the traditional multi-party format of the Italian local party system. The question arises whether the latter insignificant effect might constrain the former positive effect.

Local Government Modernization in Germany: Between Incrementalism and Reform Waves

In taking a historical‐institutionlist approach, this paper looks at the development of administrative reforms in German local government which, because of the comparatively high degree of political and administrative decentralization of the Federal Republic has played a crucial role in the latter’s entire politico‐administrative setting and, hence, in its institutional reforms. The paper mainly identifies three stages in the post‐war development of administrative reforms. During the ‘planning movement’ of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Germany’s local level government and administration underwent significant and, to a considerable degree, lasting institutional changes. The 1980s were a period of incrementalist adaptation. Since the beginning of the 1990s, conspicuously later than in the Anglo‐Saxon and Scandinavian countries, but earlier and faster than the federal and the Länder levels, Germany’s local government has embarked upon dramatic changes particularly on two scores. First, in a growing number of municipalities and counties, administrative modernization was incorporated under the heading of a ‘New Steering Model’ (NSM) that largely drew on the dominant international New Public Management (NPM) debate. The dynamics of the ongoing administrative reforms are marked by an ‘amalgamation’ of NPM/NSM and earlier (‘traditional’) reform concepts. Secondly, at the same time, the political institutions of local government have under‐gone a significant shift as a result of the introduction of direct democratic procedures (direct election of mayors and heads of counties, binding local referenda). The paper argues that it is this co‐incidence and co‐evolution of administrative and political reforms that make for the peculiarity of Germany’s current modernization trajectory, distinguishing it from the Anglo‐Saxon and, to a lesser degree, from the Scandinavian modernization paths.

Elected mayors and de facto decentralisation, Israeli style

This paper advances the conjecture that the shift to a direct election of mayors in Israel, a most significant step towards recognising local authorities as political entities in their own right, has prevented further progress in the same direction. Hirschman's ‘getting stuck syndrome’ is used here to explore this paradox. Since a highly centralised system is not compatible with a ‘strong mayor system’, there developed an ingenious scheme — ’de facto decentralisation’ — a peculiar blend of formal ‘agency’ relationship, informal ‘partnership’ and ‘grey‐area’ autonomy. This scheme persists apparently because it is well suited to a world of ambiguous and conflicting imperatives.

Les élections municipales de 1993 en Italie

The 1993 municipal elections in Italy The June and November-December 1993 municipal elections in Italy inaugurated a new local election law which makes partial use of the majority principle and, even more importantly, distinguishes the direct election of mayors and the election of the councils. The civic crisis and the falling apart of the party system dominated by Christian Democracy have made possible a political redistribution, provided that the parties and the voters use fully this new election system. Among the major parties, only the PDS seems to have worked out a real strategy of alliances and to have benefited substantially from it. The DC and its governmental allies, discredited in public opinion, have remained isolated, both from the center-left and from the neo- or post-Fascist right and the federalists of the Lombard League : the « government sphere » paid the price through a spectacular rout. Faced with awkward or uncertain parties, the voters nevertheless generally validated the electoral reform by showing interest in the direct election of mayors and by granting a leading role to this personalized vote as compared to the vote for party lists.