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.
Political Leadership in Issue Networks: How Mayors Rule Their World?
In his controversial book If Mayors Ruled the World, US political theorist Benjamin Barber argued that mayors can and do play a major role in solving today’s grand societal challenges in domains like social inclusion and poverty, climate change and sustainability and safety and public order. It is increasingly recognised that meeting such challenges requires concerted action by a multiplicity of actors at different geographical scales and levels of government, and from different sectors (state, market and civil society). Against this backdrop, this chapter analyses the roles of mayors in building governance coalitions, bringing together relevant actors in efforts to meet major challenges facing their communities. What role, if any, do European mayors in different national local government systems play in local governance coalitions? In the chapter, the patterns of interdependence characteristic for various types of issues will be analysed, and we will investigate the role that mayors may or may not play in building coalitions between the various relevant actors. This will serve as the basis for subsequently looking into the success of these mayoral activities. Important issues here are whether the roles of mayors and their chances of being successful vary across different issue domains or across different national local government systems and are different for appointed, indirectly and directly elected mayors.
The coalitions of 1989–90 in Greece: Inter‐party relations and democratic consolidation
The Greek coalitions of 1989–90 were unusual by comparative European standards, given their political composition and ideological span. But, above all, they were significant as an historical departure in Greek politics, however much political expediency lay behind their formation. Coalitions are as such almost unknown in postwar Greece, and one‐party government has been the rule since the return to democracy in 1974. Even more significant was the inclusion of the Communist Left in the governments of 1989–90 in view of the polarised state of Greek politics since 1974 and historical memories of the Civil War. Drawing on lessons from coalition theory, the formation and maintenance of these two governments are discussed. While their policy achievements were limited, the governments of 1989—90 allowed Greece to overcome the crisis of the PASOK government and the scandals of 1988–89 and they made way for a second alternation in power. On balance, therefore, they are likely to have contributed to the ongoing pro...