No. 10

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Legislative and executive power role patterns in local government

  • Georg Sootla

    Georg Sootla

    Professor of Public Policy, Tallinn University

This article, the empirical part of which draws on surveys conducted among members and local government officials in five Central and Eastern European countries, introduces role patterns in relations between the legislative and executive power on a local level, as well as particular implications for relations between authorities and citizens.

The aim of the article is facilitated by its importance to the day’s issues and its good theoretical foundation in developed, chiefly Anglo-American, countries. Drawing on the body of knowledge, it can be said that developing local governments does not just consist of giving local government units greater autonomy and raising the capacity of local government bodies. For example, in today’s Estonia, local government reform is seen most often as reconstruction of the vertical hierarchy of power toward a predominantly more centralized model. In reality, the progress of local democracy depends chiefly on the horizontal (legislative vs. executive) and the vertical (authority vs. civic society) division of power.

Full article in Estonian

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