Reconsidering Directly Elected Mayors in Ireland: Experiences from the United Kingdom and America

As part of the proposed modernisation of Irish local government a directly elected mayor with executive powers will be introduced in Dublin in 2011. It is then anticipated that the system of elected mayors will be extended to the whole country. However, it is not known what impact this new form of executive leadership will have on the prevailing system whereby city and county managers are dominant. Drawing from experiences in the United Kingdom and the United States, this paper suggests that Ireland needs clear, unambiguous mayoral models. As a political leader with executive powers it is imperative that the mayor's relationships with both the council and the city/county manager are tightly defined. A US-style recall option would also enhance the Irish system.     

Elected Mayors: Leading Locally?

The directly elected executive mayor was introduced to England a decade ago. Drawing inspiration from European and American experience, the elected mayor appealed to both New Labour and Conservative commentators in offering a solution to perceived problems of local leadership. There was a shared view that governance of local areas was failing and that elected mayors were the answer. The first local referendums were held in 2001. Most have continued to reject the idea of the elected mayor. During 2012, the coalition government initiated 10 further mayoral referendums in England’s largest cities but only one, Bristol, opted for an elected mayor. Overall, there is no evidence of widespread public support, yet the prospect of more mayors – with enhanced powers – remains firmly on the policy agenda.

Drawing from a decade of research, this paper considers reasons for the persistence of the mayoral experiment, the importance of local factors in the few areas where mayors hold office and the link to current policy debates. Using the authors’ analytical leadership grid, this paper links the governmental, governance and allegiance roles of mayors to the problematic nature of local leadership. It then draws tentative conclusions about the strange case of the elected mayor in England.     

ELECTED MAYORS: LESSON DRAWING FROM FOUR COUNTRIES

Countries can and sometimes do copy the institutions and practices of other countries in order to address problems and issues that they have in common with them. The office of directly elected mayor has become an increasingly common feature of local government throughout the developed democracies, spreading from its largely American origins to a range of European states. This paper develops a matrix for the analysis of elected mayors in different countries using as its horizontal axis the formal, informal and individual attributes of elected mayors and, on the vertical axis, their governmental, governance and allegiance roles. The matrix is then applied to analyse studies of elected mayors in four countries: the United States, England, Germany and Greece, in an attempt to derive comparative lessons applicable to the countries included in the analysis, as well as to countries considering or in the process of developing directly elected executive mayors. The issues examined include improving the internal co‐ordination of local authorities’ departments, the need for network management in increasingly fragmented or ‘hollowed out’ local government systems and the ways in which mayors attempt to secure their political survival and that of the offices they hold, by securing and retaining the allegiance of voters and stakeholders. It also explores the benefits and dangers of concentrating much formal power and informal influence in a single pair of hands. Its conclusions are offered both to demonstrate ways in which comparative studies of political institutions can be developed and in the hope that they may be of use to mayors and those concerned with the development and reform of local government and governance.     

Pulling the Strings: An Analysis of Informal Local Power Structures in Three Dutch Cities

Recent reform trends in local government ‘constitution’ have aimed at invigorating local democracy by strengthening local executive powers and making political leadership more visible through direct mayor elections. However, observers still tend to paint a gloomy picture of local democracy in contexts where reforms have been implemented. This article evaluates the notion of marginalised local democracy by adopting mandate theory. A data set on Norwegian mayors and deputy mayors provides evidence that mayors elected by the council are more confident in their own success regarding fulfilment of pre-election announcements than deputy mayors are. The mayoral advantage disappears if the mayor is directly elected. Regarding implementation of idiomatic party policy, political cohesion between the mayor and the deputy mayor (coalition or party conjunction) increases the confidence of both. Yet, cohesion does not increase confidence in fulfilling pre-election announcements, thus suggesting a rupture between issues emphasised in campaigns to local election and idiomatic party policy. While results are unfavourable to direct mayor elections, they do not otherwise support the gloomy picture of marginalised local democracy.     

COUNCILLORS’ RECEIPT AND USE OF CITIZEN INPUT: EXPERIENCE FROM NORWEGIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The article expands citizen participation research by tackling participation from the viewpoint of elected officials – the recipients of citizen input. The article studies the role citizen input plays in elected officials’ decision making. Citizen input is defined as information elected officials obtain through direct contact with citizens and representatives of local associations. Using survey data from Norwegian local government, the article assesses how much citizen input councillors receive, and to what extent they use it to set local agendas. It is demonstrated that Norwegian councillors have a high degree of exposure to citizen input and that citizen input constitutes most councillors’ primary source of agenda‐setting inspiration. The article also examines differences in the extent to which councillors use citizen input, and draws on existing theoretical and empirical research to discuss how these differences can be explained. For example, findings that local government frontbenchers and highly educated councillors consider citizen input less useful than others do are explained by an analytical perspective emphasizing councillors’ varied needs for such information.     

Dhiren Barot: Was He an Al Qaeda Mastermind or Merely a Hapless Plotter?

This article profiles Dhiren Barot, a convert to Islam who was convicted in Britain in October 2006 on charges of conspiracy to commit murder for planning terrorist attacks in the United States and the United Kingdom. Upon his conviction, much of the British press, and many other observers, claimed Barot was a high-level Al Qaeda figure whose plans were on the verge of execution. Other observers, and Barot's defense attorneys, however, argued that these allegations were exaggerated. Barot, they claimed, had done nothing more than sketch vague plans for which he had no funding and was merely being used by the British government as an example in the War on Terror. This article details Barot's life and terrorist activity. It argues that he was a committed jihadi, was likely an Al Qaeda member, and did indeed represent a security threat. Nonetheless, the lack of public information available on his life suggests that certain allegations about his status within Al Qaeda and the immanency of his plans should be treated skeptically. It concludes by considering to what extent Barot fits the profile of other Islamic terrorists.     

Exploring the E-Government Gap in South America

Abstract

The transition to an information society requires the implementation of effective actions by the different actors of the new society and economy. The private sector has already started to get involved. It is now public administration’s turn, and, although far behind the business world, it has been provided with an important tool: the electronic government model.

Although several projects have been carried out all over the globe, the development of such initiatives is very much unequal, depending on not only the region of the world but also varying from country to country within each region. Thus, while countries such as the United States, Great Britain, Sweden, Singapore, Australia, and Canada are the leaders when it comes to implementing electronic government programs, the same cannot be said about most Latin American nations.

It is the intention of this article to address this unequal situation, which will be called the e-government divide, emphasizing the global and the regional e-government gaps.     

Reconciling Expert Advice and Community Opinion in a Local Government Strategic Planning Process

This article proposes that the eventual outcomes of local government strategic policy deliberations can often reflect the interplay between “expert” administrative staff, democratically elected politicians, and the community they jointly serve. A multi-site case study approach, to examine the generation of local government strategy related to a niche economic activity concludes that broadly conceptualized opinion congruence can sometimes be threatened by substantial pockets of stakeholder vested interest. As such, “expert” and “political” opinion reflects a caution based on both historical experience and political expediency; while community opinion displays an optimism based on eager anticipation of an unknown future.     

Changing Municipalities in the Information age

Abstract

Political leadership at the local level has attracted growing attention in recent years in parallel with reforms of local government and of the municipal administration, as well as the debate on a shift from government to governance. Considering the power triangle of (i) the mayor, (ii) the municipal administration (executive officers) and (iii) the council, it is surprising that the latter has gained little interest so far. This article analyses how the roles of local councils as representative bodies are assessed by mayors from seventeen European countries and how differences in the perception of councils can be explained. Can differences be explained by institutional settings, the notion of the mayor towards the role of political parties or by the kind of interaction between the mayor and the council – or are specific local conditions and idiosyncratic personal factors crucial?     

DEMOCRACY, PARTICIPATION AND RESPONSIVENESS: A CASE STUDY OF RELATIONS BETWEEN THE IVORIAN COMMUNES AND THEIR CITIZENS

This study of the new Ivorian communes created in 1985 investigates the hypothesis that democratization of local government will lead to an improvement in governmental performance, particularly in its'responsiveness'dimension. It was found that although electoral participation had increased since 1985, other forms of popular engagement with the communes were low, and relationships of accountability and consultation between elected representatives and their electorates were also poorly developed. Responsiveness, defined as congruence between popular preferences and the actual policies and outputs of the communes, was generally low. It is concluded that whilst increased participation enhanced the capacity to be responsive, its impact was mediated through institutional and societal factors such as the role of the mayor, the electoral system, public expectations, continued financial and fiscal centralization and the inevitable limits on the resources and functions of the communes.     

Distributed Public Governance in Britain

The structure of the British state is growing increasingly complex. This trend raises a number of questions that focus on the forces stimulating this complexity and its implications both for society-state relationships and the design and implementation of public policy. This article focuses on one specific element or strand of these debates: the growth in the number and role of quasi-autonomous public bodies within Britain. It seeks to analyse and reflect upon the distinctive approach taken by the Labour government, since winning office in May 1997, in relation to the sphere of 'distributed public governance' in Britain. Moreover, the article seeks to locate this analysis within broader debates surrounding the future of the British state and the Labour government's approach to statecraft through a thematic framework based around: growth, co-ordination, accountability, depoliticization and power. The central argument of this article is that the Labour government has increased considerably the sphere of distributed public governance in Britain. This process has been largely devoid of an underpinning rationale and this may have significant implications for successful policy delivery, the public's trust in government and the future trajectory of the British state.     

PRIVATE INITIATIVE AND COMMUNITY RESPONSIBILITY: A STRATEGY FOR THE BLACK COMMUNITY

In Britain black leaders are generally less well integrated into community agencies and local administration than their counterparts in the United States. This is partly explained by reference to the American 'arms length' approach to funding community development which, in contrast to the more centralized British approach, enables black leaders to work 'within the system' apparently without sacrificing too much of their political independence. In this context the paper views the activities and funding of the US community action and development agencies and British community relations councils.     

Local government reforms: between multifunction and single-purpose organisations

The paper argues that, in ‘revisiting’ the referred-to article published back in 2004, the concept then guiding the analysis would need to be modified particularly on three scores. For one, in order to achieve a more adequate comparison the country selection should be expanded beyond the earlier sample (UK, France, Germany and Sweden) to also capture Southern and Central Eastern European countries. Second, the ‘developmental’ (‘over time’) analysis of the pertinent institutional changes should be further accentuated and complemented by proceeding ‘by (developmental)stages’ instead of ‘country by country’. Third, while still deeming the distinction between ‘multifunction’ and ‘single-purpose’ organisations fruitful to guide a ‘government versus governance’ analysis and interpretation, the distinction between ‘political rationality’ and ‘economic rationality’ should be added with the former (ideal-typically) identified with elected (local) government and the latter seen characteristic of many of the actors in the governance-typical actor networks.     

POLICE AND PUBLIC ORDER

Does economic deterioration in a developed country such as Great Britain inevitably mean increasing disorder and lawlessness? How would the forces of law and order react to authoritarian governments of the political left and right? These two questions and the likely answers form the first part of this essay. The Royal Commission on the Police (1962) faced the question of either retaining a police system based on local government or recommending its replacement by a national police force under the Home Secretary. With one powerful dissension they chose the former. They claimed to have solved the problem of democratic accountability of the police, but in recent years cracks have begun to appear in the system. The vexed question of the prospects of schism between a chief constable and his police authority committee is examined. Finally, it is suggested the British governmental institutions, including Parliament itself, are insufficiently democratic, and that a Bill of Rights protecting civil liberties is long overdue.     

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.     

Institutionalizing Participation and Governance? New Participative Structures in Local Government in Ireland

Public service providers and elected levels of government around the world are continually being encouraged to involve citizens in decision-making. Various means of achieving this have been employed by local authorities in different countries. These include local referenda, customer surveys, online discussion forums and citizens' juries. This article draws on the example of new participative committee structures within Irish local government. These seek to involve identified stakeholders (including business, trade unions, the community/voluntary sector and environmental interests) in local government decision-making. These structures were inspired both by international trends towards participatory democracy and Ireland's experience of neo-corporatist 'social partnership' at the national level. This article considers the new committee structures and their composition and examines some of the problems encountered. It demonstrates that recent research into these new structures supports many of the concerns that have been raised in the literature on varying participative mechanisms practiced in other countries.     

Local Fiscal Stress in California: Out of Local Control and Driving Toward Growth

Abstract

Many regions of the United States have experienced rapid growth in recent decades with California being the best example of this growth. The dangers of such growth have been evident since the 1970s and yet, neither the state nor local governments have been very successful in implementing growth control policies. Why it is that government has been unable to rein in the growth has been the focus of much research in recent decades. There are essentially two schools of thought with regard to this question. One is that pro‐growth forces—essentially landowners, business elites, and elected officials—actively promote growth because it provides them personally with benefits. The other view, advocated most by Paul Peterson back in the early 1980s, is that elected officials do support and adopt pro‐growth policies, but not by choice. Cities, Peterson argued, are constrained by the economic situation around them and they must do what they can to raise revenues and reduce, or hold steady, expenditures. This research examines a region of southern California that has experienced tremendous growth despite the fact that surveys of resident attitudes within the region indicates that in general, residents favor growth control. This research contributes to an understanding of the driving forces behind the pro‐growth policies of local governments by considering how fiscal constraints placed on local governments by the state may limit the policy options of local elected officials, as Peterson predicted. This study finds that there is evidence to indicate that the revenue‐raising options available to cities may be contributing to pro‐growth policies. And this could help explain why elected officials continue to support growth within their cities despite the fact that residents express negative views toward growth.     

Place-Shaping by Local Government in Developing Countries: Lessons for the Developed World

The Lyons Inquiry into local government in Britain represented a significant contribution to the debate on local government reform, with policy ramifications well beyond contemporary Britain. This article considers the Inquiry's concept of “place-shaping” as a mode of local government reform which captures the experience of a number of developing countries in recent years. By way of illustrative examples, we examine these processes in the specific contexts of South Africa and Indonesia. In particular, we consider whether the devolution of functions to municipalities in developmental settings constitutes place-shaping, and how this bears on processes of local government reform in developed nations.     

NEWS AS A WEAPON: HOLLINGTON TONG AND THE FORMATION OF THE GUOMINDANG CENTRALIZED FOREIGN PROPAGANDA SYSTEM, 1937–1938

Abstract

This article examines the process of the centralization of the Guomindang (GMD) foreign propaganda system during 1937 and 1938. The US-trained journalist Hollington Tong was the key person linking Chiang Kai-shek with the English-language press cohort. Based on his personal news network in the treaty ports, Tong extended the government’s propaganda network in the United States and Britain. He professionalized the propaganda institution and pursued a “hands off policy,” co-opting foreign journalists by offering them substantial assistance. This article challenges the perceived passivity of China’s foreign propaganda activities and argues that foreign propaganda was an important war strategy for the GMD government after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. Factionalism played an important role in expediting the centralization process. It was Chiang’s patronage that allowed Tong, a new member of the GMD, to lead the foreign propaganda system and pursue a liberal censorship policy.