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Merger Mania: The Assault on Local Government
... They examined devolving activities and responsibilities from central to local governments and the relational features existing between and within the different institutional levels (Ongaro, 2006;Mussari, 2005, Hutchcroft, 2001Christensen, 2000;Pollitt, et al., 1998), but many of them neglected the organisational aspects. The completion of the devolution process and the increasing use of the public governance approach and the network theory have led to renewed interest on the part of scholars and practitioners in agglomeration and/or merger processes, especially those carried out by local governments (Agranoff and McGuire, 2004;Sancton, 2000;Bardach, 1998). Following the implementation of public sector reform based on NPM, the dimension of public administrations, especially at the local level, has prompted renewed both practical and academic interest. ...
... At political level, working together is mainly able to generate more contractual and political power for the participants in the decentralisation process, in relation to other local governments, levels of government and private and public actors (Sancton, 2000;Bardach, 1998). ...
... At citizen-related level, the most important advantage/objective is to have public services of a higher quality at lower cost (Sancton, 2000;Moore, 1995). Merger process in particular, should also generate a higher level of fiscal equivalence. ...
Many Japanese local governments introduced New Public Management (NPM) in the mid/late nineties. Most of them introduced performance measurement, programme evaluation, customer satisfaction surveys, outsourcing and/or contracting out to the private sector, revision of public service delivery, PFI, and PPP (Kudo, 2003). Local public services have been mostly outsourced to private and social sectors. After a decade of these experiences, some municipalities have started to distance themselves from the NPM-driven managerial style. After monitoring and evaluating their performance and considering customer satisfaction, some decided not to renew contracts to their private partners, to bring the service back to public administration, or to introduce new forms of collaboration between public and private sectors, mainly based on proposals from the private sector. The author has been taking part in a research group, which previously surveyed the financial situation of Japanese local governments and their managerial choices (Kudo, 2010) and recently conducted an extensive survey among municipalities to see if they were either in favour of NPM oriented managerial styles or if they were introducing New Public Governance (NPG) oriented (Osborne, 2006; Bovaird, 2007) approaches. Some ways to understand this shift are: 1) putting more importance on citizen participation than cost cutting; 2) preference of PPP to simple outsourcing; and 3) consideration of political accountability (Bakvis and Jarvis, 2012) in administrative implementations. The questioners turn to mayors and financial directors to understand the political as well as economic influences on these choices. The results of the survey and some interviews conducted with mayors and public servants show that some municipalities have shifted from NPM-driven management to public service delivery based on NPG (Pestoff, 2011), although they are rarely aware of the theoretical transition. The examples are small in number, and do not necessary confirm
... Bunlardan bütünşehir terimine anlam ve çeviri açısından en yakın olanı "unicity"dir. "Unicity" daha çok Güney Afrika Cumhuriyetinde (Burger, 2001;Pieterse, 2002;Reddy, 2001;Reddy, 2003) ve Kanada'da (örneğin, Collin, Léveillée ve Poitras, 2002;Reddy, 2002;Sancton, 2002; özellikle Winnipeg şehri için: Lightbody, 1978;Wichern, 1984;Sancton, 2000) kullanılmaktadır. Sonuç kadar süreci de önemseyen ve bütünşehir benzeri bir anlamda nadir kullanılan "unification" terimine (örneğin, Levin and Thiriot, 2004;Selden ve Campbell, 2000) ise ağırlıklı olarak Kanada ve ABD'de rastlanmaktadır. ...
... "Amalgamation" terimi ise Japonya (Mabuchi, 2001), Kanada (örneğin, Horak, 1998;Milroy, 2002;Quesnel, 2000;Sancton, 2002;Sancton, 1996;Bish, 2001: Bish kamu tercihi perspektifinden bakmakta ve birleştirmeye şiddetle karşı çıkmaktadır), Yeni Zelanda (Andersson and Norgrove, 1997) ve ABD (Sancton, 2000) gibi çeşitli ülkelerde kullanımı olan yaygın bir terimdir. "Annexation" terimi, uygulaması ve yazınına Kanada (örneğin, Meligrana, 1998;Meligrana, 2000;Plunkett ve Lightbody, 1982) ve ABD'de (Abbrahamson ve Hardt, 1990;Fleischmann, 1986;Rusk, 1995) sıklıkla rastlanmaktadır. ...
... "Extraterritorial power" (ABD'de) bizdeki mücavir alana benzer iken "incorporation" (ABD ve Kanada'da: Meligrana, 2000) daha çok birleşme veya başka yolla yeni bir belediye kurulması veya kimi zamanda da bizdeki mücavir alana benzer uygulamalardır. 1970'lerdeki ve 1990 başlarındaki iki kuşak girişim ile belediyeleri ve varsa ilçeler ile illeri birleştirmek suretiyle optimal yönetim birimi ölçeğine ulaşmayı deneyen Orta ve Batı Avrupa ülkelerinde ise "consolidation" teriminin (örneğin, Bäck, 2002;Sørensen, 2006) (Gamrat, 2005;Sancton, 2000), Kanada (Sancton, 2000;Vojnovic, 2000a;2000b), Avustralya'da (Marshall, 1998) kullanım alanı bulabilmektedir. Belediyeleri birleştirme anlamında kullanılan terimler olan "aggregation", "unification" ve "merger" (örneğin, Kanada için, ; Kanada ve ABD için Gamrat, 2005;Sancton, 2000;İskandinav ülkeleri için, Sørensen, 2006) da bütünşehir benzeri sonuçlara ulaşılmasını sağlayan süreçlere karşılık gelmektedir. ...
... Bunlardan bütünşehir terimine anlam ve çeviri açısından en yakın olanı "unicity"dir. "Unicity" daha çok Güney Afrika Cumhuriyetinde (Burger, 2001;Pieterse, 2002;Reddy, 2001;Reddy, 2003) ve Kanada'da (örneğin, Collin, Léveillée ve Poitras, 2002;Reddy, 2002;Sancton, 2002; özellikle Winnipeg şehri için: Lightbody, 1978;Wichern, 1984;Sancton, 2000) kullanılmaktadır. Sonuç kadar süreci de önemseyen ve bütünşehir benzeri bir anlamda nadir kullanılan "unification" terimine (örneğin, Levin and Thiriot, 2004;Selden ve Campbell, 2000) ise ağırlıklı olarak Kanada ve ABD'de rastlanmaktadır. ...
... "Amalgamation" terimi ise Japonya (Mabuchi, 2001), Kanada (örneğin, Horak, 1998;Milroy, 2002;Quesnel, 2000;Sancton, 2002;Sancton, 1996;Bish, 2001: Bish kamu tercihi perspektifinden bakmakta ve birleştirmeye şiddetle karşı çıkmaktadır), Yeni Zelanda (Andersson and Norgrove, 1997) ve ABD (Sancton, 2000) gibi çeşitli ülkelerde kullanımı olan yaygın bir terimdir. "Annexation" terimi, uygulaması ve yazınına Kanada (örneğin, Meligrana, 1998;Meligrana, 2000;Plunkett ve Lightbody, 1982) ve ABD'de (Abbrahamson ve Hardt, 1990;Fleischmann, 1986;Rusk, 1995) sıklıkla rastlanmaktadır. ...
... "Extraterritorial power" (ABD'de) bizdeki mücavir alana benzer iken "incorporation" (ABD ve Kanada'da: Meligrana, 2000) daha çok birleşme veya başka yolla yeni bir belediye kurulması veya kimi zamanda da bizdeki mücavir alana benzer uygulamalardır. 1970'lerdeki ve 1990 başlarındaki iki kuşak girişim ile belediyeleri ve varsa ilçeler ile illeri birleştirmek suretiyle optimal yönetim birimi ölçeğine ulaşmayı deneyen Orta ve Batı Avrupa ülkelerinde ise "consolidation" teriminin (örneğin, Bäck, 2002;Sørensen, 2006) (Gamrat, 2005;Sancton, 2000), Kanada (Sancton, 2000;Vojnovic, 2000a;2000b), Avustralya'da (Marshall, 1998) kullanım alanı bulabilmektedir. Belediyeleri birleştirme anlamında kullanılan terimler olan "aggregation", "unification" ve "merger" (örneğin, Kanada için, ; Kanada ve ABD için Gamrat, 2005;Sancton, 2000;İskandinav ülkeleri için, Sørensen, 2006) da bütünşehir benzeri sonuçlara ulaşılmasını sağlayan süreçlere karşılık gelmektedir. ...
... For more information on provincial intervention in municipal affairs, both historically arid today, see Crawford (1940), Sancton (2006), and Taylor (2014). To learn about provincially imposed municipal amalgamations in the 1990s and 2000s, see Sancton (2000), Garcea and LeSage (2005), and Boudreau (2000). several questions remain unresolve d: While many agree that "one size does not fi t all;' what might place based policy-ma king actually look like in Canada' s federal system? ...
... In Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia, disen tanglem ent was accompa nied by the impositi on of municip al amalgam ations. Justified on the basis that bigger governm ent would be cheaper and more efficient (a claim that has not been borne out), these consolid ations mobilize d both local governm ents and citizens protestin g violation of democra tic rights and local identities (Sancton , 2000). ...
... Still, even in Quebec and British Columbia, the mayor has but one vote and no veto, and the bureaucracy reports to council as a whole. Sancton (2000) argues that the weak-mayor � ystem . ...
... The amalgamation of the County of Kent and the 22 municipalities within the County was one of a series of municipal amalgamations that took place in the 1990s in Ontario. Andrew Sancton (2000) states that the amalgamations of the 1990s (including the Municipality of Chatham-Kent) were justified as a means to " reduce the size of government and to promote economic development. " In fact, economic development has been a common justification for municipal amalgamation. ...
... " In fact, economic development has been a common justification for municipal amalgamation. (Dann, 2000; Feoick and Carr, 1997; Sancton, 2000; Vojnovic, 2000) Municipal amalgamations have resulted in reductions in the number of councils along with huge upheavals for staff and changes to the delivery of services to the region's constituents. Sancton is very succinct in his opinion: " Municipal amalgamation has nothing to do with economic development " (2000). ...
... Sancton is very succinct in his opinion: " Municipal amalgamation has nothing to do with economic development " (2000). Sancton (2000) further states: ...
A series of municipal amalgamations that took place in the 1990s in Ontario, which were justified as a means to “reduce the size of government and to promote economic development” (Sancton, 2000). However, it is unclear if the latter goal has been met. This paper will discuss the impact of amalgamation on economic development using the Chatham-Kent experience as a case study. An analysis of the impacts reveals that the amalgamation process was tumultuous and resulted in a loss of significant institutional intelligence. However, it also forced the new entity to review its economic development approach; the investment in strategy development, resource mapping, information technology support and infrastructure has resulted in stronger support provided to the business community.
Keywords: amalgamation, municipal government, regional planning, economies of scale, Ontario
... It is also known that the territorial structure of public administration is characterised by an inbuilt inertia, and local attachments -and neighbourhood ties based on day-to-day social interactions -provide a powerful base for action and vociferous resistance against most local boundary reforms (Paddison 2004: 24). Heavily affected local interests incite intense reactions against incorporations, annexations and splits (de-amalgamations), but also -most importantlymunicipal mergers (amalgamations), which have clearly been the dominant type of territorial change in recent decades (Blom-Hansen et al. 2016;Drew 2020;Sancton 2000). ...
... Our understanding of the reforms' occurrence, intensity and dynamics is still limited, as cross-national studies are still rare. The comparative study of territorial reforms is based on qualitative case studies, supplemented by inductive summaries of collected evidence (Swianiewicz 2010a;Chatry & Hulbert 2017;Dollery & Robotti 2008;Drew et al. 2019;Drew 2020;Meligrana 2004a;Sancton 2000;Dente & Kjellberg 1988a;Rhodes & Wright 1987;Gunlicks 1981;Rowat 1980). While offering important insights, ambitions have often been modest in terms of theory-building and hypothesis-testing. ...
... More generally, cross-national comparative studies of municipal amalgamations and de-amalgamations are rare. The existing comparative analyses of territorial reforms (Askim et al., 2017;Baldersheim & Rose, 2010;Meligrana & Razin, 2004;Sancton, 2000;Steiner et al., 2016;Swianiewicz, 2010) usually concentrate on the causes and processes of territorial reforms, and factors of success in their implementation, while the summaries of their actual impact on local government performance are at best unsystematic (Chatry & Hulbert, 2017;Swianiewicz et al., 2017;Tavares, 2018). ...
... Several authors (e.g. Kortt et al., 2015;Sancton, 2000) suggest that economies of scale can be seen in some local public services, but not in others. The scale effect is more visible in services for which constant costs play a more important role. ...
Recent years have brought increasing number of publications empirically assessing outcomes of territorial reforms. This paper provides a systematic review of 31 studies from 14 countries, using quasi-experimental research designs to test the causal relationship between changes in jurisdiction size and economic outcomes. The clearly confirmed finding relates to savings in administrative spending, while other sectors do not demonstrate economies of scale. The existing studies provide strong evidence for the common pool effect in theperiod before amalgamation. In the other fields, results do not display a clear pattern. The article concludes with a discussion of gaps in the literature.
... Then we discuss resistance and project identities (Castells 1997) and various forms of agency. In the next section the rise of municipality mergers, or 'merger mania', (Sancton 2000) into a global phenomenon and the societal background of this phenomenon are characterized, as is the evolution of the Finnish municipal system. A case study on the Nurmo-Seinäjoki municipality merger follows. ...
... The amalgamations of local administrative units have a long history that extends from the USA to Europe, from Canada to Asia. In England, for instance, the number of municipalities was reduced The Heisei Consolidation decreased the number of Japanese municipalities from 3229 to 1821 between 1999 and 2006 (Sancton 2000;, Hall and Stern 2009, Yokomichi 2011). ...
Regions as well as their identities and borders are social and discursive constructs that are produced and removed in contested, historically contingent and context-bound processes of institutionalization and deinstitutionalization. This article studies the deinstitutionalization of regions in the context of municipality amalgamations and the consequent rise of resistance identities that have followed rural-urban mergers in Finland, a tendency that seems to be accelerating around the world. By identifying various dimensions of regional identity characterizing such resistance, the paper shows how regions are mobilized as distinctively territorial spaces when confronted with forced deinstitutionalization carried out by regional authorities. The resistance emerging among ordinary citizens can be explained by fears related to the loss of public services and autonomy but also by a strong emotional identification with the region. Such fears can also be a reaction to the centralization tendencies that accentuate urban over rural. This paper suggests that regional identity, regional activism and resistance should not be downplayed or mislabelled as regressive features, but should be understood as important ingredients in contemporary regional transformation.
... Then we discuss resistance and project identities (Castells 1997) and various forms of agency. In the next section the rise of municipality mergers, or 'merger mania', (Sancton 2000) into a global phenomenon and the societal background of this phenomenon are characterized, as is the evolution of the Finnish municipal system. A case study on the Nurmo-Seinäjoki municipality merger follows. ...
... The amalgamations of local administrative units have a long history that extends from the USA to Europe, from Canada to Asia. In England, for instance, the number of municipalities was reduced The Heisei Consolidation decreased the number of Japanese municipalities from 3229 to 1821 between 1999 and 2006 (Sancton 2000;, Hall and Stern 2009, Yokomichi 2011). ...
... Then we discuss resistance and project identities (Castells 1997) and various forms of agency. In the next section the rise of municipality mergers, or 'merger mania', (Sancton 2000) into a global phenomenon and the societal background of this phenomenon are characterized, as is the evolution of the Finnish municipal system. A case study on the Nurmo-Seinäjoki municipality merger follows. ...
... The amalgamations of local administrative units have a long history that extends from the USA to Europe, from Canada to Asia. In England, for instance, the number of municipalities was reduced The Heisei Consolidation decreased the number of Japanese municipalities from 3229 to 1821 between 1999 and 2006 (Sancton 2000;, Hall and Stern 2009, Yokomichi 2011). ...
Regions as well as their identities and borders are social and discursive constructs that are produced and removed in contested, historically contingent and context-bound processes of institutionalization and deinstitutionalization. This article studies the deinstitutionalization of regions in the context of municipality amalgamations and the consequent rise of resistance identities that have followed rural-urban mergers in Finland, a tendency that seems to be accelerating around the world. By identifying various dimensions of regional identity characterizing such resistance, the paper shows how regions are mobilized as distinctively territorial spaces when confronted with forced deinstitutionalization carried out by regional authorities. The resistance emerging among ordinary citizens can be explained by fears related to the loss of public services and autonomy but also by a strong emotional identification with the region. Such fears can also be a reaction to the centralization tendencies that accentuate urban over rural. This paper suggests that regional identity, regional activism and resistance should not be downplayed or mislabelled as regressive features, but should be understood as important ingredients in contemporary regional transformation.
... Specifically, conditional on at least 52 weeks of registered unemployment, male workers were allowed to retire up to 5 years early. Though suggesting at most, the annual growth rate of men in West Germany exploiting this option rose from 0.5 percentage points per year in 1970-1990 to 2 percentage points in 1990-2000e., after the immigration shock, this rate returned to 0.7 percentage points (German Pension Fund, 2017). ...
... Similar processes have occurred throughout the developed world. Sweden reduced the number of municipalities by more than 2,500 (TyreforsHinnerich, 2009;Jordahl and Liang, 2010), and West Germany reformed the municipality boundaries to reduce the number by about 33,000(Sancton, 2000). ...
Die vorliegende Dissertation setzt sich aus drei Aufsätzen zusammen: zwei im Bereich der Arbeitsmarktökonomie und einer im Bereich der politischen Ökonomie. Der erste Aufsatz untersucht die Rolle der zunehmenden Firmenheterogenität für die Stagnation des Gender Wage Gaps auf dem westdeutschen Arbeitsmarkt in den 1990er und 2000er Jahren. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die steigende Firmenheterogenität während dieses Zeitraums einen Rückgang des Gender Wage Gaps um 15% bzw. 3,6 Log-Prozentpunkte verhindert hat. Darüber hinaus zeigen die Analysen, dass eine zunehmende Lohnflexibilisierung, bedingt durch einen Rückgang der Tarifbindung und wachsende Dezentralisierungs- und Flexibilisierungstendenzen innerhalb der vorhandenen Tarifbindungsregime, den Anstieg der Lohnungleichheit zwischen Betrieben und folglich die Lohnungleichheit zwischen Männern und Frauen verstärkt hat. Der zweite Aufsatz untersucht die Auswirkungen des Anfang der 1990er Jahre von Flüchtlingsmigranten verursachten, plötzlichen Anstiegs des Arbeitskräfteangebots auf Löhne und Beschäftigung der einheimischen Arbeitnehmer. Die empirischen Analysen zeigen, dass ein 1%iger Zuwachs in der Beschäftigung von Migranten mit einer Reduzierung des lokalen Lohn- und Beschäftigungswachstums in den betroffenen Regionen um durchschnittlich etwa 0,68 bzw. 1,13% einhergeht; auf längere Sicht zeigen sich indes keine negativen Auswirkungen. Zwei Drittel des lokalen Beschäftigungsrückgangs werden durch entsprechende Beschäftigungsgewinne in solchen Regionen kompensiert, die von der Flüchtlingszuwanderung nicht betroffen sind. Die Unterschiede zwischen kurz- und langfristigen Konsequenzen sowie die Umverteilung der Beschäftigung zwischen Regionen sind für die politische Evaluation der Vor- und Nachteile von Migration von Bedeutung. Der dritte Aufsatz untersucht, ob die Parteienlandschaft im Gemeinderat einen Effekt auf die Struktur von Gemeindezusammenlegungen hat, indem sie die Wahrscheinlichkeit der Wiederwahl und folglich des Machterhalts der im Amt befindlichen politischen Entscheidungsträger beeinflusst. Die empirischen Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass die Parteienstruktur für die Realisierung von Gemeindezusammenlegungen von Bedeutung ist.
... Men det är också besvärligt att bedriva verksamheten effektivt i riktigt stora kommuner. Detta fenomen har diskuterats på flera håll i sammanläggningslitteraturen -bland annat i D'Inverno med flera (2022) För säkerhets skull vill jag med eftertryck understryka att slutsatser som liknar dem som återkommer i citaten ovan återfinns i en lång rad andra översikter och kommentarer till forskningsfältet -till exempel hos Turley (2017), Aulich med flera (2011), Fox och Gurley (2006), Bish (2001) och Sancton (2000). Till det ska föras att den mest uppdaterade forskningsöversikten om förhållandet mellan kommunstorlek och demokratins kvalitet är tydlig: "Resultaten [från forskningsöversikten] är otvetydiga: medborgare i mindre kommuner upplever att de har större möjligheter att påverka och de deltar också i högre grad i kommunpolitiken" (McDonnell 2020, min översättning). ...
... However, far more people seem to believe that local government amalgamation is the best way of increasing size and therefore improving financial sustainability (Andrews, 2013Baird, 2016Drew et al., 2021;Tasmanian Government, 2022). Indeed, this 'merger mania' (Sancton, 2000) has a global character and is increasingly proposed 'as the remedy to every problem. . . [whereby] we could all be living in Nirvana' (Drew, 2020, p. 53). ...
It is commonly assumed that bigger local governments will be more financially sustainable. Indeed, public policymakers are often prompted to make boundary change decisions according to idealised structures that they assume will lead to stronger local governments. In addition, many local government regulators urge councillors to work for growth in order to become sustainable. However, the assumption that size is associated with financial sustainability has seldom been put to robust empirical test. In this work, we first explore the theoretical considerations relevant to the supposed association between size and sustainability. Following this, we employ a comprehensive 5‐year panel of data to test the association. The evidence we derive stands in stark contrast to the assumptions of many policy architects. We conclude our work with an enumeration of the surprising implications that our results point to with respect to future public policy prescriptions.
Points for practitioners
Theoretical considerations are ambiguous with respect to the assumption that larger local governments might be more financially sustainable.
A regression of a 5‐year panel of data demonstrates that larger local governments are indeed less financially sustainable.
Our results suggest the need for a radical re‐appraisal of policies surrounding amalgamation, de‐amalgamation, and which local governments are most at risk of financial failure.
... The South African government at the time openly advocated for a reduction in the number of municipalities as a policy goal in and of itself (Bish, 2001;Sharma, 2003). Some mergers were compelled by the provinces, which did so either through special legislation or by giving broad powers to single person restructuring commissions (Sancton, 2000). In other circumstances, local amalgamation was started to avoid the province's more problematic and broad amalgamation (Downey and Williams, 1998). ...
The goal of this article is to look into how public officials can be held accountable through public financial management in the local government sphere of government. The research looks into whether financial viability is the only or most important aspect in deciding municipal service delivery issues. This study employed a secondary research methodology because existing knowledge was used to reach conclusions. Data was gathered through documentary examination of annual reports, financial statements, literature reviews, and financial management and local government legislation from various municipalities around the country. The findings of this study illustrate the nature of complexity in municipal financial management, which is bolstered by accusations of political meddling that frequently mislead finance authorities. The study adds to the body of knowledge in the subject of Public Administration and Management in the sub-area of financial viability and public engagement.
... Les politiques de regroupements municipaux ont été l'occasion de diffuser un argumentaire sur l'efficience des conseils municipaux. En réduisant le nombre d'élus, les fusions étaient censées réduire de facto les coûts de la démocratie locale (Sancton 2000). D'autres études ont cherché à mesurer les effets des fusions municipales sur la rémunération et le fonctionnement des conseils municipaux (voir par exemple pour le Québec Meloche et Kilfoil 2017). ...
L’objet de ce texte est d’analyser le contexte, le contenu et les effets de la modification législative concernant la rémunération des élus municipaux, entrée en vigueur en janvier 2018, afin d’en saisir la portée au sein des transformations contemporaines du monde municipal québécois. En particulier, nous nous intéressons à la manière dont l’enjeu de la rémunération est cadré par les principales associations municipales de la province, et comment il a trouvé sa place dans une réforme municipale plus large. Pour ce faire, nous avons réalisé une analyse des documents produits sur ce sujet par les deux principales associations municipales ainsi que ceux relatifs au processus législatif (mémoires et débats associés au projet de loi no 122). L’analyse de ces deux corpus de données nous révèle que si la question de la rémunération a été cadrée comme un moyen d’assurer le recrutement des édiles et d’en reconnaître les compétences, elle est également insérée dans un discours plus large sur les revendications d’autonomie du monde municipal. L’argumentaire développé en dit autant sur l’enjeu de la (re)valorisation des mandats municipaux que sur la reconnaissance du palier municipal comme un palier de gouvernement à part entière, sans toutefois pousser explicitement la carte de la professionnalisation. Par ailleurs, l’analyse des données empiriques préliminaires sur les rémunérations montre que la loi n’a pas tellement changé les choses sur un horizon temporel 2010-2018. Nous constatons la persistance d’un clivage important entre petites et grandes municipalités : les premières maintiennent une rémunération qui favorise un modèle de l’amateur-bénévole, alors que les secondes assument une certaine professionnalisation de leurs conseils.
... The structural reform of local government systems through voluntary or enforced mergers has been a recurring item on many countries' policy agendas for several decades (Baldersheim & Rose, 2010;Paddison, 2004;Sancton, 2000). Merging local governments has been propagated as a cost-saving measure, although empirical evidence is mixed (Blom-Hansen et al., 2016;Swianiewicz & Łukomska, 2019;Tavares & Rodrigues, 2015). ...
Mergers incentivize local governments to ease their fiscal policies before the merger is implemented. This incentive is powerful: it is known that local governments start easing fiscal policies even before they know for sure that a merger will occur and even if merging is what they want. Based on a study of Norwegian municipalities, this article shows that irrespective of whether local governments face certain or potential mergers, their fiscal easing is manifested primarily in budget overruns rather than candidly documented in budgets. Among local governments facing a potential merger, unwilling governments ease their fiscal policies more than willing ones do and to a larger extent apply a concealment strategy.
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... As with other local government reforms worldwide, territorial restructuring and reorganisation are part of these reforms. Of all the different elements to local government reforms (including changes to expenditure functions and revenue sources, internal governance and management reforms, performance measurement and monitoring improvements, etc.), territorial rescaling and especially municipal mergers have been the most controversial and contested (Sancton, 2000;Lago-Peñas and Martinez-Vazquez, 2013). ...
Economies of scale are often the underlying rationale for local government amalgamations. Yet the international evidence on the relationship between municipal output or size (in population terms) and costs as measured by expenditure per capita is unconvincing, with doubts over whether size matters at all for the efficient provision of local public services. Given the 2014 structural reforms aimed at local government territorial consolidation in Ireland, we use pre-and post-merger data to investigate whether there is any evidence of scale economies in the Irish local government system. The econometric study finds empirical evidence of "U-shaped" cost curves for Irish local councils in 2011 and 2016. In both years the range of turning points are near the median council size, suggesting that many local authorities were operating in the diseconomies region before and after the 2014 territorial reforms and amalgamations. With more territorial changes currently planned, policymakers should look at further amalgamations only on a case-by-case basis but also at other mechanisms to deliver efficiencies, either through strategic alliances and more shared services arrangements or other ways of inter-municipal cooperation as is common in many continental European countries.
... They mainly concern urban areas where the central unit takes over the tasks of other levels of local government. Horizontal consolidations of municipalities are slightly less important, although the authorities of individual states strongly support them [16]. ...
Research background: The globalization processes are not only of an economic and cultural nature - but they also unify trends in the organization and management of administration, including at the local level. The idea of economization of administration was promoted in the broad stream of reforms described as New Public Management. It was often expressed as a postulate of the territorial reorganization of local governments. The reforms of these structures, motivated by the economies of scale, were to lead to the elimination of their allegedly too fragmented nature.
Purpose of the article: The questions about the global scale and effectiveness of these reforms resulted in the objectives of the study, which were formulated as follows:
- identification of the scope and scale of territorial reforms and assessment of their global character;
- evaluation of the real impact of these reforms in terms of economies of scale.
Methods: Methodologically, the work is the critical meta-analysis of the research results of consolidation reforms from many countries of the world.
Findings & Value added : The results lead to the conclusion that consolidation is a global trend. However, they do not unequivocally confirm the successes in achieving economies of scale in the provision of public services. The added value of this research is to draw attention to the fact that uncritical implementation of global trends does not automatically bring the assumed effects. It is necessary to apply in practice glocalization, i.e. critical adaptation of global solutions to local institutional conditions.
... Results that echo these findings have been reported for Japan (Nakazawa 2013), Australia (Dollery and Ting 2017;Dollery and Yamazaki 2018), New Zealand (Kortt, Dollery, and Drew 2016), as well as for Canada (Slack and Bird 2013). This recent wave of research into the effects of amalgamations confirms recurrent overall conclusions from both contemporary (e.g., Gendźwiłł, Kurniewicz, and Swianiewicz 2018;Tavares 2018) as well as earlier reviews of the amalgamation literature (e.g., Aulich et al. 2011;Fox and Gurley 2006;Holzer et al. 2009; see also Bish 2001;Sancton 2000). ...
Arguments invoking increased functional efficiency have had a profound impact on local government reforms in advanced democracies during the past 60 years. Consequently, most mature democracies have implemented municipal amalgamation reforms, often through top-down coercion. In this article, we demonstrate how far central governments have been willing to go, in terms of coercion, by providing an in-depth historical account of Swedish municipal amalgamations between 1952 and 1974. Debates on amalgamation reforms have typically revolved around pros and cons of mergers. But very few discussions have addressed the more fundamental moral problem of enforcing amalgamations through coercion. Often, large-scale mergers are carried through against the expressed will of municipalities who wish to remain self-governing. In this article, we present a normative defense of strong local self-government, based partly on values of individual autonomy, and partly on group-based human rights, and we show how coerced amalgamations are at odds with these values.
... To overcome the limitation of cross-sectional studies, some scholars utilise concurrences of municipal consolidations, which substantially change the size of a large number of local governments in a short period of time. In such concurrences of consolidationswhich have been observed especially in developed countries in the recent past (Reese 2004;Sancton 2000;Tindal and Tindal 2000) it is often the case that some municipalities go through mergers while others remain intact. ...
This paper examines whether boundary changes lead to changes in the relationship between voters and politicians. We focus on the wave of municipal mergers in Japan that took place in the 2000s in order to examine this question. Municipalities with small population size, once they merge with their larger neighbours, would have a small number of voters relative to the size of the electorate in the post-merger municipalities. Therefore, municipal politicians in the post-merger municipalities do not have strong electoral incentives to receive support from geographic areas corresponding with pre-merger municipalities of small population size. Using a survey of voters in 89 locations corresponding with pre-merger municipalities, we demonstrate that voters who live in small municipalities that experienced mergers interact with politicians less frequently and have less favourable impressions of politicians than before the mergers. These patterns are not observed in municipalities that did not experience mergers.
... The Heisei Consolidation decreased the number of Japanese municipalities from 3229 to 1821 between 1999 and 2006 (Sancton 2000;, Hall and Stern 2009, Yokomichi 2011). ...
... Rescaling has had profound effects, particularly for metropolitan regions, where the downloading of responsibilities and the pitting of city against city in competition for capital investment has fundamentally altered the nature of urban governance, exerting strong pressure on cities to amalgamate and/or form metropolitan governments (Brenner 2004;Boudreau 2003Boudreau , 2007Boudreau et. al. 2007;Sancton 2000). Yet the actual causal mechanisms and processes for such rescaling-including the creation of metropolitan governance structures-are often neglected. ...
... By the same token, in small local governments, the share of constant in total costs of delivery may be higher, which implies higher per capita spending on services. Several authors (e.g., Kortt, Dollery, and Drew 2015;Sancton 2000) suggest that economy of scale may be seen in some local public services, but not in others. The scale effect is more visible in services in which constant costs play a more important role, and, therefore, changes in the scope of local government services may change the optimal point of the U-shaped curve (Bikker and Van der Linde 2016;Hirsch 1968). ...
Over the last decade, municipal territorial amalgamation has occurred in 15 European countries. The same period has seen spectacular progress in research on the relationship between municipal size and the functioning of local governments, as well as the impacts of territorial reforms on economic performance and
local democracy. Quasi-experimental designs treating territorial reforms as specific “research laboratories” have constituted an important part of that trend. However, there are still important gaps in the knowledge and the study results are often inconclusive. These observations call for a research agenda for the future.
... By the same token, in small local governments, the share of constant in total costs of delivery may be higher, which implies higher per capita spending on services. Several authors (e.g., Kortt, Dollery, and Drew 2015;Sancton 2000) suggest that economy of scale may be seen in some local public services, but not in others. The scale effect is more visible in services in which constant costs play a more important role, and, therefore, changes in the scope of local government services may change the optimal point of the U-shaped curve (Bikker and Van der Linde 2016;Hirsch 1968). ...
Debates on the impact of size of subnational jurisdiction on the costs of public-service delivery have a very long tradition, but results are still far from conclusive. This article applies a quasi-experimental scheme of the synthetic control method for Polish municipal fragmentation to analyze the impact of territorial reform on administrative spending as well as on the operating surplus of the budget. Earlier studies using similar methods focused on amalgamation reforms, so the study of territorial fragmentation is an important new contribution to knowledge on scale effects. The analysis clearly confirms the existence of economy of scale in administrative services. The result for the operating surplus is less clear and more ambiguous. Results of the study are to a large extent a mirror of earlier analysis of territorial amalgamation consequences, which confirms the importance of scale for administrative costs, but not necessarily for costs of other local services.
... Recently a number of large-scale municipal mergers have been carried out in Japan as well. The Heisei Consolidation decreased the number of Japanese municipalities from 3,229 to 1,821 between 1999 and 2006 (Sancton 2000, Hall and Stern 2009, Yokomichi 2011. During the first decade of this millennium the trend of merging municipalities became particularly strong in the Nordic states. ...
This article focuses on the experiences of debordering and deinstitutionalization of regions. It approaches territories as processes and borders as multilayered social constructs. The article utilizes some key ideas on institutionalization and sees regions as ‘Leviathans’ that are entities ‘thick with things’, both human and nonhuman. Through 10 focus group discussions, the article discusses the sense of belonging and how a region ‘holds onto’ both human and nonhuman actants even after it loses its status in the legitimate regional structure. Due to this stickiness, it concludes that deinstitutionalization is never complete in a sense that all regional consciousness would disappear entirely. After their administrative status is removed, regions remain in a state of in betweenness: not quite fully existing, not quite fully extinct. This makes the concept of deinstitutionalization highly contested and one that eludes easy definitions. However, it is useful to understand deinstitutionalization as a process that turns regions into palimpsests or sets of assemblages that vary in time. Relatedly, regions that are officially deinstitutionalized can endure in ‘penumbral’ form, and can remain meaningful for their inhabitants for a long time.
... A decade later, this same intention emerged where Barzelay (2001) points to a new public management with an ideological change from the traditional top-down to engaging local government within a context of a more negotiated environment. Here local politics are important and need to be included as part of a provincial government's amalgamation initiative, as the province tries to strengthen local governments (Sancton 2000). Strengthening and building communities from the inside out is consistent with an approach where assets-based actions support endogenous development in communities (Kretzmann and McKnight 1993). ...
... 5 It should be noted, however, that these categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but driven by a desire to find evaluative criteria. 6 Despite being discussed in earnest in the wake of amalgamation (Sancton, 2000;Spicer, 2014), the concept of community councils in Ontario has its origins in the April 1996 report of the Hamilton-Wentworth Constituent Assembly, which introduced the term "community committee." Similar to the British Parish Council model, the Constituent Assembly envisioned these community committees as a flexible political forum that would "act as a link between the municipal council and citizens in a defined community [that would] provide a way for citizens to participate more effectively in the governance of their community" (Pendergrast and Farrow, 1997: 12). ...
In the wake of wide-ranging municipal amalgamations Ontario, the provincial government promoted the use of community councils, citizen-led boards that would have input in local matters. Community councils were touted as a way of preserving local identity and policy control. However, more than a decade removed from Ontario's restructuring process, few municipalities have community councils in place. Those that have implemented community councils established them with purely advisory functions. This paper asks why community councils were so inconsistently implemented and introduced with such limited powers. Overall, it is found that community councils were victims of restructuring politics. Blocked by city councillors fearing decentralization would dilute their authority and foster political rivals, constrained through a restrictive legislative framework and pushed aside by city officials fearing they would effectively recreate a two-tier system, community councils were either abandoned or installed with a limited mandate.
... The Progressive Conservative Party was elected in 1995 on a platform of lowering taxes and reducing the provincial deficit (Ibbitson 1997). To accomplish these tasks, the province sought to eliminate municipalities and municipal politicians and "disentangle" policy responsibility between itself and the province's municipalities (Sancton 2000;Siegel 2005). Part of this program involved "uploading" the responsibility for education and "downloading" certain policy areas, such as social services (Graham and Phillips 1998). ...
In 1998, the province of Ontario introduced the Consolidated Municipal Service Manager (CMSM) system, which effectively downloaded the responsibility for delivery and partial funding for a range of social services to municipalities. Separated cities and counties—a unique system of municipal organization in Ontario that draws a sharp institutional distinction between urban and rural areas—were given a particularly wide range of discretion over the implementation of these services. A number of these jurisdictions experienced an array of problems reaching a local solution. Some even wound up in arbitration. This article examines the implementation of the CMSM, focusing specifically on the unique institutional arrangement found in counties with separated cities, finding that the provincial government overlooked the institutional design of city–county separation, hindering the policy downloading process. Overall, it is argued that the local institutional environment is key when shifting policy responsibility from central to local actors.
... our society that the economic and social health of our cities is a responsibility of all those with the resources to bring about change (Sancton 2000, 82). e new metropolitan approach seeks to engender a collective process undertaken through dialogue and exchange among the actors. ...
In a context marked by globalization and rapid urbanization in metropolitan regions, new issues appear and generate new forms of governance, which in turn aim at elaborating new territorial strategies. The similarities of the French and Quebecois political agendas for metropolitan reforms are the basis of this paper. The comparison evaluates up to what point these new Marseilles and Montreal metropolitan approaches are innovative forms of urban planning. The Marseilles metropolitan network is characterized by theprojet metropolitain (metropolitan project) approach, which fits in the now familiar strategic planning trend, whereas via its metropolitan institutions Montreal is working out a schema metropolitain (land use and development plan), which appears closer to a "traditional approach." The political-institutional profiles resulting from the metropolitan reforms in Marseilles and Montreal differ but share the common difficulty of creating a workable forum for discussion on a metropolitan scale. These two metropolises thus illustrate the reappearance of a practice of metropolitan planning that is less spatially based than that developed during the 1960s, more strategic but not yet completely collaborative.
Yerel yönetim kurumlarının iki temel işlevi vardır. Yerel kamu hizmetlerini sunmak ve demokratik bir kurum olarak vatandaşları kamu kararlarının oluşması sürecine dahil etmek. Tarih boyunca bu işlevleri yerine getirebilmek için tüm dünyada pek çok yerel yönetim reformu gerçekleştirilmiştir. Reformlardan birisi olan belediye birleşmelerinin bir buçuk asra yakın bir tarihi bulunmaktadır. Bu tarih içinde dünyadaki pek çok ülke belediye birleşmelerine yönelik gönüllü ya da zorunlu politikalar uygulamıştır. Politikaların gerekçesini her zaman ölçeği büyütmek suretiyle maliyetlerde tasarruf beklentisi oluşturmuştur. Ancak yapılan araştırmaların pek çoğu birleştirilen belediyelerde ölçek ekonomisi tezini doğrulamayan sonuçlar üretmiştir. Ölçeğin büyütülmesi maliyetleri daha aşağı çekmediği gibi demokratik katılım üzerinde de negatif etkilerde bulunmaktadır. Birleştirilen belediyelerde seçimlere katılım oranlarındaki düşüş bu durumun açık göstergesidir. Bu çalışma, ölçek ekonomisi tezine geniş yer ayrılmış birleşme gerekçeleri ile başlamakta ve ölçeğin büyütülmesinin, demokratik katılım olgusu üzerindeki azaltıcı etkilerini gösteren farklı Avrupa ülkeleri deneyimlerinden örnekler içermektedir. Çalışmanın amacı, ekonomik etkinlik tezine dayanarak yapılan birleşmelerin vatandaşların demokratik katılım hakları karşısında bir tehdit oluşturan, farklı tercihlere duyarsız ve bunları merkezileştirme amacındaki monolitik bir yaklaşım olduğunu gösterebilmektir. Ülkemizdeki yerel yönetim reformlarında (özellikle büyükşehir reformları) benzer bir yaklaşımın izlerini görebilmek mümkündür. Bu çalışmanın inceleme alanında Türkiye örnekleri bulunmamaktadır. Ancak Avrupa ülkelerindeki uzun yıllara dayanan deneyimlerin Türkiye reformlarının geleceği açısından da ufuk açıcı olacağı düşünülmektedir.
It is widely acknowledged that the list of mandatory tasks and obligations of local government units is by all means too long for the actual capacity of the majority of local government units in Estonia. Discussions on the theme of local government reform have been acute for a long time in Estonia, but no systemic, comprehensive and holistic reform of public administration has been done there up to now. There is a gap between the need for and success factors of local government reform in Estonia. Aim and Purpose of the Article This paper briefly examines the attempts at local government reform (hereinafter called LGR) 1 in Estonia over its time of re-independ ence. The author provides a brief overview of the state of the local government sector in Es tonia for a better understanding of the context of the main issue. The aim of this paper is to discuss the matter of attempts at LGR in Es tonia, particularly focusing on the analyses of different attempts at LGR, the lack and pres ence of some key factors of success and sev eral arguments supporting the implementation of LGR in Estonia. Some authors have dis cussed the theme of LGR in Estonia, but the author considers the issue more comprehen sively on the one hand and goes more in-depth in the analyses of the strengths and weak nesses of attempts at LGR and of the argu ments supporting LGR in Estonia on the other. The author has no intention of denoting how, what, when and why politicians and practitioners should do in preparing LGR, but only refers to some success factors and in hibitors of the reform process.
The merging of regions initiated in France in 2016 makes it possible to observe the processes of reinvention of a regional identity after thirty years dedicated to strengthening two different ones. The analysis of this territorial recomposition therefore gives us the opportunity to better understand what makes a region and what it does, two questions to which the answers were still not quite stabilized in France. They are now raised again in an explicit and clear way and allow us to better define the contemporary outlines of the state and current modes of government. To that end, we will examine the merger of two former French regions, Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées, which have been grouped into a new region called Occitanie.
Public sector reforms often take place in heterogeneous reform environments. Key political, administrative and societal actors often advocate different definitions of problems and solutions. A major leadership challenge is to choose a reform strategy that ensures the requisite level of support, even when the initial conflict structure is highly complex. Using cleavage theory, we develop assumptions about how the reform leader’s assessment of the initial conflict affects the leader’s choice between three distinct reform strategies. These assumptions are applied to a case study of a complex and contested public sector reform, Norway’s national local government reform. We show how the government’s choice of a reform strategy can be understood in light of cleavage theory and discuss the implications of these findings for further theory development.
Ölçek ekonomisi tezi, yerel kamu hizmetlerini daha ekonomik sunabilmeyi, yerel yönetim büyüklüğünde arayan reformların temel gerekçelerinden biridir. Ölçek ekonomilerinin varlığı halinde, somut bir yerel hizmetin üretimindeki girdileri arttırmak suretiyle, çıktının marjinal maliyetleri düşürülebilir. Ancak, ölçek ekonomisi tezinin yerel yönetim literatüründeki kullanımı, bu senaryo üzerinden temellendirilmez. Yerel otoritenin büyüklüğünün, coğrafi alan ya da nüfus olarak arttırılması suretiyle, maliyetlerde tasarruf sağlama beklentisi üzerinden kurgulanır. Başka bir deyişle, esasen firma teorisine ait bir tez olan ölçek ekonomisi, yerel yönetimler alanında bağlamından koparılmak suretiyle kullanılır. Çıktının üretimden koparılıp, nüfus üzerinden tanımlanması yanında, yerel otoritenin boyutundan ya da hizmet sunma kapasitesinden kaynaklanan kazançlar da ölçek kazançları olarak adlandırılır. Bu çalışmanın ilk amacı kavramları doğru bir çerçeveye oturtabilmektir. İkinci olarak ölçek kazançlarının tüm yerel hizmet yelpazesi ve tüm yerel yönetim büyüklükleri için geçerli bir yaklaşım olamayacağı vurgulanmıştır. Ayrıca, yerel yönetimlerde ölçek ekonomisi tezine yönelik pek çok alan araştırmasının bulgularına çalışma içinde yer verilerek, büyüklük ve verimlilik ilişkisinin deneysel kanıtları ortaya konmaya çalışılmıştır. Bu kanıtlar, ölçek ekonomisi kaynaklı maliyet tasarrufları beklentisinin her durumda karşılığı olmadığını göstermektedir.
Referring specifically to mid-North Ontario during the Conservative Government’s “Common Sense Revolution” (1995–2003), we theorize that state reregulation applying neoliberal principles—when coupled with technological change and broader changes caused by the internationalization of capital and labour—resulted in job losses, downsizing, closures, and aging of fixed capital and infrastructure. This led to outmigration, depopulation, reduced social and economic services, and longer travel times to access services in thinly populated regions, which now have to contend with a seasonal influx of wealthy metropolitan citizens.
Allt fler vill se en ny svensk kommunreform med väsentligt större – och därmed färre – kommuner. Mot den bakgrunden har syftet med föreliggande rapport varit att inventera forskning från andra utvecklade demokratier för att se om sammanläggningar har varit ett ändamålsenligt sätt att möta de problem de respektive ländernas kommunsektorer har tampats med. En delambition har också varit att uppmärksamma forskning om förekomst och effekter av mellankommunala samarbeten, för att försöka utröna om det skulle kunna vara ett alternativt (eller kompletterande) verktyg.
Contemporary public policymaking relies heavily on commercial consultants for specialised advice. In this paper, we examine the problematic nature of this phenomenon by considering the controversial forced amalgamation programme in New South Wales (NSW) local government over the period 2011 to 2017. By way of a critical examination of two key consultant reports underlying the NSW municipal mergers, we show that the failure of this programme to achieve its intended aims is due in large measure to the nature of the externalised advice on which it was based and the manner in which that advice was solicited from commercial consultants.
In recent decades, the belief that larger municipalities can better capture economies of scale led to compulsory amalgamations in several countries. This article examines such a program of compulsory amalgamations in Ontario, Canada, during the late 1990s and early 2000s. By exogenously deciding on a course of municipal restructuring, and leaving a large comparison group of nonamalgamated municipalities within the same institutional framework, the Ontario reforms created a quasi-experiment on the importance of scale for local government. Using a difference-in-differences methodological approach, this article exploits the quasi-experimental setting of the Ontario reforms to examine the causal effect of jurisdiction size on the cost of local administration. The main empirical finding in this article is that increasing local jurisdiction size reduces the cost of local administration. The results provide the most convincing evidence to date that economies of scale exist in local administration and can be captured through consolidation.
"Smart Cities" are assumed to be based on smart technology, smart people or smart collaboration, assigning citizens significant roles. Despite increasing "citizen participation" in the discourse, there is very little debate on their socio-political implications. While some argue that ICT will enhance democratic debate and empower citizens [45, 18, 8], others concern about the development of Smart Cities "without critical discussions and 'politics'" [55, 5, 53] and notice the lack of attention for the politics of technical choices. This applies in particular to Smart Cities, since they require citizens to change behaviour according to quantitative targets and technological features. Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) launched its Smart City project in 2010. The government set specific criteria in order to ensure the "participation of all the stakeholders" (among which the citizens) and the "lifestyle innovation" [22]. The paper analyses information provided by semi-structured interviews to stakeholders of Japanese Smart Cities; the tools of citizen involvement proved effective in promoting cooperation and achieving significant outcomes in terms of energy consumption reductions, this involvement has not allowed any political debate about core issues such as Smart City, sustainability, and policies. METI and Japanese Smart Cities risk the potential for social innovation [7]. Research on behaviour change and sustainability also suggests that such situation is likely to hinder more significant shift towards sustainable lifestyles [56, 50]. Drawing on analysis of official documents as well as on interviews with each of the four Smart Communities' stakeholders, the paper explains that very little input is expected from Japanese citizens. Instead, ICTs are used by municipalities and electric utilities to steer project participants and to change their behaviour. The objective of Smart Communities would not be to involve citizens in city governance, but rather to make them participate in the co-production of public services, mainly energy production and distribution.
It is assumed in many countries that the merger of municipalities can increase the capacity of their public administrations. This paper concentrates primarily on the activities preceding the implementation of the merger, by analyzing the ex-ante stages of the process. Using a case study, the paper analyzes the activities used to explain the merger initiative to citizens and to overcome any potential resistance. The analysis is developed using the Foucauldian concepts of discourse and technology of the self. The aim is to explain the way human resources can and should be managed during the implementation of a capacity-building initiative.
The Italian local government system has developed uniquely, mainly because of a series of domestic policies as well as European fiscal constraints. After many years of discussion without any concrete reforms, the Italian government decided to abolish the intermediate level of local governments or the provinces in 2014, forced by the requirements of Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union. The decision shows the first centralisation efforts, after decades of decentralisation policies, following the European Charter of Local-Self Government and managerial reforms typical to New Public Management (NPM).
Across the developed world, the last 50 years have seen a dramatic wave of municipal mergers, often motivated by a quest for economies of scale. Re-examining the theoretical arguments invoked to justify these reforms, we find that, in fact, there is no compelling reason to expect them to yield net gains. Potential savings in, for example, administrative costs are likely to be offset by opposite effects for other domains. Past attempts at empirical assessment have been bedeviled by endogeneity—which municipalities amalgamate is typically nonrandom—creating a danger of bias. We exploit the particular characteristics of a recent Danish reform to provide more credible difference-in-differences estimates of the effect of mergers. The result turns out to be null: cost savings in some areas were offset by deterioration in others, while for most public services jurisdiction size did not matter at all. Given significant transition costs, the finding raises questions about the rationale behind a global movement that has already restructured local government on almost all continents.
This article examines whether or not municipal mergers change the perceived level of public services within a merged municipality. I argue that residents of small municipalities that merge with larger neighbors lose political powers after the mergers; they become a minority within a merged municipality, and their electoral importance declines accordingly. As a result, the level of public services to the merged localities is expected to decrease. I test this argument by focusing on the nationwide concurrence of municipal mergers in Japan that rapidly took place in the 2000s. I conducted a survey of voters in rural municipalities that merged and those that remained intact during this wave of mergers. Using the responses to the survey, I demonstrate that the level of public services, as perceived by the respondents, declined more significantly in municipalities with mergers than in municipalities without.
During the last decades of the twentieth century, neo-liberal ideas, fuelled by economic crises, technology and “globalisation”, have prevailed in the arena of public policy and, in turn, have been re-shaping government. Often by way of challenge or critique to the neo-liberal project, however, analysis and debate about the design of institutions of governance and civil society has intensified, with the role and nature of local government being given greater attention and a new importance1. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the problems of democratisation and social reconstruction, have paralleled and reinforced this debate2.
Local government plays a critical role in the lives of all citizens, from remote towns to capital cities. As the political legitimacy and importance of municipalities grow, however, it becomes increasingly difficult to strike a balance between local and higher levels of government. The contributors to Local Government in a Global World provide insights into key themes impacting local governance in two federations with much in common historically, culturally, and politically: Australia and Canada.
These essays examine changes in the Australian and Canadian systems through four thematic lenses: citizen participation in government systems, the restructuring and reform of local governments, the use of performance measures and management systems in the administration of local governments, and the relations of local governments within higher levels of governments. Unique in its thematic selection and in its compare-and-contrast structure, Local Government in a Global World provides a valuable reference for those seeking to understand how effective local government is structured and managed
This article focuses on the nationwide wave of municipal consolidations in Japan that took place from 2003 to 2006 and examines why some municipalities merged but others did not. The central government did not legally force consolidations but instead provided municipalities with fiscal incentives. I argue that small municipalities were reluctant to merge because they would lose generous transfers from the central government as well as decision-making powers once they unified with their larger neighbors. Fiscal incentives by the central government significantly raised the cost of remaining intact and induced a large number of fiscally weak municipalities to merge.
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