Mayors in Vertical Power Relations
From a constitutional point of view, cities are local governments. Some of them may proudly look back on a past as autonomous states. During the construction of the nation states in the 18th and 19th century, European cities were squeezed into the corset of national intergovernmental frameworks. No matter how glorious their past forgone, European cities henceforth occupy a subordinate position within national state polities. Their autonomy is limited by upper levels of government, such as regions, federate states, and the central state. Of course, the nature and the extent of these limitations differ across space and time, resulting in a great variation of patterns of constraints to which city governments have to comply, as well as of structures of opportunities through which they can expand their freedom to act.
Local government reform in Greece
From the very beginning, the formation of the Modern Greek state (in 1833) has been connected to the imposition of centralism and the abandonment of an old self-government tradition (Clogg 1992). Right after the victory of Constitutionalism (1844), local self-government was established as an important arena for party competition and an indispensable source of democratic legitimacy. Unlike the French model, however, the accumulation of mandates has never been accepted and a clear distinction between the “national” (MP’s, Ministers) and the “local” (Mayors, Councillors) political personnel was made. Both categories were important for the kind of “backstage localism” that characterised Greek politics and rounded off the majoritarian, polarised and strictly representative political system of the country.
Bureaucratic élites in Western European states
Ed Page and Vincent Wright: Introduction Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos: A Description of the Greek Higher Civil Service Ignacio Molina 'Alvarez de Cienfuegos: Spain: Still the Primacy of Corporatism? Sabino Cassese: Italy's Senior Civil Service: An Ossified World Luc Rouban: The Senior Civil Service in France Barbara Liegl and Wolfgang C. Muller: Senior Officials in Austria Marleen Brans and Annie Hondeghem: The Senior Civil Service in Belgium Klaus H. Goetz: Senior Officials in the German Federal Administration: Institutional Change and Positional Differentiation Charlotte Dargie and Rachel Locke: The British Senior Civil Service Frits M. van der Meer and Jos C. N. Raadschelders: The Senior Civil Service in The Netherlands: A Quest for Unity Hanne Nexo Jensen: Senior Officials in the Danish Central Administration: From Bureaucrats to Policy Professionals and Managers Jon Pierre and Peter Ehn: The Welfare State Managers: Senior Civil Servants in Sweden.