The past quarter of a century has seen extensive change throughout Europe. There have been significant changes in local government, and the European Union has come to play an increasing role in relation to municipal government. This book offers a comparative analysis of recent developments in intergovernmental relations in twelve countries across Europe. Using the framework for analysis from Page and Goldsmith’s 1987 Central and Local Government Relations, each chapter examines changes in central-local relations in their respective country over the past 20 years. This book extends the coverage to include, for the first time, both federal systems and Eastern European countries. Offering detailed empirical studies, it assesses how far there have been changes in the functions, access and discretion of local government. The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of local government, urban politics, EU studies and public administration.
Does the European Union change the domestic politics and institutions of its member states? Many studies of EU decisionmaking in Brussels pay little attention to the potential domestic impact of European integration. Transforming Europe traces the effects of Europeanization on the EU member states. The various chapters, based on cutting-edge research, examine the impact of the EU on national court systems, territorial politics, societal networks, public discourse, identity, and citizenship norms.The European Union, the authors find, does indeed make a difference—even in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. In many cases EU rules and regulations incompatible with domestic institutions have created pressure for national governments to adapt. This volume examines the conditions under which this "adaptational pressure" has led to institutional change in the member states.
This book studies political leadership at the local level, based on data from a survey of the mayors of cities of more than 10,000 inhabitants in 29 European countries carried out between 2014 and 2016. The book compares these results with those of a similar survey conducted ten years ago. From this comparative perspective, the book examines how to become a mayor in Europe today, the attitudes of these politicians towards administrative and territorial reforms, their notions of democracy, their political priorities, whether or not party politicization plays a role at the municipal level, and how mayors interact with other actors in the local political arena. This study addresses students, academics and practitioners concerned at different levels with the functioning and reforms of the municipal level of local government.
E-government and democratic politics / by Mike Margolis -- E-government and the European Union / by Paul Nixon -- E-government under construction : challenging traditional conceptions of citizenship / by Miriam Lips -- Danger mouse? : the growing threat of cyberterrorism / by Rajash Rawal -- E-government and the United Kingdom / by Nicholas Pleace -- The digital republic : re-newing the French state via e-government / by Fabienne Greffet -- E-government in Germany / by Tina Siegfried -- Re-organizing government using it : the Danish model / by Kim Viborg Andersen, Helle Zinne Henriksen & Eva Born Rasmussen -- E-government in the Netherlands / by Martin van Rossum and Desire Dreessen -- The reform and modernization of Greek public administration via e-government / by Vassiliki N. Koutrakou -- ALT-TAB : from ICTS to organizational innovation in Portugal / by Gustavo Cardoso and Tiago Lapa -- Estonia : the short road to e-government and e-democracy / by Marc Ernsdorff and Adriana Berbec -- This revolution will be digitized! : e-government in Hungary / by Katalin Szalki and Paul Nixon -- E-government and Slovenia's multiple transitions / by Darren Purcell.
This book presents new research results on the challenges of local politics in different European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries and Switzerland, together with theoretical considerations on the further development and strengthening of local self-government. It focuses on analyses of the most recent developments in local democracy and administration.
Chapters (one each country) discuss the changing role of government in higher education since the late 1970s in 10 western European countries, Australia, and the US. Though each country is addressed through the perspectives and concerns of the particular author, an editorial framework provides point.
This truly comparative volume examines the "life cycle" of party governments in Europe from 1990 onwards, and analyses its role and function in contemporary European parliamentary democracies. The life and the performance of party governments in Europe became more and more volatile and publicly contested. In some cases, it has even challenge the democratic quality of the state. This book presents comparative analyses of party governments from formation and duration, to performance. It brings together some of the foremost scholars researching on party government to evaluate existing theories and compare both the developments in the Western and the ‘new’ Eastern Europe in an empirically-grounded comparative analysis. The book discusses the interaction between various institutions, political parties and policies, and evaluates how institutional change and party behaviour can drive the "life cycle" of party government. Party Government in the New Europe will be of interest to students and scholars of Comparative Politics, Democracy, Government and European Politics.