Original scientific paper
Reorganizing Local Government: Between Territorial Consolidation and Two-tier Intermunicipality
Hellmut Wollmann
; Humbold University Berlin, Germany
Abstract
Territorial reorganisation of local governments can rely on voluntary or imposed mergers of general-purpose local units or on creating functionally oriented intermunicipal bodies. A detailed institutional analysis of the German and the French local self-governments has been conducted. In certain German Länder (Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen), consolidated local authorities were created during 1960s and 1970s. Others have chosen softer reform strategies, retaining small municipalities and introducing intermunicipal bodies. Recent reforms in East Länder are directed at enlarging local units by way of mergers. France faced an unsuccessful attempt to merge a large number of small local units in the beginning of 1970s. Intermunicipal bodies have traditionally been in the focus of institutional development. On the basis of 1999 legislation, there were substantial changes regarding intermunicipal bodies – communauté is a new kind of intermunicipal body with taxation power and additional functions. Legislation
of 2010 has provided for moving France (2014) towards territorial,
political and functional reform of its intermunicipal space by providing for the direct election of the councils of the communautés, by promoting metropoles as well as communes nouvelles. Other comparative examples, except Germany and France, are also analysed. Nordic model of consolidation by mergers has been practised, in different stages of their institutional development, in the U.K., Sweden, Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Denmark, and more recently in Greece. Fragmentation, small units and intermunicipal cooperation are characteristics of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. Special attention is given to Turkish case, which develops in line with North European model based on merging small municipalities.
Keywords
local government; territorial consolidation; intermunicipal cooperation; local self-government reforms; comparative analysis
Hrčak ID:
131904
URI
Publication date:
8.9.2011.
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