Have Mayors Will Travel: Trends and Developments in the Direct Election of the Mayor: A Five-Nation Study

Abstract

Whether citizens should directly elect the mayor or whether only councilors should be able to indirectly choose the local political governing body to the exclusion of the public from the process is one of the most controversial debates around the reform of local government—at least for policy makers and councilors. Debates about direct or indirect election of local political leaders focus on different interpretations of political concepts such as: the legitimacy to act, visibility and profile of local leaders, transparency of political decision-making processes, accountability, and the role of the citizen in local representative democracy. The chapter takes five European countries selected because of their different political traditions and structures, to assess the nature of the policy debate about the selection of the local political leader. It does this to assess how far path-dependent responses to reform have influenced political change or whether crisis moments provide opportunities for new considerations about the reform of local politics to emerge.