Kristof Steyvers

Ghent University | UGhent · Department of Political Sciences

Voting motives are one of the most studied but still much contested question in political science. There has been much less concern at the local level although two main tendencies can be discerned. Some consider local elections as second order political contests. Others emphasize place‐bound patterns in voting motives. Still, more research beyond t...

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 respecti...

Introduction: Three tales of local party systems In the Danish municipality of Ringsted, the voters participating in the 2013 municipal elections were presented with a choice of eight different parties when they entered the polling booth. The number of parties listed on the ballot was neither special nor interesting, but the names of the parties we...

Local party systems vary profoundly both between and within countries. The type and the number of parties running and getting elected in local governments differ, and the local party systems resemble the national party system to different degrees. This chapter examines the nationalization of local party systems in three European countries with the...

Le 14 octobre 2018 se tenaient les élections communales en Belgique. La démocratie représentative locale est souvent négligée par les recherches des politologues tandis qu’elle est parfois considérée comme subordonnée aux dynamiques des niveaux de pouvoir régional ou fédéral. Ce n’est que récemment que l’intérêt pour les analyses du comportement él...

Le 14 octobre 2018 se tenaient les élections communales en Belgique. La démocratie représentative locale est souvent négligée par les recherches des politologues tandis qu’elle est parfois considérée comme subordonnée aux dynamiques des niveaux de pouvoir régional ou fédéral. Ce n’est que récemment que l’intérêt pour les analyses du comportement él...

Op 14 oktober 2018 vonden er in ons land weer lokale verkiezingen plaats. Die hoogmis van de lokale vertegenwoordigende democratie werd door politieke wetenschappers vaak verwaarloosd of gezien als ondergeschikt aan verkiezingen op het regionale of federale niveau. Pas recent nam de belangstelling voor de lokale patronen en dynamieken van het kiesg...

This book was inadvertently published without updating the author corrections in chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 14. The corrections have been updated in the respective chapters.

Zagovara se potreba strožeg i sustavnijeg pristupa komparativnim istraživanjima lokalne politike, tj. istraživanjima koja se bave akterima, instrumentima, institucijama i procesima u lokalnom sustavu upravljanja. Navode se prednosti takvog pristupa (prisutne kad se metodologija istraživanja bavi deskriptivnim, eksplanativnim i pragmatičkim pitanjim...

This chapter scrutinises access as the entrance mechanisms local authorities dispose of towards their upper tiers of government. Apparent in much of the literature on intergovernmental relations conceptual consensus emerges on the existence of two main modes of vertical linkage: a direct and individual variant and an indirect and institutionalised...

This chapter analyses regulations and practices related to the financial aspects of local autonomy. It refers to fiscal federalism theory but it also shows that European practice differs from the assumption of the theory. It discusses how basis of financial autonomy is defined and protected by the European Charter of Local Government. The analysis...

This chapter develops a comprehensive and empirically applicable concept to measure the autonomy of local government in the 39 European countries covered. To this end, we first discuss already existing measurements and typologies of local autonomy and decentralisation. We argue that existing data on fiscal decentralisation only tells part of the st...

The balance between local autonomy and central control is a perennial issue in the territorial organisation of states. Despite the importance of local autonomy, there is little theoretical convergence regarding the core elements of the concept, and a limited number of studies try to measure local autonomy comparatively. This volume aims at filling...

This chapter examines the supervision of local authorities’ actions by upper levels of government. The starting point is that all regional or national authorities exercise a certain type of administrative control over the activities of local governments. However, there is diversity among systems both in the scope (legality v. expediency) of supervi...

This chapter looks at the organisational autonomy of local government seen as the possibilities municipalities have to choose their political institutions and to organise their local administration. In some countries municipalities can decide on elements of their electoral system or on the form and the size of their local executive, but in most of...

The purpose of the chapter is to analyse variations in local policy autonomy across countries and over time. Policy autonomy refers to the tasks that local authorities perform and the discretion they enjoy in the performance of those tasks. Policy autonomy is at the heart of local democracy as it sets the range of policy choice open to the elected...

A basic argument of this chapter is that an analysis of local government systems should take into consideration the double role of local authorities: governance for the sake of the citizens’ community and for the sake of the state. Focusing on the accountability and responsiveness of decision-makers, we argue that these are the main configuring fac...

The legal status of local autonomies in modern states has been the subject of a long discourse. Constitutionalist movements, legal theory and the dialogue between high courts have been elaborating common understandings nowadays enshrined in provisions of the European Charter of Local Self-Government which were also used for the construction of loca...

In this chapter we attempt to create an index of local autonomy. Ideally, such an index includes all the different aspects of local autonomy discussed in the literature and combines them according to their importance. The chapter emphasises the choices made while constructing the index and suggests different ways to test the results. Given the mult...

In this final chapter, we recall the importance of local autonomy as it is promoted by many international organisations and the theoretical foundations of the concept. Subsequently, we summarise findings on the different variables measured and outline the patterns of local autonomy found among the 39 countries under scrutiny, as well as to the over...

This chapter develops an empirical typology of local autonomy clustering countries with similar configurations. Aligning with the discrete quantitative approach emerging in the comparative literature, it tries to add depth and scope to the existing classifications whilst critically engaging with them. Empirically, the chapter draws on the dimension...

In this chapter local autonomy is treated as an independent variable. We want to know whether there is a causal link between the degree of autonomy and the performance of the different countries in terms of the quality of democracy, economic growth, corruption and happiness. The chapter starts with some theoretical remarks concerning the expected i...

The previous chapters of the book have identified substantial and persistent patterns of variation in terms of local autonomy and its components across the 39 countries covered by the present study. This chapter seeks to explain the variation of local autonomy by trying to identify drivers of variation. Six hypotheses are explored in this regard wi...

In his controversial book If Mayors Ruled the World, US political theorist Benjamin Barber argued that mayors can and do play a major role in solving today’s grand societal challenges in domains like social inclusion and poverty, climate change and sustainability and safety and public order. It is increasingly recognised that meeting such challenge...

In this chapter, we scrutinise the enduring relevance of the social base of political recruitment for contemporary European mayors. Whilst unravelling potential patterns in gender, age, education and profession, it also probes deeper into similarities and differences over time and across space. The chapter shows that similar background characterist...

This book considers local autonomy, measured as a multidimensional concept, from a cross-country comparative perspective, and examines how variations can be explained and what their consequences are. It fills a gap in the literature by providing a comprehensive study of the different components of local autonomy across a large number of countries,...

This paper scrutinises local party system nationalisation beyond the national versus non-national dichotomy in the context of Belgium. Three main points stand out. First, a more close-knit assessment of the vertical autonomy of the parts comprising the system invokes the subtypes of national, pseudo-national, pseudo-local, and independent local lis...

Until now, scholars trying to unravel the phenomenon of nationalization have seldom considered the local policy layer or the ideological dimension as their main subject. This paper, however, studies the ideological nationalization of Flemish local party branches. It applies the method of content analysis of electoral manifestos to the local electio...

De informatiemaatschappij waarin we leven heeft ook gevolgen voor wie aan politiek-wetenschappelijk onderzoek wil doen. Dit werk is opgebouwd uit drie delen. In een eerste deel krijgt de lezer een inleiding op het literatuuronderzoek in de politieke wetenschappen. Naast een beschouwend hoofdstuk komt o.m. het zoeken naar, lezen en integreren van li...

A series of trends have emerged across Europe which have stimulated change in local government, local democracy and local leadership particularly where local government and local leaders have had to respond to crisis, economic downturn and the pressures of public engagement in times of restraint and public service decline. The special issue of Lex...

De gemeenteraad boet aan invloed in, de burgemeesters, het college en de administratie krijgen invloed bij. Zo schetsen de Vlaamse burgemeesters de lokale bestuurssituatie. Ze zien 'een visie voor de gemeente ontwikkelen' en 'de kwaliteit van de lokale diensten waarborgen' als hun belangrijkste taken. Een grote meerderheid is voorstander van een fu...

This chapter scrutinizes the ongoing debate on structural reform in local government in the Flemish Region of Belgium at the turn and the first decades of the 21st century. As in many European polities, discussions on the territorial and functional arrangements of the level deemed closest to the citizen have occupied a protracted place on the refor...

Presidentialization involves a shift in focus from collective actors (such as parties) to one person, in this case the mayor. It is a specific form of personalization which focusses on one rather than on several individuals. Electoral presidentialization, which constitutes one of the diverse features of this phenomenon, was studied at the local lev...

Er zijn in 2015 meer vrouwen onder de Vlaamse burgemeesters dan twaalf jaar geleden, maar het cliché van de oudere, hoogopgeleide en mannelijke burgemeester blijft gedeeltelijk overeind. Verder werken burgemeesters meer dan in 2003 en ze hebben meer oog voor de interne werking van het bestuur. Drie op de tien plaatsen zichzelf in het centrum van he...

Recent evolutions in Western societies have sparked renewed debate on the state of political representation. This article contributes to the debate by applying a multifaceted typology developed by Andeweg and Thomassen (2005) to study political representation in Belgian local governance. The article empirically outlines the notions of 856 local cou...

Government formation is a crucial phase after elections. This article focusses on coalition formation in Belgian local government after the elections in 2006. Coalition theories have mainly been developed at the national level, but they are also applicable to the local level where there is no shortage of coalitions. This level offers the opportunit...

This article connects two streams in the literature on local political leadership by identifying the effect of leadership in form on the altering nature of leadership behaviour in the era of governance as a promising field of research. In particular, it argues to proceed with a comparative new institutionalism agenda. In order to illustrate this ap...

This paper focuses on the role of size in coalition formation in the Flemish region in Belgium after the local elections of 2006. A quantitative analysis already showed that size matters at the local level. In this paper, portfolio allocation is considered as an important part of coalition formation. This paper illustrates that combining research m...

Like national politicians, local representatives are claimed to become increasingly professionalised. The alleged professionalisation of the local councillor underpins a fundamental debate on the state of local politics. Does professionalisation entail an asymmetry in the councillor population that is necessary to govern localities in the twenty-fi...

Why do some people become and stay politicians while others do not? To gain an insight into this question one has to scrutinise the processes by which certain individuals enter, remain and move in office. In the literature on political science, these processes are usually framed by the concepts of political recruitment and career development. The a...

This paper seeks to explicit the link between the institutional tendency towards the strong mayor model of political leadership and the shifting substance and nature of mayoral agendas and networks in localities from a (European) comparative perspective. It develops a plea for a more systematic research agenda in this field by outlining the potenti...

In this article we measure the effect of inherited political capital in the form of family politicization on legislative candidates’ recruitment age and early careers. We differentiate the concept of family politicization between a narrow (i.e., party political) and a broad (i.e., non-party-political) interpretation. Results indicate that narrow fa...

Nowadays, cities formulate long-term strategies to address the challenges and opportunities they face. Numerous strategic plans or planning instruments are developed for this purpose. In this article, we would like to examine the role, impact and relevance of these types of plans in decision-making processes concerning urban development projects (U...

This article sets the framework for the subsequent special issue on political recruitment and career development of local councillors in a comparative perspective. After conceiving recruitment and career development as a funnel-like process filtering out the few from the few and leading to patterns of interpositional mobility in the political realm...

This article addresses the question of matter in discussing the effect of recruitment and career development on the importance councillors attach to various tasks associated with their office. It starts from the assumption that professionalization would lead to giving inward-looking tasks more importance to the detriment of their outward counterpar...

This article evaluates which of the two competing visions provides the model for most local government. The first vision is of a nonpartisan, politically neutral local government, while the second is of local government as a place where wider national party battles are fought and refought and where ideological concerns and party interest dominate d...

This article addresses the question of matter in discussing the effect of recruitment and career development on the importance councillors attach to various tasks associated with their office. It starts from the assumption that professionalization would lead to giving inward-looking tasks more importance to the detriment of their outward counterpar...

This article sets the framework for the subsequent special issue on political recruitment and career development of local councillors in a comparative perspective. After conceiving recruitment and career development as a funnel-like process filtering out the few from the few and leading to patterns of interpositional mobility in the political realm...

Over the last few decades and in many European countries, local government went through an era of transformation to meet the manifold challenges it had to confront (Denters and Rose 2005). One of the areas in which much activity in terms of discourse, reform, and change occurred is political leadership. The latter is thereby perceived as one of the...

It is often argued that local governance conflicts with the prescribed functioning of local councillors. We could wonder if councillors have become fragments of local democracy, rather than the foundation they are supposed to be. This article empirically assesses the classic role-set (representation, policy, control) of local councillors in Belgian...

In this article we want to examine the characteristics of the dominant actors and the power configurations within decision-making processes of urban development projects (UDPs). Especially we like to indicate how local policy makers are involved in these complex processes and what their impact is within the urban governance networks concerning thes...

In this article we want to examine the characteristics of the dominant actors and the power configurations within decision-making processes of urban development projects (UDPs). Especially we like to indicate how local policy makers are involved in these complex processes and what their impact is within the urban governance networks concerning thes...

In this article we want to examine the characteristics of the dominant actors and the power configurations within decision-making processes of urban development projects (UDPs). Especially we like to indicate how local policy makers are involved in these complex processes and what their impact is within the urban governance networks concerning thes...

De informatiemaatschappij waarin we vandaag leven heeft ook gevolgen voor wie aan politiek-wetenschappelijk onderzoek wil doen. Informatie was nog nooit zo veelvuldig beschikbaar en dit op talloze manieren. Waar we ons vroegen beperkt zagen tot mondelinge bronnen (een gesprek, een interview) of schriftelijke bronnen (een boek), zien we de laatste t...

Municipal amalgamations in Belgium took place some time ago and the local council elections of 8 October 2006 marked the thirtieth anniversary of this thorough overhaul of the local administrative landscape. The municipal amalgamations of 1976 were undoubtedly the biggest reform the local level in Belgium has ever faced. The Netherlands also underw...

In many contemporary democracies, parties and politics have almost become synonymous. Rooted in the 19th century massification of representation and aligned on crucial cleavages in society (Lipset and Rokan, 1967) parties developed into key actors in political decision-making. While Heywood (2002: 246) conceives a party primarily as '…a group of pe...

This article studies the extent to which the newly created figure of the management team in local government in Flanders might lead to changes in administrative conduct. It uses a new institutionalism perspective in three worlds of action to study the mediating effect of meso-organizational and micro-individual factors on macro-constitutional refor...

In this paper we argue that the meaning of family politicization for recruitment in contemporary democratic politics has changed, and can now be reinterpreted in a modern and postmodern way. Starting from Norris' recruitment model, we scrutinize potential supply (learning and calculation) and demand (screening and selection) side factors that may c...

The three main political parties which dominate British politics, at all levels, face a continuing challenge from smaller political parties and independent candidates. Such alternatives to the main three parties, however, have been a long-standing feature of the political landscape at both national and local levels. Yet, little is known of the way...