Abstract
This last chapter provides a synthesis of the book, highlights its major contributions and projects future research on the causes and consequences of municipal amalgamations. The chapter begins with a summary of the main findings and a discussion of how they fit the overall landscape of research on the topic. The first section underscores how the combination of time and space elements in the analysis contributes to advance our knowledge of the critical junctures present at the birth of local government systems in European countries, how they help to explain the evolution of these systems and, ultimately, why some systems were more subjected to amalgamation reforms than others. The last section of this conclusion reflects on how future research on the topic might be able to move time and space to the forefront of the study of territorial reforms. First, it reflects on the implications of this study for reform theory as a causal explanation of amalgamation reforms and, more generally, how this book might stimulate the development of alternative and/or complementary accounts of these reforms. Next, it suggests that the combination of time and space is also important for the study of the effects of amalgamation reforms and it provides additional hints on how future studies might take advantage of these themes.
Honor thy error as a hidden intention.
Brian Eno
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Notes
- 1.
Extracted from the …Nothing Like the Sun liner notes.
- 2.
France underwent two revolutions (1830 and 1848), the Third Republic (1870), two World Wars (1914–1918 and 1939–1945), and the Fourth (1946–1958) and Fifth Republics without ever changing its fragmented local government system. Similarly, Portugal shifted from a monarchy to a republic (1910), a military coup (1926) followed by the Estado Novo dictatorship (1928–1974) and the Carnation Revolution (1974) without moving away from its consolidated pattern.
- 3.
The Danish reform (2004–2007) appears to have played a pivotal role.
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Tavares, A. (2024). Conclusion. In: Municipal Amalgamation Reforms. Palgrave Studies in Sub-National Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54736-2_8
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