Материалы для самостоятельной работы

Local governments

Local governments are administrative offices that are smaller than a state or province. The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or (where appropriate) federal government.

In modern nations, local governments usually have fewer powers than national governments do. They usually have some power to raise taxes, though these may be limited by central legislation. In some countries local government is partly or wholly funded by subventions from central government taxation. The question of Municipal Autonomy – which powers the local government has, or should have, and why – is a key question of public administration and governance. The institutions of local government vary greatly between countries, and even where similar arrangements exist, the terminology often varies. Common names for local government entities include state, province, region, department, county, prefecture, district, city, township, town, borough, parish, municipality, shire and village. However all these names are often used informally in countries where they do not describe a legal local government entity.

Great Britain

The Local Government Act of 1972 created a two-tier system of counties and districts. Both counties and districts have independent, locally elected councils that perform separate functions: county authorities are generally responsible for large-scale services, while district authorities are generally responsible for more local ones. In certain heavily populated areas, counties and districts are designated metropolitan counties and districts, and provision of certain large-scale services falls upon these more powerful metropolitan district authorities.

In Britain, as elsewhere, central control has grown during the 20th century. Each department of the national government uses its own methods, but typical among them are the approval (or rejection) of schemes submitted by local authorities for town planning, education, and highways; approval of the appointment or qualifications of chief officers; and approval of slum clearance schemes and purchases of land. They also hear appeals by citizens dissatisfied with certain decisions of local authorities, and they inspect the police forces and the schools administered by local authorities. The overriding feature of central-local relations is the fact that local authorities have become increasingly dependent on central grants for their revenue. Their only source of tax revenue consists of a council tax paid by each household. The result is that central grants are larger than income from local taxes. Unless local authorities are given additional sources of fiscal revenue, they are unlikely to achieve a position of greater independence – despite strong movements for the reform of local controls and for a reduction in central control.

The United States

The mayor-and-council form is the traditional type of a city government in the United States. It prevails in a majority of American cities whether large or small.

The relations between the mayor and the council are by no means uniform, but in general the city council, which was the dominant partner in colonial days, has lost power as the role of the mayor has expanded. Bicameral councils have disappeared.

In the weak-mayor form, the council retains a good deal of administrative power that it exercises through committees. The mayor has few administrative powers but possesses a number of legislative and judicial functions. Many of the municipal officers in such cities are directly elected. In the past the result was often a lack of organised leadership because power and responsibility were too widely diffused. The only person able to co-ordinate the fragmented authority of these several parts of the city government was the party boss. It has been truly remarked that the price paid for his services was high (in graft) even though his product was of low quality.

It is against this background that the rise of the strong-mayor system is to be seen – a system that now exists in most of the larger American cities and many of the smaller ones. In this type, the mayor presides over the council and usually has the right to veto its ordinary legislative acts. The veto may be absolute, or it may be a suspensory veto that can be overcome if the measure in question is again passed by the council by a specified majority. The mayor usually prepares the budget for submission to the council; convenes special sessions of the council to consider particular questions; appoints and dismisses heads of departments and can give them instructions or directions; appoints the chairmen and members of boards or commissions; and decides or participates in the appointment of other city employees, such as policemen, firemen, and clerks, though patronage of this kind may be restricted by a civil service commission.

In the commission form the council is replaced by a small body of elected commissioners who decide general policies of municipal administration in addition to performing the usual functions of a council. Each of the commissioners also serves as head of one or more departments. The commission may also appoint various boards and committees to work with it in such spheres as health, libraries, and recreation. A member of the commission is chosen to be mayor either by the citizens or by his fellow commissioners. He is not the chief executive but only primus inter pares ("first among equals"). He seldom has a veto power and is distinguished from the other commissioners only on ceremonial occasions.

The commission pattern of a city government has never made great inroads on the mayor-and-council form. It exists in fewer than 10 percent of American municipalities at the present time and is now on the decline. Its lack of success is due to the divided authority among the elected commissioners and its inability to concentrate responsibility in a single officer.

A more serious challenge to the traditional form of a city government came from the city-manager system. The most recently developed and the most rapidly spreading, it is derived from the method of organising business corporations that was in favour in the first quarter of the 20th century; a general manager was entrusted with operating activities by a board of directors to whom he was responsible. When the concept was applied to a city government, there emerged a small council numbering from three to nine members, all elected at large. The council passes ordinances, adopts the budget, decides rates of taxation, and engages the manager. The mayor (if there is one) has a role that is chiefly ceremonial. The city manager is the real chief executive; his position is generally set out in the city charter, which states that the council shall not interfere with his administrative functions. He has a duty to provide the council with whatever information they need to determine matters of policy.

In addition to the municipal government, there are in most American cities a considerable number of ad hoc boards and commissions possessing varying degrees of independence. The school board is invariably separate from the rest of the city administration, and there are usually many other independent boards. Some of them can appoint and dismiss their own staff. The mayor may have the power to appoint the chairmen and members, but thereafter his power to direct or influence them may become slight or even negligible. A widespread characteristic of all forms of American city government is the fragmentation of authority caused by such devices.

State governments in the United States exercise many different kinds of supervision and control over the cities within their jurisdiction. The structure of local government is determined by state law, and every municipality owes its corporate status and machinery of self-government to the state.

France

Until the administrative reforms of 1982, the system of local government in France was derived mainly from the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era, when the basic organization was a highly centralized administrative state in which the communes were local units of the central government. Historically this French pattern has had far-reaching influence in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

The French system had two tiers of authorities. In each of the communes (which comprise municipal units of all sizes, from tiny villages to large cities), there was an elected council and a mayor (maire), appointed by the councillors from among their own members. In each of the regional departments into which France is divided, there was a prefect (prйfet) who was appointed by and responsible to the central government and who was assisted by an elected departmental council. The separation of powers was applied at both levels, and the mayor and the prefect were executive officers, whereas the councils were deliberative and legislative bodies.

The mayor was the responsible head of the municipality. He represented the local community. He presided at council meetings and carried out its decisions. He prepared the budget and submitted it to the council for its consideration. He initiated proposals for new measures or policies and approved all expenditures. In the large towns, the mayor had the help of several assistant mayors; he could delegate particular tasks to one or more of them, and he also could delegate functions to a councillor. In the larger municipalities, the mayor appointed a secretary-general who was answerable to him for the day-to-day administration, thus leaving the mayor free to devote himself to political leadership and policy making. Mayors were not infrequently among the leading national figures in French politics.

A city government was legally authorized to deal with all matters of local interest, but the extent to which it did so depended on the attitude of the council and its mayor, the resources at its disposal, and the degree of control exercised by higher authority. The prefect was the supervisory agent who possessed the authority of all the national ministries, including even those that had their own specialists working in the field. When the mayor was carrying out his duties as an agent of the state, the prefect was his hierarchical superior and could amend or set aside his decisions.

Administration at the departmental level was altered dramatically under a law passed on March 2, 1982. Decentralization policies were implemented that transferred administrative and financial powers from the appointed departmental prefects to the presidents of the locally elected departmental councils. While the departmental councils are still deliberative and legislative bodies, the presidents of the councils are now the chief executives of the departments, responsible for, among other things, budgetary matters and provision of services. The prefects were renamed Commissioners of the Republic and now act as representatives of the central government, overseeing the local administrative bodies and maintaining public law and order. Mayors, who are representatives of the communes and also agents of the central government, and elected councils are still the governing bodies of the communes.

More than 80 percent of the communes have populations of less than 1,000. Because units of this size cannot hope to provide the services demanded by advanced nations today, they are permitted under French law to form joint associations for common tasks, or to merge and constitute a new municipality, or to establish a syndicate, or corporate body, with its own budget to carry out particular functions. Although these devices have been used in cities of medium size, they have not solved the problems of the metropolitan areas. Under a law enacted in 1966, metropolitan authorities must be established in the great urban concentrations of Lyon, Lille-Roubaix Tourcoing, Bordeaux, and Strasbourg; similar action is permitted in any other concentrated area of 50,000 or more inhabitants. Under this law, each constituent municipality continues to be responsible for administering and developing a wide range of services concerning its own area; but the metropolitan authority undertakes a number of functions of interest to the metropolis as a whole. These relate to such matters as town planning and the public services involving roads, water, sanitation, housing, industrial estates, transport, secondary schools, and the like. Also included are public investments for assisting the arts, sports, hospitals, and other social and educational facilities. The governing body of the metropolitan authority is a council of between 50 and 90 members, who are representatives of the local authorities.

Germany

The primary unit of local government in the Federal Republic of Germany is the commune or municipality (Gemeinde). It may be either rural (Landgemeinde) or urban (Stadt). Above the municipality is the Kreis, which corresponds to a district or county containing villages, hamlets, and small towns; it is an upper tier of local self-government that exercises supervisory powers and also provides services. There are nearly 400 Kreise. Some 120 towns with more than 50,000 inhabitants, however, are independent of this Kreis (kreisfreie Städte, or Kreis-free towns). Above the Kreis is the province or administrative district (Regierungsbezirk) of the state (Land), though the Regierungsbezirk does not exist in the smaller states such as the Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, and Thyringia. The three great cities of Bremen, Hamburg, and Berlin rank as states as well as municipalities; they are subdivided into circuits (Bezirke) with their own elected assemblies.

The legal status of communes is based on municipal constitution laws of their respective states (Länder) and on the state constitutions. The federal constitution guarantees the communes the right to regulate on their own all the affairs of the local community within the legal limits and requires that the representative organs of the municipalities shall be elected by universal, direct, free, equal, and secret ballot. A constitutional amendment of 1993 allows residents from EC countries to vote or to be elected. The elected council is the supreme organ in the municipality, and chief executives must be chosen by either the citizens or the council.

The structure of local government varies among the different states, related to historical traditions and post-World War II allied influence. In Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, the burgomaster (Bürgermeister) and deputy burgomasters, who form the executive organ, are directly elected by the citizens. In North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, the burgomaster retains only political functions, his former administrative functions having been transferred to a city director (Stadtdirektor) or chief executive officer. The Bürgermeisterverfassung prevails in Rhineland-Palatinate, in the Saarland, and in a number of villages in Schleswig-Holstein. It entails a functional distinction between the respective powers of the council and the mayor. The Magistratsverfassung obtains in Hesse, in the larger towns of Rhineland-Palatinate, in Schleswig-Holstein, and in Bremerhaven. The council elects the burgomaster to serve as its chairman and as the head of the administration. Whatever the form of the executive organ, it must prepare and carry out the resolutions, policies, and administrative decisions of the council. Only in urgent matters or emergencies can the executive decide in place of the council, although the burgomaster can veto the council's decisions when it is in violation of the law.

Japan

After World War II, a radical reform of local government took place directed toward the creation of political democracy in Japan. The new constitution provided that local authorities should be organized and operated in accordance with the principle of local autonomy, that both the chief executives and the local assemblies should be directly elected by popular vote, and that local authorities should have the right to manage their property and affairs and to make their own regulations within the law. A Local Autonomy Law passed in 1947 prescribed in detail the organization and functions of local government. Legislation followed on finance and the public service.

The municipalities consist of cities (shi), towns (machi), and villages (mura). All have the same structure and legal status but differ in powers. A city must have a population of not less than 50,000 (formerly 30,000), of which at least 60 percent must engage in commerce and industry; and it must possess civic halls, a sewage system, libraries, and other public amenities. In 1953 a compulsory amalgamation of local government units reduced the number of towns and villages from 9,610 to 2,915, while the number of cities was increased to 556. These figures have not changed significantly since.

The separation of powers is applied in municipalities of all types. The mayor is directly elected by the voters and so too is the assembly, of which he is not a member; the only exceptions are the special wards in which the mayors are appointed by the ward council with the concurrence of the metropolitan governor. The assembly passes the budget, enacts bylaws, approves the accounts, decides the local taxes, disposes of property, and can demand reports or carry out

investigations. The mayor controls the entire administration, except certain functions that have been entrusted to separate administrative boards. These include education boards, election administrative commissions to manage both national and local elections, audit and inspection commissions, civil service commissions, and police boards.

The mayor has the right to convene the council and to place bylaws before it. He is the ceremonial head of the city as well as its chief executive. He is also entrusted with certain duties on behalf of the central government, such as the maintenance of national roads and the census.

The control over the cities exercised by the central government is considerable. The Ministry of Autonomy is the department mainly concerned with local government, but the ministries of Finance, Education, Construction, and Transport exercise varying degrees of control over local authorities. One of the unresolved problems in Japan is the reluctance of central departments to coordinate their activities, and this often leads to serious inconsistencies and conflicts of policy.

Latin America

The tendency in Latin-American countries is to adopt the basic principles of the supervisory system. This involves appointing central government officers of the prefectoral type who exercise control over local authorities.

Despite this general trend, there are large differences in the degree of local autonomy existing in the various countries of Latin America. In Argentina, for example, under a succession of military governments, the former elected city councils were supplanted by advisory committees appointed from above. Democratic rule was returned to the country in 1983, however, when general elections were held, and a civilian government assumed power.

In Ecuador the municipalities have elected councils and indirectly elected mayors who undertake local government functions. They are supervised by the centrally appointed "political chief" of the municipality (jefe politico); his immediate superior is the provincial governor, who is appointed by the president of the republic. The jefe politico supervises the city council and reports any illegal or irregular acts to the provincial governor; he also performs a number of state functions in the municipality. The provincial governor is charged with maintaining public order and upholding the law and constitution and is also responsible for developing the education, health, welfare, and cultural services and the public works projects.

Chile generally had elected municipal councils that appointed their own mayors, but in the large cities of Santiago, Valparaiso, Viсa del Mar, and Concepciуn the mayors were appointed and removable by the president. At each level of administration – provincial, departmental, municipal, and district – there was a representative of the president assisted by a small elected council. This followed the essential principle of the French system. During the military government that was in power from 1973 to 1989, officials appointed by the president were in charge of administration at the various levels.

Even more subordinate to the central government are the cities in countries where the mayor is appointed by either the president or the prefect on his behalf. This occurs in such countries as Bolivia and Colombia. The municipalities have elected councils, but their functions are mainly advisory. A high degree of local autonomy exists in Mexico, where both mayors and councils are elected.