Administrative Tiers Research Articles

Perspektiven der westdeutschen Verdichtungsräume


 
 
 The development pressure on agglomerations in the western part of Germany will continue into the future. It was in order to counter the negative trends associated with this situation that the spatial order principles of settlement density, mixed uses and polycentrality were developed. However, these strategies can only be implemented through a tier of administration which covers the expanding conurbation in its entirety. Consequently, this calls for a reorganisation of the regional planning system in which strategies are developed in close co-operation with local authorities to overcome these problems and to equip it with the instruments it requires to implement these strategies.
 
 

BETWEEN EMPIRE AND HOME TOWN: NAPOLEONIC RULE ON THE RHINE, 1799–1814

The two decades of French rule in the German-speaking Rhineland at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed the dramatic imposition of the sovereign state on a region previously noted for its absence. The successful integration of the new territories into the Republic and Empire depended upon the response of Rhenish elites to the transformation of local government from an accumulation of historical privileges into the lowest administrative tier of the state. Napoleon, more than his revolutionary predecessors, recognized the importance of ‘rallying’ the ‘notables’ in what was a politically inclusive and socially exclusive process. This policy was successful insofar as elites did, in general, rally. Their motivation varied, and the commitment was rarely unconditional. Rhenish notables, long adept at exploiting Old Regime institutions to preserve particular privileges, abused Napoleonic institutions, in order to protect clients and preserve their social position. This helped widen the gulf between the mainly urban notables and the rest of the predominantly rural population, which had fewer legal and institutionalized opportunities for asserting its interests directly. This system of rule proved suited to Rhenish conditions until the rise of party politics in the second half of the nineteenth century.

School Autonomy in the Netherlands

Since the 1980s, confidence in the government's ability to govern has in the Netherlands been under fire from many directions. This has resulted in an educational policy which favours deregulation and increasing levels of autonomy for school boards and their schools. This paper demonstrates that, despite the pursuit of administrative reform, an intermediary administrative tier has come into being between the central government and schools, which further complicates the relationship between these two levels. One effect of such a buffer zone could be that, while schools and school boards continue to feel the sense of powerlessness and lack of autonomy characteristic of earlier times, the government's sense of central responsibility is weakened.

Transforming Italy's institutions? The bicameral committee on institutional reform

SummaryIn 1997, Italy's leading politicians began the overdue process of revising the existing constitution. The bicameral commission of parliament charged with this task has proposed significant alterations to the country's institutional structure. Innovations include a directly elected presidency, an end to bicameralism and a greater role for sub-national tiers of administration. However, this article argues that the suggested changes are in fact less sweeping than they seem, and do not address the country's urgent need to move towards a more competitive form of democracy.

Rural government and community participation: The planning role of community councils

Since April 1996, Wales has possessed one principal tier of local government: 22 unitary authorities. Below this tier of administration, a second level exists: community and town councils. The statutory duties of these authorities are severely limited but they do perform a valuable advisory and consultative role with the principal authorities, particularly in rural areas. The recent reorganization of Welsh local government has prompted commentators to reconsider whether community councils could be afforded more statutory powers in rural governance. This paper discusses the potential for enhancing their role within one service area, namely the planning process. Planning is a function of local government where changes to responsibilities could be enacted. The paper discusses the findings of two research projects: first, a survey of senior planning officers in Wales towards awarding planning powers to community councils; and secondly, a more detailed examination of the perceptions of community councils in rural mid-Wales towards their powers and duties, their planning links with the principal authorities, and their duties within local communities to generate public involvement in rural policy-making. It argues that allocating planning responsibilities to community and town councils lacks the support of both planning professionals and community council representatives themselves. However, in the dual-push for unitary councils to operate both strategically and locally, there is further scope for a reorientation of rural policy-making and for local planning authorities to provide more extensive consultation opportunities to the councils.

Metropolitan government as a political pet? Realism and tradition in administrative reform in The Netherlands

Despite a general (international) dislike of new administrative tiers of government and more bureaucracy in the 1980s, The Netherlands showed a sudden political consensus on the theme of metropolitan government at the end of the decade. The readiness of small countries to surmount political differences if their national position in the world-market is at stake offers a plausible explanation for this phenomenon. The wavering history of administrative reform in this country, however, demands some restraint in our expectations. The results may be less straightforward than hoped for by politicians who focus on economic arguments. The (political) geography of The Netherlands is proposed as an important complicating factor in the creation of metropolitan government on the current basis.

National environmental policies and the european community: The case of italy

AbstractUnder the principle of subsidiarity, the agreed objectives of EC environmental policy are implemented at the national level. As the realm of EC environmental policy extends and efforts are made to improve its implementation, Angela Liberatore discusses the development of environmental policy in Italy, the effect of advances in EC environmental policy, and the relationship between local, national and EC tiers of administration.

A Strategic Planning Process for the Multi-Campus University System:

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the strategic planning process as it was adapted by the multi-campus system of the University of Colorado with a close look at its application at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs campus and the campus library. This overview will provide a picture of the application of planning techniques through the various administrative tiers of the university. And will place library strategic planning in its proper perspective: planning for a subunit of a multi-part organization responding to an external environment.

Experiments in Local Government Reform in Bangladesh

Since it assumed power in March 1982 the government of General Ershad has undertaken a number of measures to reform local government and administration in Bangladesh. The measures were introduced on the recommendations (June 1982) of the Committee for Administrative Reorganization/Reform (CARR) and provide, inter alia, for abolishing the subdivision as a tier of administration, democratizing the rural local government, devolving adequate authority and responsibility to various local councils, and enhancing popular and political control over the local bureaucracy. To the protagonists of reform, these represent a big leap toward designing a new governmental system in rural Bangladesh. The main objective of this article is to examine the important features of the Ershad government reforms and to assess their politico-administrative implications, focusing upon three issues. First, the article identifies the areas in which the new measures differ from local government reforms carried out in the past. Second, it elaborates some of the major problems that cropped up during the process of implementation of reforms, and third, it identifies a number of drawbacks that are likely to limit the potential of the reforms. Before we examine the issues in detail, a brief overview of experiments in local reform during the first decade of independence will provide perspective against which judgments on new reforms can be made.

The Present System of Local Government in Canada: Some Problems of Status, Area, Population, and Resources

The limitations imposed upon the central and provincial governments by the Canadian federal system have been discussed elsewhere in some detail. But almost no attention has been paid to those difficulties of maintaining an efficient structure of local government which arise from the prior existence of two superior tiers of administration. This does not imply that there has been no interest in local government, but that interest has been partial and spasmodic. Many theories have been formed concerning the role of the provinces, but few have examined the proper role of municipalities. There could be no constitutional argument to focus opinion: local government lies unequivocally within the realm of provincial power, and in an age and a country where legal dispute and politics have gone hand in hand, the affairs of roads and sewers, dog-catchers and relieving officers have seemed prosaic and uninteresting. Education is in a class of its own, for it has been elevated to the arena of constitutional conflict. Outside that arena educational administration has been the concern of only a few interested groups.Local government has no deep historical roots in Canada. It was discouraged by the French administration, and no counterpart to the New England town meeting appeared. After the Revolution, British policy was hostile to any local demonstrations of independent action. Lord Durham regarded this as a major weakness, and Lord Sydenham set about remedying the deficiency.