The Routledge Handbook of Local Elections and Voting in Europe represents the standard reference text and practical resource for everybody who analyzes issues such as local electoral systems, voting behavior, or political representation in Europe. It provides comprehensive and expert coverage of 40 European countries - organized along the respective local state traditions - and in addressing a wide range of important questions related to local elections and voting, it broadens the scope of existing analyses quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Finally, it affords a more theoretically grounded typology of local elections and voting. Each country chapter is written by a leading expert and follows a rigorous conceptual framework for cross-national comparisons, providing an overview of the local government system, details on the place of local elections within the multilevel political system, specific features of the electoral system, analysis of the main electoral outcomes in recent decades, and, finally, reflective discussion. Representative democracy is as widespread at the local as at the national level, and as the significance of local authorities in Europe has increased in recent decades, local elections represent a crucial area of study. The Routledge Handbook of Local Elections and Voting in Europe is an authoritative and essential reference text for scholars and students interested in local electoral politics and, more broadly, European studies, public administration, and political science.

This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of territorial change on the municipal level across all European countries. Taking a thematic and comparative perspective, the book builds on extensive quantitative data and a large survey of academic experts in 33 European countries. Territorial organisation of the municipal level in Europe is strongly diversified and yet far from stable. Politically speaking, territorial reforms tend to be risky and difficult, as such changes affect vital interests and identities. Despite such difficulties, the last two decades have witnessed considerable changes in territorial divisions at the municipal level across a range of European countries. In this book, the authors describe and analyse these changes comprehensively, making a vital contribution to understanding the reasons and dynamics of territorial reform processes. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in local or sub-national government, institutional design and more broadly to political science, public administration/policy, human geography, sociology and economics.

This book develops and tests a typology of local state-society relations. To deliver such a comparative study on institutionalized relations between local government and societal actors at the municipal level in Europe, the book identifies and classifies country-specific patterns of these institutionalized governance networks. This work explores the diversity within these institutionalized networks, approaching it from a strong comparative perspective that is anchored on a new typology allowing a more robust analysis of the identifiable patterns. It is a study with appeal to scholars and students of local government, public administration and political science as well as to those pursuing this debate and implementing similar agendas as practitioners.

Directly elected mayors are political leaders who are selected directly by citizens and head multi-functional local government authorities. This book examines the contexts, features and debates around this model of leadership, and how in practice political leadership is exercised through it. The book draws on examples from Europe, the US, and Australasia to examine the impacts, practices, and debates of mayoral leadership in different cities and countries. Themes that recur throughout include the formal and informal powers that mayors exercise, their relationships with other actors in governance - both inside municipalities and in broader governance networks - and the advantages and disadvantages of the mayoral model. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are used to build a picture of views of and on directly elected mayors in different contexts from across the globe. This book will be a valuable resource for those studying or researching public policy, public management, urban studies, politics, law, and planning.

Directly elected mayors are political leaders who are selected directly by citizens and head multi-functional local government authorities. This book examines the contexts, features and debates around this model of leadership, and how in practice political leadership is exercised through it. The book draws on examples from Europe, the US, and Australasia to examine the impacts, practices, and debates of mayoral leadership in different cities and countries. Themes that recur throughout include the formal and informal powers that mayors exercise, their relationships with other actors in governance - both inside municipalities and in broader governance networks - and the advantages and disadvantages of the mayoral model. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are used to build a picture of views of and on directly elected mayors in different contexts from across the globe. This book will be a valuable resource for those studying or researching public policy, public management, urban studies, politics, law, and planning.

This book develops and tests a typology of local state-society relations. To deliver such a comparative study on institutionalized relations between local government and societal actors at the municipal level in Europe, the book identifies and classifies country-specific patterns of these institutionalized governance networks. This work explores the diversity within these institutionalized networks, approaching it from a strong comparative perspective that is anchored on a new typology allowing a more robust analysis of the identifiable patterns. It is a study with appeal to scholars and students of local government, public administration and political science as well as to those pursuing this debate and implementing similar agendas as practitioners.