Strong Mayor Research Articles

How divided government challenges strong mayors: the case of Poland

ABSTRACT In ‘strong mayor’ local government systems, the institutional rules often allow for the formation of divided government. When the local government is divided, i.e. mayor is not supported by the majority in the council, the dominance of the mayor in horizontal power relations may be undermined. This paper studies local budgetary resolutions and annual discharge resolutions in Poland, where the electoral system affects the formation of divided government. The analyses presents that: the budget is adopted later and the discharge resolution is more often not adopted in the first vote in municipalities with divided government than in those with unified.

Neoliberal Populism in Ontario: Premier Doug Ford’s Strategic Politics

The 2018 election of Premier Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservative (PC) government ushered in a new era of neoliberal populism in Ontario, Canada. Ford’s election platform, titled a “Plan for the People,” resonated with the business elite who supported his free-market reforms but also with middle-class and blue-collar workers living in suburban and northern areas of the province. The article examines how Ford positioned his rivals as “out of touch” members of the political and cultural urban elite, responsible for a spiralling deficit that would economi-cally burden hard-working people. Unlike many other right-wing populist leaders, who have relied on xenophobic or anti-immigrant narratives, we argue that Ford’s populist stance is dema-gogic and pragmatic. This enabled him to pivot and shift his political strategy to amass support from a diverse range of economic, racial, ethnic, and religious groups, including new immigrants. We draw on newspaper articles, public documents and reports, as well as thirteen interviews with politicians, teachers and civil servants. The article highlights how Ford’s government operated to weaken democratic institutions through measures such as “strong mayor powers,” invoking the notwithstanding clause, as well as undermining the public sector. We trace how Ford’s populism undermined public education through overt and subtle measures that weaken school boards and unions while advancing privatization. We show how Ford bypassed intermediaries, in this case, school boards and teachers’ unions, and appealed directly to “the parents” through the media and employed cli-entelist strategies such as cash transfers under the guise of “parental choice” to hollow out public education. The analysis demonstrates how Ontario stands out as a unique case study for exam-ining neoliberal populism in Canada and North America.

City politics under austerity in Greece: Place-based leadership for a resilient Thessaloniki, 2011-2021

The 2008 global financial crisis intensified our focus on the role of local governments as strategic actors, within current cycles of economic, political and governance change. This paper highlights the significance of Greece's second-largest city, Thessaloniki, becoming a resilient local authority, with the capacity to respond to perturbations, and the ability to self-organise and learn. Existing models of resilience were insufficient for explaining how a strong mayor's team was able to turn around the fortunes of the city. The paper uses a synthetic theoretical model combining the templates ‘behavioural resilience’ and ‘Place-based leadership’. The findings reveal that Thessaloniki's administration was able to respond to a unique set of problems, including the modernization of local services, balancing a problematic budget, opening the city to the world using some of its historic monuments and drafting an emergency plan for future shocks. The mayor's team was capable of galvanizing a network of key actors from the city's government, public, private and civic bodies to adapt and generate new ways of thinking and functioning in the context of change and uncertainty, so Thessaloniki appeared to offer a role model on how local government in Greece could develop strategies for overcoming austerity and stress.

Оценка управления арктическими городами в контексте обеспечения их жизнестойкости

The aim (research question) of the paper is to theoretically comprehend and empirically generalize the phenomenon of governance of Russia's Arctic cities in the context of their resilience (resistance to shocks and crises). The main tasks to be solved are: 1) searching for specific indicators to characterize the administrative and managerial system of a sample of Arctic cities; 2) distinguishing the types (groups) of Arctic cities according to the selected indicators of administrative and management system; 3) characterizing the local government structure of the three Arctic cities in the context of the previously conducted typology of Arctic cities according to the parameters of administrative and management system. The main results of the work: 1) determination of the range of indicators (six) for assessing the quality of management of the 29 largest Arctic cities in terms of strengthening their resilience: these are indicators of openness to the outside world (“basicness” of the city); governance efficiency, degree of independence of decisions of city authorities; 2) identification of five clusters of cities with similar properties of the administrative and managerial subsystem: compact high-quality management, “low-cost” municipal management, “strong average” cities, significant reserves for improving management efficiency, case-anomaly; 3) institutional and geographic factors, acting together, determine the appearance of the administrative and managerial subsystem of the Arctic city. Among geographical factors, it is not latitude but longitude that is the location of the city in the European or Asian Arctic that is of primary importance; 4) For Arctic cities, where frequent natural and social force majeure demands a super-operational response to external threats, the model of power with a strong mayor is in most cases preferable to the “consensus” model of collective leadership with a weak mayor; 5) the ideal administrative and management system of the city, which implements the imperatives of basicness/openness, efficiency and autonomy to the maximum extent, and guarantees the city resilience, should have nature-like properties of self-organization, plasticity, flexibility, mobility and diversity. Their strengthening is provided by rejection of unification, including the ultimate consideration of specific features of a particular type and exploitation phase of the main natural asset nearest to the city.

Why Allow Local Elections? Mobilization, Manipulation, and the Abolition of Russian Mayoral Elections

Abstract Local executives in electoral authoritarian regimes can perform important regime-sustaining functions, including by delivering votes to the ruling party at election-time. Furthermore, when local executives are themselves elected, regimes can benefit from improved legitimacy and efficiency in local government. Yet elected local executives can create principal-agent problems and increase the risk that opposition groups gain office. How do authoritarian governments manage this tension? Prior research on Russia shows that elections are used to co-opt strong local mayors, while weak mayors are replaced with appointed managers. This paper argues that strong mayors are more likely to see elections canceled if their local machine is not delivering manufactured electoral support to the national party, while weak mayors are unlikely to be targeted. This hypothesis is supported using data from 207 Russian cities, including election-forensic estimates of election manipulation. The findings improve our understanding of cooptation of local leaders in electoral authoritarian regimes.

ORGANIZATIONAL FORM OF SELF-GOVERNMENT “CITY COUNCIL – MAYOR”

The purpose of the article is to analyze the organizational forms used for urban self-government. It is stated that the system of municipal self-government is only a list of relevant bodies. In characterizing the relationship between them, we should talk about the “organizational form of urban self-government”. As an intermediate conclusion, it should be emphasized that sometimes in the Ukrainian legal literature it is called a set of bodies that exercise local self-government in a particular administrative-territorial unit, including in a particular locality. But local officials should also be taken into account, including urban, self-government – primarily those elected by the population through direct elections. The conclusion about the organizational form of city self-government can be formulated on the basis of acquaintance with provisions of the Law “About local self-government in Ukraine”. It was found that most Ukrainian cities, which do not have a district division, exercise local self-government in the same way, regardless of the population of this city. It is suggested to hold the opinion that this form is “council – a strong mayor”. Specifying its name to the needs of the characteristics of city self-government, it is necessary to suggest the name “city council – a strong mayor”. When studying the regulations on organizational forms of urban self-government, it is recommended to pay attention to the articles of Section I of the Law “On Local Self-Government in Ukraine”, which determine the organizational form of urban self-government. It is emphasized that an interesting fact – the next section of this Law – Section II – is entitled “Organizational and legal basis of local self-government”. Based on the title of Section II, it should contain all the provisions relating to the peculiarities of the organizational forms of local self-government in general and urban self-government in particular. This is another argument in favor of changing the location of Articles 10–12 in the analyzed Law. As for the provisions of Section II, they will also be useful in arguing the approach according to which the organizational forms of municipal self-government in Ukraine are the classic form of “council – a strong mayor” and its variant for cities with district division.

Weakening the Strong Mayor: Partisan Division and Presidential Intervention in Istanbul

Istanbul, the leading city of Turkey, is a good case for analyzing the conflictual relations of the mayor with the city council and the central government. Istanbul had been governed by the mayors from the ruling party, the Justice and Development Party ( Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; AKP) and its predecessor parties since 1994. In the local elections held in March 2019, which was repeated only for Istanbul after two months with a highly suspicious decision by the Supreme Election Board, the AKP lost this city. Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, has harsh relations with the city council, which is dominated by the AKP and its alliance party, the Nationalist Movement Party ( Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi; MHP). What exacerbates this situation is the partisan intervention of the increasingly authoritarian central government that weakens the mayor's position. The mayor tries to counterbalance the power of the city council and central government agencies through livestreaming the city council meetings and attracting civic engagement on his side. This article is expected to contribute to the literature on mayoral leadership, partisan constraints to mayoral powers as well as the mayor's strategies against the authoritarian intervention of the central governments. Mayor İmamoğlu's strategies and measures adopted for overcoming the efforts of blocking his agenda by both the council and central government might inspire other mayors experiencing similar partisan constraints.

Delimiting citizen participation: how Israeli mayors get the most out of the process

ABSTRACT Citizen Participation (CP) produces instrumental benefits and realises democratic ideals. However, administrators are aware of its administrative and political downsides. This might lead administrators to adopt symbolic forms of CP in which there is little significance to CP’s process and outputs. We investigate how mayors think about CP and the ways in which they shape the practice. Based on in-depth interviews with 15 Israeli mayors, this article studies mayoral views of CP and how these inform practice. We find that mayors adopt ‘delimited CP’, which goes beyond ‘symbolic’ CP, in allowing for some significant CP even at the planning level. However, at the same time, mayors reduce possible political and administrative costs in four ways: deciding when to convene CP, controlling its agenda, managing ex-ante and ex-post information flows, and retaining exclusive decision-making power. Lessons from the Israeli case could apply to other ‘strong mayor’ systems that engage in CP.

The Meaning Ascribed to the Aging Phenomena by Mayors in Israel

In Israel, as in many other countries, local government is the arena in which national policies are carried out and through which direct social services are provided to the older population. However, issues around local ageing policies have yet to be studied in terms of understanding the role of the heads of these local communities. This study describes and analyses how mayors and heads of local municipalities perceive the consequences of ageing and its effect on their communities, and how it influences the specific social policies they have adopted as part of their responsibility for addressing this phenomenon. A qualitative, phenomenological methodology was used. Sixteen mayors and heads of municipalities from across Israel were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. All interviews were transcribed and then thematically analysed. Three main themes were identified: the complicated tension with the central government; personal attitudes and beliefs towards ageing; and the policies and initiatives actually adopted by the mayors in the field of ageing. Overall, this study emphasises the significance of the subjective construction of local versus central government power relationships by mayors and heads of localities. It supports the “strong mayor” approach within the local political-gerontology literature, hence pointing to the potential importance of political activism by older persons at this governmental level.

Not for the Faint of Heart: Assessing Physical Violence and Psychological Abuse against U.S. Mayors

Despite evidence of abuse and violence against U.S. elected officeholders at the federal, state, and local levels, to date, no political science research has investigated the frequency, channels, and correlates of this phenomenon. Here, we surveyed mayors in U.S. cities with populations above 30,000 and found that mayors face physical violence and psychological abuse at rates equal to or greater than the general workforce, social media are the most common channels of these actions, and mayors in all types of cities experience violence and abuse. Nevertheless, mayors who are younger, female, in strong mayor systems, and in larger cities were more likely to be affected than their counterparts. Finally, with the exception of gender, the factors associated with greater likelihood of psychological abuse are not the same factors associated with experiences of physical violence.

РОЛЬ ГРАДООБРАЗУЮЩЕГО ПРЕДПРИЯТИЯ В СТАНОВЛЕНИИ ИНСТИТУТА СИТИ-МЕНЕДЖЕРА (НА ПРИМЕРЕ МОНОГОРОДОВ СВЕРДЛОВСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ)

Introduction: the second half of the 2010s witnesses a massive transition from a «strong mayor» system to a two-headed system of local government organization. The attention of political scientists was focused mainly on the analysis of the causes and consequences of such a transition in large cities and administrative centers of the Russian Federation, while the study of the political situation in mono-cities was to a large extend neglected. Aims: to determine the role of core enterprises in the introduction of the city manager institution based on single-industry towns in the Middle Urals. Methods: the method of biographical analysis, comparativism, positional approach, behaviorism, the theory of political rent. Results: the study identified the causes and main stages in returning control over local authorities to the core enterprises. Conclusion: the abolition of mayor’s direct elections in single-industry towns and the introduction of double-headed systems in these municipalities was conditioned by the desire of the core enterprises management to prevent the re-loss of control over the local administration and to insure themselves against political upsets in the future.

Transformative city branding for policy change: The case of Seoul’s participatory branding

City branding has been widely adopted by entrepreneurial local governments to strengthen city identities and to attract global attention amid intensified intercity competition. Asian global cities, in particular, have competitively branded themselves to signal that they belong to the group of advanced global cities. This paper illustrates the transformative role of city branding in the making of a global city’s local identity, which has been hitherto underexplored in the literature. Specifically, it examines Seoul’s branding exercises, focusing on its unconventional projects that reflect the city’s recent efforts to become a “human-centered,” progressive city. We suggest adding a “transformative-enhancing” dimension to the existing “external–internal” city-branding framework, and argue that Seoul’s transformative city branding is, in fact, communicating the mayor’s new signature policies with citizens. When combined with a strong mayor’s efforts to cater to changing societal pressures, city branding is no longer solely a neoliberal marketing exercise, but a political project of policy change.

The Politics of Local Tax Policy-Making in Poland

Abstract The paper answers two basic questions: To what extent is tax policy an important item of the local political agenda in Polish municipalities ? Is it a subject of intense debates at city hall and local councils or is it accepted as a routine exercise ? The results suggest that the issues related to local taxes play a relatively marginal role compared to issues such as the location of major investments. However, the importance of taxes in local debates increases in those local communities in which the tax yields collected are larger and in the case of those taxes which are paid by a wider group of tax payers. Who governs in local tax-policy-making ? According to local provisions the proposal of tax resolution is submitted by the mayor, and the local council makes the final decision. But empirical findings suggest that the practice follows the “strong mayor” model, in which the local political leader, supporter by his staff of the financial department, is more influential than the councilors. Those questions are answered on the basis of field research conducted in 2014 in 36 Polish municipalities. The research methods included content analysis of minutes of local council meetings, as well as face-to-face survey and semi-structured in-depth interviews with over 100 mayors, chiefs of finance departments in city halls and councilors.

Editor's Introduction: The Politics of Urban Reform in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 1870–1920

Editor's Introduction: The Politics of Urban Reform in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 1870–1920

“Ministering to the Social Needs of the People”: Samuel Jones, Strong Mayor Government, and Municipal Ownership, 1897–1904

AbstractDebates in the Progressive era between supporters of the franchise system and supporters of municipal ownership provide an example of conflicting views of appropriate models of state development. The former wanted to continue the public‐private partnerships that characterized much of 19th‐century state building, while the latter maintained that this system inevitably led to corruption and exacerbated inequality, calling for a new system of publicly run programs. Mayor Samuel Jones of Toledo worked to expand municipally owned utilities and transportation. Jones argued that granting franchises for the provision of public services enabled private companies to accrue profits that belonged to the people. He actively promoted an alternative model based on his faith in the potential of government, through a program of public ownership, to exemplify a sense of community, brotherhood, and love. Yet obstruction by the city council and lack of mayoral power blocked his efforts. As a result, he attempted to secure a “strong mayor” charter that would enable him to enact his program. The voters, however, rejected the plan, fearing centralization of power and loss of popular accountability. This outcome highlights the importance of the relationship between electoral structures and functional expansion in American political development.

Capturing Structural and Functional Diversity Through Institutional Analysis

City charters affect the governance of municipal systems in complex ways. Current descriptions and typologies developed to study city charter structures simplify the diverse types and configurations of institutional rules underlying charter designs. This research note demonstrates a more detailed approach for studying the design of city charters using analytical methods based on the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework. This approach is illustrated with a pilot study of institutional rules in municipal charters that define the roles and duties of mayors. The findings reveal that city charters exhibit great institutional diversity, particularly within strong mayor cities. We conclude with a research agenda that could generate a more precise and rigorous understanding of the relationship between the different configurations of institutions of city charters and the politics, governance, and performance of municipalities.

Studying Mayoral Leadership in Canada and the United States

This chapter argues that building a theory of strong or weak mayoral leadership in the United States and Canada poses many challenges. But there is no reason why a theory of mayoral leadership has to be specific to the national context. Institutional structures may be different in the two countries, attitudes about government may vary, but mayoral leadership in both countries is about establishing a general policy or problem narrative, influencing senior levels of government and crisis management, and usually about proposing projects rather than unilaterally promulgating. For students of mayoral leadership, national affiliation is not the main dividing line, but rather how we think about leadership as a concept, regardless of country. There are marked differences concerning how such terms as “strong mayor,” “power,” and “leadership” should be understood. Determining the relative weight of such variables as personality, political culture, interests, and institutions is also a complicated matter, and there remains considerable confusion over research methods and appropriate questions, not to mention the difficulty of sorting out facts from groundless popular assumptions. The literature on mayoral leadership is much more extensive in the United States than it is in Canada. But the task of building a Canadian literature, almost literally from scratch in many instances, also affords an opportunity: to study mayoral leadership as a pre-emptive exercise—that is, narrowing or defining an agenda, instead of actually wielding formal authority or necessarily creating big projects.

Pensacola, Florida Mayor Ashton Hayward's Urban Redevelopment Advisory Committee Final Report

The Urban Redevelopment Advisory Committee presents this Report to Mayor Ashton Hayward and the citizens of Pensacola. Earlier this year, Mayor Hayward — Pensacola’s first strong mayor after the City adopted a new Charter in 2009 — established the Committee with the hope that it would serve as a catalyst for creating improvements in downtown Pensacola. The Mayor assembled seven Pensacola residents of diverse experience, each of whom share a genuine commitment to the community. The Mayor charged us with a sweeping mandate to create a realistic vision for the continued redevelopment of Pensacola’s Community Redevelopment Agency District, including downtown, the waterfront, and the surrounding neighborhoods.The Mayor tasked us with crafting a plan of action to: Build a competitive community; Replenish the Community Redevelopment Agency’s income through new capital investment; Productively use the large inventory of public land; Create jobs and a sustainable future for the community; Create a walkable community by increasing mixed-use density; Ensure that opportunities created and resources expended benefit all; Create a waterfront that is a thriving public space; Create housing with a wide spectrum of affordability; Restore the authentic, historic character of downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods.The Committee first convened in February 2012 and met publicly 15 times over the next eight months. In pursuing our mandate, we sought to be independent, impartial, objective, and thorough. To that end, over 40 presenters — and dozens of citizens — addressed the Committee as a whole. We reviewed thousands of pages of documents and consulted with hundreds of individuals. This Report summarizes the Committee’s conclusions.The Committee’s principal findings consist of over 75 specific policy recommendations, and over 50 action items. While these recommendations cover a variety of topics, our recommended strategies may be summarized in three broad categories: Progress is vital. First and foremost, this Report recognizes that the proper development of downtown Pensacola is vital to the economic, social, commercial, and cultural progress of the Florida Panhandle; Progress will be entrepreneurial. Private investment will drive progress downtown. Plans for improvement should properly consider the risk and market factors that drive private investment; Progress will be incremental. The findings in this Report are intended to support an incremental approach to progress. Sustainable, long-term solutions must be highly adaptable to changing commercial and social conditions over time. These recommendations are aspirational. We fully expect that the Mayor will — as he should — focus on recommendations he believes to be the most important and which can make the greatest difference. We have provided a wide assortment of recommendations so that our leaders may pick and choose as if ordering from a menu. This approach will allow our community to select the vital few rather than focus on the trivial many. The Report presents not only a vision of what we believe downtown Pensacola can realistically become in three to five years, but also specific policy recommendations to implement that vision. We sincerely hope that this Report will assist the Mayor with his efforts to move forward with the ongoing redevelopment of downtown Pensacola.In making these recommendations, we are mindful that our Report is not the first attempt to articulate and implement such a vision. Others — such as the Community Redevelopment Agency — have provided intelligent and insightful plans to improve our community, and we acknowledge a debt to them. We believe our findings are consistent with, and indeed provide a comprehensive framework for implementing, those plans. We do not presume to have exhausted every resource or possibility. The questions are complex, and invite many potential solutions. New ideas and circumstances constantly arise. But we believe this Report presents a compelling path forward for the future of downtown Pensacola.

Analysing Local Political Management in Spain

This article examines the strong mayor form of local political management in Spain. Drawing on empirical research conducted with members and officers in a Spanish municipality, the system is analysed according to leadership, representation and responsiveness, accountability, scrutiny, and decision-making. It finds that the model underpins concentrated individualised leadership exercised by the mayor. Representativeness and responsiveness in the system are hampered by the absence of electoral divisions within the municipality, meaning citizens do not have their own councillor, and by there being no institutionalised system of citizen participation or decentralisation. Elections every four years serve to hold incumbent mayors to account, and the full council has the power to recall the mayor, though such a recall is unlikely. There is little detailed scrutiny of the performance of the municipal government. It is argued that the security of tenure enjoyed by Spanish mayors is unlikely to be replicated in England, and that there is some concurrence in Spain with reform trends observed elsewhere.

Americanization, Europeanization or Path Dependency? Comparing Mayoral Leadership from a New Institutionalism Perspective

This paper seeks to explicit the link between the institutional tendency towards the strong mayor model of political leadership and the shifting substance and nature of mayoral agendas and networks in localities from a (European) comparative perspective. It develops a plea for a more systematic research agenda in this field by outlining the potential of such an approach. In doing so, it theoretically draws on arguments stemming from the emerging body of literature that links local politics to new institutionalism. For empirical exploration, the article reconsiders quantitative data from a comparative project that studied mayoral leadership in 17 European countries. It concludes that institutional form matters for mayoral business orientation but is contingent upon leadership context and leader characteristics.