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Giving Citizens More Say in Local Government: Comparative Analyses of Change Across Europe in Times of Crisis

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Local Public Sector Reforms in Times of Crisis

Part of the book series: Governance and Public Management ((GPM))

Abstract

The authors show how institutions for citizen participation in European local government have changed from 1990 until today. Relying on data from an expert survey and focusing on the right of free access to information, the direct election of mayors, and binding local referenda, the authors discover a clear trend of democratic renewal in European local politics. However, the trend is not uniform. The authors also offer some interpretations for the pattern of change they found: Democratic reforms are the result of domestic political factors. But as diffusion theory suggests, the reforms are also externally determined by factors like coercion, learning, and imitation.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our colleagues from the COST project as well as other research colleagues who supported us by completing our questionnaire: Harald Baldersheim (Norway), Anders Lidström (Sweden); Ulrik Kjær (Denmark); Eva Marín Hlynsdóttir (Iceland); Siv Sandberg (Finland); Colin Copus (UK); Andreas Ladner (Switzerland); Anna Gamper (Austria); Joan Font and Angel Iglesias (Spain); Paolo Fedele (Italy); Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot (France); Kristof Steyvers (Belgium); Nikos Hlepas (Greece); Carlos Nunes Silva (Portugal); Inga Vilka (Latvia); Egidius Barcevicius and Oksana Mejere (Lithuania); Ringa Raudla (Estonia); Paweł Swianiewicz and Adam Gendzwill (Poland); Michal Illner (Czech Republic); Miro Hacek (Slovenia); Gabor Soos (Hungary); Dubravka J. Alibegovic (Croatia); Desislava Stoilova (Bulgaria); Calin Hintea (Romania); Gerard Turley and John McEldowney (Ireland). Because of their small size we excluded Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus from this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

    Angelika Vetter

  2. Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Daniel Klimovský

  3. University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Bas Denters

  4. University of Münster, Münster, Germany

    Norbert Kersting

Authors
  1. Angelika Vetter
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  2. Daniel Klimovský
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  3. Bas Denters
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  4. Norbert Kersting
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Political Science, Administration and Organization, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Sabine Kuhlmann

  2. Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven Public Governance Institute, Leuven, Belgium

    Geert Bouckaert

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© 2016 The Author(s)

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Vetter, A., Klimovský, D., Denters, B., Kersting, N. (2016). Giving Citizens More Say in Local Government: Comparative Analyses of Change Across Europe in Times of Crisis. In: Kuhlmann, S., Bouckaert, G. (eds) Local Public Sector Reforms in Times of Crisis. Governance and Public Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52548-2_15

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