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A comparative approach to local government legitimacy
2016-08-24
Paper prepared for
The ECPR general conference, Prague 7-10 September 2016
Section 38, panel 236: Local government legitimacy – conceptual and empirical challenges
Anders Lidström Umeå University
Department of Political Science SE-901 87 Umeå
Sweden
Tel +46 90 786 61 81
E-mail: [email protected]
Harald Baldersheim University of Oslo
Department of Political Science PO Boks 1097, Blindern
0317 Oslo Norway
Tel +47-22857189
E-mail: [email protected]
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Arguing the case for local government legitimacy
The concept of legitimacy is a key concept within the social sciences. Ideas about how governments
can be legitimate can be traced back to Aristotle, Hobbes and Locke but has been significantly
developed by Weber (1947), Easton (1965) and Habermas (1975) in particularly in relation to
democratic systems. The concept has traditionally concerned the rightful execution of power by
states, but more recently also by the European Union (cp Beetham & Lord 1998). It has been referred
to as “the willingness to comply with a system of rule” (Weber 1947), independently of who the
current rulers are. It deals with the acceptability of the political system in general rather than with
specific actors or institutions within the system (Gilley 2006).
Despite local government also being a political system, with public authority and elected decision-
makers, it is less common that the concept has been applied to this level of government (for
noteworthy exceptions, see Rose & Pettersen 2000; Lidström et al. forthcoming 2016 and in the
contributions in a special issue of Urban Research & Practice, 2014). For many years, the research
community seems to have taken for granted that the legitimacy of sub-national government is
nothing but a reflection of national government legitimacy. However, there are good reasons to
assume that local government has a separate basis for legitimacy that can be distinguished from the
state. As shown by Fitzgerald & Wolak (2016), citizens are generally able to separately assess
whether they trust local and national governments. In Europe, all citizens live in areas governed by
local governments such as municipalities, county councils and regions. These provide functions and
carry out services that are directly relevant for each and every citizen. They are the units of
democracy closest to the citizens, where it is more likely that citizens have personal experience of
attempts to influence public decision-making and where they may know a politician personally. For
many, this is also the nearest unit of territorial identification. In total, there are approximately
100,000 local authorities in the EU countries together with Iceland, Norway and Switzerland
(Loughlin et al. 2011).
Hence, there are good reasons for investigating local government legitimacy, both within countries
and in a comparative perspective. Arguably, legitimacy is even more critical for a well-functioning
system of local government than it is for the integrity of the state, at least in the short run. In a crisis,
the state always has recourse to its monopoly of violence as a means of last resort to ensure the
compliance of citizens. Local authorities have no similar means of their own and would fail utterly in
their mission if they regularly had to call upon the coercive powers of the state to achieve their goals.
To function effectively, local authorities need the voluntary cooperation of citizens. Local service
provision normally requires some measure of input from citizens, for example the compliance with
regulations regarding collection of waste, the behaviour of parents in kindergartens or that of
relatives of clients in elderly care. In many places, a number of local services are carried out in
partnerships with organizations in civil society. The dependency of local services on the cooperation
of citizens and civil society has in recent years received increasing scholarly attention under the
concept of "co-production" (Ostrom 1996, Alford 2007). Local government without legitimacy would
probably be incapable of achieving the co-production of its citizens.
Investigating local government legitimacy requires an analytical framework that identifies the key
components of the concept in a way that is applicable to the local level and that is relevant for both
single country and comparative analyses. The aim of this paper is to develop and present such a
framework and to illustrate how it may be used in empirical studies, both in terms of the general
pattern that this framework generates and how it may be understood as an interactive game.
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The concept of legitimacy
On the basis of a Weberian understanding of legitimacy, Beetham (1991) has suggested that three
requirements need to be met for a system of rule to be legitimate, namely that it is legal, justified
and that there are acts of consent. Legality refers to compliance with established rules, justification
means the existence of a “common framework of belief” (Beetham 1991:69) between rulers and the
ruled, and acts of consent is about active and expressed support by the citizens for a political order. A
system can vary in legitimacy but if it falls below a threshold, it may be dissolved or overthrown. As
argued by Beetham and Lord (1998:9), the “weaker its legitimacy, the less the government can rely
on the obedience or support of its subjects when it comes under stress, or requires their particular
cooperation to effect its policies”. These distinctions are relevant also when analyzing the legitimacy
of local government.
Although there are a number of other concepts that more or less capture the same phenomenon as
legitimacy, such as institutional trust and support for the political system, legitimacy tend to be
limited to a systems level. Trust is also commonly considered in a more limited sense (Norris 1999),
referring to specific institutions and actors. The concept of support, developed from systems theory
(Easton 1965) has also similarities with legitimacy, although it seems to assume a more actively
expressed liking of a system of rule. A distinction has been made between general and specific
support (towards the system as a whole vs. particular actors or institutions). General support for the
political system clearly overlaps with legitimacy, as defined here. A further difference is that
legitimacy may depend on the performance at different stages of the policy process (see below),
whereas trust and support primarily features the input side of the system.
An analytical framework
Bases for legitimacy: Input, throughput and output
Recent reflections on legitimacy emphasize the need to distinguish between input, throughput- and
output as different bases for legitimacy (see Haus & Heinelt 2005: 14-15 and Heinelt 2010: 66-67
referring to Scharpf 1970 and 1999; see furthermore Schmidt 2013). Input-legitimacy concerns
whether citizens in general can influence and participate in political decision making and whether
politicians are responsive to citizens’ views. Throughput-legitimacy focuses on transparency as a
condition for accountability and the extent to which the reasons why certain decisions have been
taken are open for the public. Output-legitimacy, finally, concerns the performance and problem-
solving capacity of the unit of government. The distinction between the three bases of legitimacy
emphasizes governance as a process. An assumption is that the stages of this process, each of them
or in combination, can generate legitimacy for a system of rule. However, in addition, we would
expect these three aspects to capture essential features of democratic governance. This requires
well-functioning democratic institutions and procedures as well as a capacity for governments to
provide services and functions in an efficient and effective way (Norris 2012, Dahlberg & Holmberg
2014).
Input-legitimacy is strongly connected to an understanding of democracy as a chain linking citizens,
decision-makers and policy outputs. Recent scholarship has suggested that focus in contemporary
society has increasingly shifted to the outputs, or the ability of units of government to deliver
(Crozier 2010, Haus 2014). This is linked to the current crisis of representative institutions of
democracy and has been seen as a way of safeguarding legitimacy despite low turnout in elections
and declining party membership. However, the tendency may also be seen as connected to a New
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Public Management way of emphasizing efficient service production in the public sector, an
increasing use of networks and more provision of public services by private contractors. More private
provision may also weaken the direct connection between inputs and outputs (Scharpf 1999, Crozier
2010). Despite this decoupling of the three bases for legitimacy, they may still be empirically
interrelated (Roos & Lidström 2014), perhaps reflecting a common underlying concept. Although
originally developed as a means for understanding decision-making in the EU (Scharpf 1970), the
distinction between input-, throughput- and output as bases for legitimacy is relevant also for local
government, and any political system aspiring to be democratically legitimate.
Sources of local government legitimacy: Bottom-up and top-down
Contrary to sovereign states, democratic local government is positioned between the citizens and
some superordinate level of government (Lidström 1998): On the one hand, local authorities are
expected to realize and represent the will of the people in the local area which includes handling
collective matters for the local community. This is the communitarian idea of local self-government.
On the other hand, local governments are creatures of some superordinate authority – a unitary
state or a state within a federation. They are legally defined and regulated from above, through local
government acts but also often through special regulation. Indeed, it is this subordinate position that
distinguish local authorities from sovereign states. Local government may also carry out more or less
extensive welfare and service functions and also administrative tasks on behalf of upper levels of
government. Page and Goldsmith (1987) have neatly captured this relationship in terms of the
functions, discretion and access of local government. In other words, local government derives its
legitimacy from both the bottom and the top.
Components of local government legitimacy
In order to be able to analyze local government legitimacy we need to take into account the sources
as well as the bases of the concept. Together, this provides a framework that identifies the key
components that can vary – both within and between countries. These are summarized in Figure 1.
Figure 1 Analytical framework: Components of local government legitimacy
Bases of legitimacy
Sources of local government legitimacy
Input Throughput Output
The own citizens (bottom-up)
Citizens assessments of input
Citizens assessments of throughputs
Citizens assessments of the quality of the delivery
Superordinate level of government (top-down)
Autonomy to organize input
Autonomy to organize throughput
Range and discretion of devolved functions
Legitimacy that derives from the bottom up, i.e. from their own citizens is seen as citizens’
continuous evaluation of different aspects of how their local authority functions, namely how the
inputs, throughputs and outputs are handled. As mentioned previously, these assessments concern
how the system functions for the citizens generally, and is not about the individual’s own personal
satisfaction with it. Related to the different bases of legitimacy, citizens are expected to evaluate
opportunities to influence, decision-making transparency and service provision. Assessments may
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vary between individuals but also between contexts such as local authorities and countries. Citizens’
relationship vis-à-vis the local authority is dynamic and may change over time, depending on how
they experience their local government. This view on legitimacy corresponds primarily to Beetham’s
criterion of consent and also to Weatherford’s (1992) micro-view on legitimacy that emphasizes the
relevance of the citizens’ views for legitimacy.
From the top-down perspective, i.e. from the view of the superordinate authority, local government
legitimacy may be understood as the extent of autonomy and devolution that has been granted with
regard to how inputs, throughputs and outputs may be carried out. This is an expression of how
much the superordinate level entrusts local government to independently respond to citizens’
demands and to identify, decide and carry out its tasks. In most European countries, autonomy and
granted functions are the same for all types of local governments in the country. In other countries
these vary between different parts of the country or between local authorities of different sizes. Such
asymmetries may not only concern differences in tasks and functions but also systems of elections,
forms of decision-making and types of executives (Loughlin, Hendriks & Lidström 2011).
Nevertheless, the range of autonomy and discretion of local government is usually greater between
countries than within them (cp. Sellers & Lidström 2007, Ladner et al. 2015). Legitimacy derived from
the superordinate level of government is also dynamic as it may be changed, which may depend on
the extent to which local government meets the expectations of the upper level. If local authorities
frequently break the law, exceed their competences or provide the devolved services in an
unsatisfactory way, the superordinate level may be less willing to trust them which may result in
reduced autonomy or fewer functions.
This comparative framework makes it possible to be much more specific in disentangling the
complexity of local government legitimacy than previous studies have been able to do (Rose &
Lidström 2014, Lidström et al 2016), as it takes into account that this may vary with regard to both
sources and bases of legitimacy. For example, central government may be critical of how some of the
devolved functions are carried out but can accept how the inputs are generated. The citizens may not
think that decision-makers are responsive but can still appreciate the local services. This opens up for
more nuanced analyses of local government legitimacy in a comparative perspective as it clarifies
according to whom and at what stage in the process that legitimacy may be strong or weak.
Two empirical applications
Operationalization and measurement
The framework can be used for analyses both within and between countries but this paper will be
confined to a tentative comparative analysis of countries in a European context. The countries
studied are the 27 EU member states that existed before the accession of Croatia in 2013 and
Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
Moving from the theoretical framework to empirical analysis requires that the concepts are
operationalized. Unfortunately, data are not available for all components and all countries and,
therefore, we have to partly rely on second best alternatives1.
Local government legitimacy from the citizens’ perspective should ideally be measured through
specifically targeted and comparable survey data from different countries, distinguishing between
the three sources of legitimacy. However, as such data is available only in a few countries we will use
1 For the construction of the legitimacy variables, see Appendix.
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a more general measure of the citizens’ assessment of local government in their country. A suitable
proxy is the question in the 2012 Eurobarometer survey on citizens’ trust in local and regional
authorities (Eurobarometer 2012).
Local government legitimacy from the perspective of the superordinate authority may be captured
by data on the formal preconditions that this level provides for local government. The new Local
Autonomy Index (LAI) developed by Ladner et al. (2015) and in particular some of the variables that it
consists of are useful. It measures differences both between countries and between
länder/cantons/regions in federal states over time.
Input legitimacy from the perspective of upper levels of government can be represented by LAI’s
organizational autonomy variable, which is about the extent to which local authorities independently
can decide on their electoral system and organization. Although it is not optimal for our purposes it
can serve as tentative measure. One problem is that the variable lacks information about provisions
for other ways of organizing inputs than through representation, for example via referendums and
citizens assemblies. Nevertheless, it is the best available approximation of the autonomy provided for
local government to organize the inputs.
There is currently no comparative overview available on the conditions for transparency for local
government and therefore, we have no measure of local government throughput legitimacy from the
perspective of upper level governments. Although the general conditions for transparency in several
European countries are captured by indexes such as the MJP Open Government Index, we should not
take for granted that conditions for transparency are similar at local and national levels. Hence, this
particular component will not be subject to any further analyses.
Finally, output legitimacy from the superordinate level’s point of view is captured by combining two
measures from the LAI index. One represents the range of functions that local government carry out
on behalf of the upper level of government and the other is the amount of discretion that local
government has in providing these functions. By multiplying these, both the scope and autonomy are
included in the measure.
This leaves us with three measures that currently can be used in order to analyze local government
legitimacy from the perspective of both the citizens and upper levels of government. Additional data
collection is required in order to fully test the different components of the framework. This includes a
standardized comparative citizen survey that is able to distinguish between the three different bases
of legitimacy but also better measures of input legitimacy and throughput legitimacy from the
perspective of superordinate governments.
Patterns of local government legitimacy
The values for each country on the three measures of local government legitimacy is summarized in
Table 1. On each measure, the countries are ranked from highest to lowest level of legitimacy and a
cut-off point is inserted in the middle of the scales where there is an identifiable gap in the ordering.
This divides the countries into a high level and a low level group for each measure.
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Table 1 Local government legitimacy in European countries (2012)
Legitimacy from own citizens
Legitimacy from superordinate authority
Input legitimacy Output legitimacy
Luxembourg 74
Czech Republic 4.0 Finland 90
Denmark 71 Denmark 4.0 Germany 84
Switzerland 70 Estonia 4.0 Iceland 81
Austria 65 Iceland 4.0 Denmark 79
Norway 65 Norway 4.0 Norway 77
Sweden 65 Poland 4.0 Poland 73
Iceland 64 Switzerland 4.0 Sweden 72
Belgium 63 Belgium 3.0 France 69
Finland 63 Bulgaria 3.0 Romania 68
France 62 Finland 3.0 Bulgaria 67
Germany 62 Italy 3.0 Hungary 65
Estonia 58 Lithuania 3.0 Latvia 64
The Netherlands 58 The Netherlands 3.0 Lithuania 64
Slovakia 3.0 Estonia 56
Slovakia 48 Slovenia 3.0 The Netherlands 53
Cyprus 47 Sweden 3.0
Czech Republic 47 United Kingdom 3.0 Czech Republic 47
Latvia 45 Italy 45
United Kingdom 45 Germany 2.5 Portugal 42
Hungary 44 Hungary 2.5 Slovenia 42
Malta 44 Romania 2.5 Austria 39
Poland 42 Austria 2.1 Luxembourg 39
Slovenia 36 Cyprus 2.0 Switzerland 39
Bulgaria 35 Greece 2.0 Belgium 36
Portugal 34 Latvia 2.0 Slovak Republic 36
Romania 33 Portugal 2.0 Spain 28
Lithuania 32 Spain 2.0 Greece 23
Ireland 30 France 1.0 United Kingdom 16
Greece 23 Ireland 1.0 Cyprus 7
Spain 21 Luxembourg 1.0 Ireland 6
Italy 13 Malta 1.0 Malta 1
Note: For the construction of all measures, see Appendix. The cutoff-points for Citizen based legitimacy set to 53,
Superordinate level input legitimacy to 2.7 and Superordinate level output legitimacy to 50.
A first impression is that there is a high degree of correspondence between the countries at the top
of each scale but also among those at the bottom. Indeed, in statistical terms, the measures are
positively correlated. Citizens’ assessments of local government are related to input legitimacy (Rxy
.233) and output legitimacy (Rxy .372) from the perspective of upper level of government, although
stronger to output legitimacy. The two measures of input and output legitimacy are also clearly
interrelated (Rxy .486).
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However, a closer examination reveals a more complex pattern. When the countries are sorted
according to whether they are above or below the cut-off point on each of the three measures, eight
groups emerge. The whole exercise is summarized in Table 2:
Table 2 European countries and components of local government legitimacy (2012)
Citizen based legitimacy
Superordinate level input legitimacy
Superordinate level output legitimacy
Countries
High
High High
Denmark Estonia Finland Iceland Norway Sweden The Netherlands
Low Belgium Switzerland
Low High
France Germany
Low Austria Luxembourg
Low
High
HIgh
Bulgaria Hungary Lithuania Poland
Low
Czech Republic Italy Slovakia Slovenia United Kingdom
Low
High Latvia Romania
Low
Cyprus Greece Ireland Malta Portugal Spain
An initial word of caution is required when interpreting this table. Changes in the years selected,
parameters and cut-off points may lead to adjustments of the results and to divide the measures into
two categories means that a considerable amount of information is being lost. Some countries, such
as Germany and the Netherlands are clearly border cases that could end up in other categories if the
parameters and cut-off points were slightly different or if different years were selected. Hence,
subsequent analyses should test both the robustness of the scales and use statistical measures that
take the full variation into account. Nevertheless, and given these limitations with regard to specific
countries, the general pattern that emerges from the table should be fairly stable.
One important observation is that only 13 of the 30 countries end up in any of the two distinctive
categories with either high or low levels of all three components of legitimacy. Hence, despite the
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interrelatedness of the different measures, making a distinction between the components makes
sense.
Indeed, the overall pattern reveals a number of geographically coherent combinations
- A northern group consisting of countries with high legitimacy by all means. Here are all the
Nordic countries together with Estonia and the Netherlands.
- A continental West European group where local government has strong legitimacy among
the citizens but in one or several respect is less trusted by upper levels of government. This
group consists of the Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
- An Eastern European group where local government has weak support from the own citizens
but high degree of legitimacy from upper level government in at least one respect. Here are
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria.
Although not geographically linked, Italy and The United Kingdom also belong to this group.
- A South European group where local government legitimacy is weak according to all
parameters. This consists of Portugal, Spain, Malta, Cyprus and Greece. Although Italy has a
stronger position from the perspective of upper levels of government, it may also be added
to this group.
- A UK/Irish group where local government legitimacy is low, although slightly stronger from
the perspective of central government in the UK case.
The grouping of the countries is geographically fairly distinct but only partly corresponds to
established classifications of types of local government systems (Page & Goldsmith 1987, Hesse
1991, Lidström 1998, 2003, Loughlin et al. 2011). The strong position of Nordic local government is
already well known in the literature (Lidström 2016) but is here extended with Estonia and the
Netherlands. The West European Group consists of the mid European federations but also of
countries that have been classified as belonging to a Napoleonic category. Although Swianiewicz’
(2014) has suggested that there are considerable differences between the East European countries,
our analysis shows that they form a fairly coherent group with regard to local government legitimacy.
With the exception of Estonia, they have all weak citizen based legitimacy but are seen as legitimate
from the perspective of upper level of government in some respects. The Southern European
countries also form a coherent group although Italy has a slightly stronger position. The UK and
Ireland are both countries at the bottom of the scales.
On the other hand, the ordering of the countries in terms of local government legitimacy
corresponds very closely to the autonomy of local government in the countries, as assessed by the
LAI index (Ladner et al. 2015). This is not surprising as both input- and output legitimacy from the
superordinate authority’s point of view contain elements from the LAI. More surprising is that the
legitimacy index based on citizens’ assessment, that is independent from the LAI, is strongly
positively correlated with the LAI index (Rxy .531). This suggests a close link between the legitimacy of
local government and the extent of autonomy that it enjoys. Indeed, it may be concluded that local
government legitimacy requires autonomy and vice versa – and takes the shape of interactive games.
Local government legitimacy – an interactive game?
The relationships indicated by Table 2 above suggest that local legitimacy is an interactive game. In
this section, we will explore this idea further. By that we mean that legitimacy results from, on the
one hand, the structuring of local autonomy which is a process in the hands of national governments,
and the actual processes of governance that take place locally on the other hand. We expect high
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levels of autonomy to enable local politicians to meet the (changing) collective preferences of
citizens, as expressed locally, in a rapid and efficient manner. Our basic assumption is that the more
local government autonomy there is in a country, the stronger is the adaptive capacity in local
government, and the higher the legitimacy of local government in the eyes of the citizens. This
relationship may unfold as a virtuous as well as a vicious circle. The virtuous circle is that central trust
in local government leads to more local autonomy which leads to more local adaptive capacity which
leads to more citizen trust in local institutions. Or the circle may work the other way round – little
national trust leads to low local autonomy which means little adaptive capacity which leads to low
local responsiveness which leads to little citizen confidence in local government, which again may
reinforce national distrust of local government.
If this is the case, it is imperative to investigate which aspects of autonomy that is of greatest
significance for citizen trust, and to determine, furthermore, the importance of local autonomy
compared to other factors that may also impinge upon citizen trust. With regard to the latter, we will
confine the analysis to three “competing” theories of local legitimacy: Proximity, participation and
modernization.
The proximity theory is of a communitarian nature, claiming that close relations between citizens and
representatives in small communities make it easier for citizens both to control the representatives
and understand the issues on the local agenda. This is a version of the citizen effectiveness argument
of Dahl and Tufte (1973). In other words, the average level of citizen trust in local government will be
higher in countries with a small-scale local government systems compared to countries with larger
municipalities. This hypothesis has some support in previous research, for example the four-country
study of Denters et al. (2014).
The participation theory is a version of the input theory of legitimacy mentioned above: the more
citizens participate in processes of governance, the more they will respect the rules of the game and
accept even decisions/outcomes that go against their own short term interests. Turn-out in local
elections may represent one way of operationalizing the participation theory.
Furthermore, in many countries local government reforms have been inspired by industrial
modernization theory: municipalities of larger scale are thought to be needed to keep abreast with
urbanization and population concentration in modern societies and also to be able to deliver more
technically demanding services to citizens. Amalgamation has been seen as the answer to the
challenges of modern societies; consequently, the number of municipalities has been reduced by
leaps and bounds in many countries, but by no means in equal measure everywhere. In some
countries amalgamations initiatives have been repeatedly defeated, in other countries such reforms
have hardly been undertaken (Baldersheim and Rose 2010). The legitimacy of local government may
hinge on the success of such reforms; therefore, we should expect to find legitimacy to be closely
related to modernization reforms, in our case measured as successful amalgamations and
subsequent reduction in the number of municipalities.
How significant for citizen trust are proximity, participation and modernization compared to that of
local autonomy? This issue is explored in Table 3 below.
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Table 3 Factors related to citizen trust. Country level analysis. Pearson’s correlation
coefficients.
Pearson correlation Sig. (2-tailed)
Policy scope_2012 .370* .044
Effective political discretion_2012 .268 .152
Organizational autonomy_2012 .231 .219
Municipal mean size 2012 log -.175 .354
Turnout in local elections .370 .058
Pct change in no. of local govt. units 1997-2012
.137 .471
Note: Citizens’ trust in local and regional government is the same variables that are used in Table 1, representing legitimacy
from the perspective of the citizens. See appendix for further details. N = 30. Sources for municipal mean size and pct.
change in number of local govt. units are Ladner et al.(2015). Turnout in local elections: Institute for European
Studies/Committee of the Regions 2009, Lidström 2003, Iancu 2013, Jüpiter 2014, Vetter 2014, Vilka and Brekis 2013.
For the purpose of this analysis we have investigated separately the three indicators of local
autonomy presented earlier: Policy scope, effective political discretion and organizational autonomy.
Bivariate correlation analysis shows largely the direction of relationships suggested by the
hypotheses outlined above (we disregard the level of statistical significance since we are here dealing
with a universe of countries, not a sample). The three indicators of local autonomy are all positively
related to citizen trust. The strongest connection is that between range of functions (policy scope)
allocated to local government and citizen trust. The more functions local authorities are responsible
for, the higher the trust, but positive relationships are also found between effective political
discretion and trust and between organizational autonomy and trust.
Interestingly, however, the “competing theories” of local legitimacy also receive some support.
Participation measured as turnout in local elections contributes to citizen trust almost as strongly as
policy scope does. The proximity theory highlights the advantages of small size municipalities.
Average municipal size is negatively related to citizen trust – there is more trust in countries with
small-scale local authorities, in keeping with the findings of Denters et al. (2014). Modernization
initiatives, however, are more weakly related to trust. There is only marginally more trust in local
government in countries with substantial reductions in the number of municipalities compared to
countries where there have been little or no change (or even change in the opposite direction).
We have, furthermore, carried out regression analyses to check how these variables combined
influence citizen trust in local government. Here, local autonomy is expressed as a composite
variable, i.e. as the product of the variables policy scope, effective political discretion and
organizational autonomy analyzed above. The results are reported in Table 4.
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Table 4 Combined influence of local autonomy and other factors on citizen trust in local
government. Regression analysis (OLS). Standardized beta coefficients.
Turnout in local elections pct ,357 ,367*
Municipal mean size 2012 log -,144 -,157
Local autonomy ,376*
Adj. r2 = .087 .207
Note: *significance level .05. N = 26. Dependent Variable: citizen trust in local and regional authorities, Eurobarometer
(2012) QA13.6. Local autonomy = policy scope x effective political discretion x organizational autonomy (cp Appendix).
The indicator of modernization, relative reduction in number of municipalities, has not been included
in the analysis since the correlation analysis showed it to be of little significance. The analysis is
carried out in two steps. First, with just the indicators of the two “competing” theories included, and
then with the measure of local autonomy in the equation.
The impacts of the two competing indicators are as suggested by the correlation analysis above:
turnout is positively related to trust and municipal size impacts negatively (although the latter only
modestly so). The level of explained variance is low, however (.087). When local autonomy is
included in equation the adjusted r2 rises substantially, to more than 20 percent, which suggests that
institutional autonomy is a factor that contributes significantly to local government legitimacy also
when other factors are taken into account. At the same time, the contribution of the other two
factors remain largely constant. In other words, the legitimacy of local government, even as seen
through the eyes of the citizens, is a matter significantly influenced by higher level governments and
their willingness to trust local government with more (or less) autonomy.
Conclusions
The main purpose of this paper has been to develop and empirically test a framework that can
improve our understanding of local government legitimacy in a comparative perspective. The
framework builds on a process perspective on legitimacy, recognizing that this can be evaluated in
terms of the inputs-, throughputs and outputs of local government. At the same time, it takes into
serious account that local government needs to be legitimate in the eyes of their citizens as well as of
the upper level of government that provides the formal powers to local government.
The empirical test is tentative, as relevant data are not available for several of the components of the
framework. Nevertheless, the picture that emerges seems intuitively relevant, although it only partly
correspond to established distinctions of local government systems. However, it corresponds closely
to how local government autonomy varies between countries, as captured by the new LAI index.
Furthermore, the empirical analyses indicate that there is an interesting and hitherto insufficiently
explored relationship between legitimacy and autonomy. We suggest that this can be understood as
interactive games, or an interplay expressed as either a virtuous or a vicious circle. Hence, strong
legitimacy may enhance autonomy and vice versa, and weak legitimacy may undermine autonomy
and vice versa. This relationship needs to be further analyzed but can have significant consequences
for democratic local government in a turbulent time when units of local democracy are facing
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financial restraints at the same time as they are expected to carry out new and burdensome
functions.
Further and better analyses of local government legitimacy in a comparative perspective require
better measures of the different components of the framework. In particular, we lack data on
citizens' assessment of the inputs-, throughputs and outputs of local government. This would require
questions in a standardized questionnaire such as the Eurobarometer or the European Social Survey.
Better measures of input- and throughput legitimacy from the perspective of upper levels of
government are also required. Once such data are available, more sophisticated analyses of the
interplay between different components of the framework can be carried out which would highly
enhance our understanding of the functioning of local government legitimacy.
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Appendix Measures of local government legitimacy
Legitimacy from own citizens
Represented by Eurobarometer data on trust in local and reginal authorities, see Eurobarometer
(2012), question QA13.6. The wording is: “I would like to ask you a question about how much trust
you have in certain institutions. For each of the following institutions, please tell me if you tend to
trust it or tend not to trust it: Regional or local public authorities”. The values represent those
replying “tend to trust”. Other response alternatives were “tend not to trust” and “don’t know”. As
Norway and Switzerland was not included in the Eurobarometer the values for those countries are
approximations based on information in Denters et al. (2014).
Input legitimacy from superordinate authority
Represented by a measure of organizational autonomy from the RAI index, about the extent to which
local government is free to decide about its own organization and electoral system: Coding:
Local Executive and election system: 0 local executives are appointed by higher-level authorities and
local authorities cannot determine core elements of their political systems (electoral districts,
number of seats, electoral system); 1 executives are elected by the municipal council or directly by
citizens; 2 executives are elected by the citizens or the council and the municipality may decide some
elements of the electoral system
Staff and local structures of local authorities: Hire their own staff (0-0.5); Fix the salary of their
employees (0-0.5); Choose their organisational structure (0-0.5); Establish legal entities and
municipal enterprises (0-0.5). The overall measures of the scale can vary between 0 and 4.
Output legitimacy from superordinate authority
Established by multiplying the policy scope and the effective policy discretion variables from the RAI
index:
Policy scope: The range of functions (tasks) where local government is effectively involved in the
delivery of the services (be it through their own financial resources and/or through their own staff:
Education (0-2); Social assistance (0-2); Health (0-2); Land-use (0-2); Public transport (0-1); Housing
(0-1); Police (0-1); Caring functions (0-1).
Effective policy discretion: The extent to which local government has real influence (can decide on
service aspects) over these functions (with the same coding alternatives as for Policy scope).
Both variables can vary between 0 and 12. The values for each country on the two variables and the
combined index are summarized in the table below:
17
Policy scope (2012)
Effective policy discretion (2012)
Output leg (A * B)
A B C
Austria 7.9 5.0 39.5
Belgium 6.5 5.5 35.8
Bulgaria 9.5 7.0 66.5
Cyprus 2.7 2.7 7.1
Czech Republic 5.5 8.5 46.8
Denmark 10.5 7.5 78.8
Estonia 7.5 7.5 56.3
Finland 9.5 9.5 90.3
France 10.0 7.0 69.4
Germany 10.5 8.0 84.0
Greece 5.0 4.5 22.5
Hungary 10.0 6.5 65.0
Iceland 9.0 9.0 81.0
Ireland 2.5 2.5 6.3
Italy 7.5 6.0 45.0
Latvia 7.5 8.5 63.8
Lithuania 8.0 8.0 64.0
Luxembourg 6.0 6.5 39.0
Malta 1.5 0.5 0.8
Netherlands 7.5 7.0 52.5
Norway 11.0 7.0 77.0
Poland 9.5 7.7 72.6
Portugal 6.5 6.5 42.3
Romania 8.0 8.5 68.0
Slovak Republic 6.0 6.0 36.0
Slovenia 6.2 6.8 42.2
Spain 7.0 4.0 28.1
Sweden 9.0 8.0 72.0
Switzerland 8.4 4.6 38.8
United Kingdom 4.0 4.0 15.6