Abstract
The chapter sets the stage for a comparative analysis of institutionalized governance networks grouping local governments and individual and collective or corporate societal actors unfolding at the municipal, sub-municipal and inter-municipal level. It details the premises for analyzing these networks with an emphasis on organized interests and interest intermediation and their relationship with the notion of democracy. It then reviews existing literature on the relationship between local governments and societal actors at two different levels. With reference to the municipal (micro) level, it looks at interest theory, the community power debate and the local governance approach. With reference to the macro level, it looks at the broader political science approaches to state–society relations, the debates on pluralism and neo-corporatism, and the policy-networks approach. At the intersection of these levels, the chapter also examines the typology of national infrastructures for local governance.
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Notes
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Concerning the different understandings of democracy among mayors and councilors detected empirically in the studies mentioned in the section on ‘The origin of the book’ of the preface of this book, (see Vetter et al. 2018). These different notions of democracy clearly follow the distinction between liberal (or representative) democracy and participatory democracy.
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Finally, although the eastern and some southern parts of the European continent have experienced democratic transitions over the last three decades, accompanied by reforms of local government as well as of local governance, little has been written on the functioning of institutionalized networks among societal actors and local government in these parts of Europe (e.g. Furmankiewicz et al. 2010; Petrova 2011; Dąbrowski 2014).
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Teles, F., Gendźwiłł, A., Stănuş, C., Heinelt, H. (2021). Interactions of Societal Actors and Local Government in Institutionalized Governance Arrangements: The Book’s Scope and Content. In: Teles, F., Gendźwiłł, A., Stănuș, C., Heinelt, H. (eds) Close Ties in European Local Governance. Palgrave Studies in Sub-National Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44794-6_1
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