The roles councillors play

Abstract

Local councillors find themselves in an interesting position in local government. In the traditional model of representative democracy, the council is pivotal in an electoral chain of command (Dearlove 1973). On the one hand they are elected to represent the citizens in their municipality, transforming citizens’ preferences into local policy (Denters 2005). Here the main task of the councillor is to ensure responsiveness vis-à-vis the local citizens (De Groot, Denters and Klok 2010). On the other hand they have to make sure that actors in other positions in local government (the executive and the administration) act in accordance with the citizens’ preferences.