Conclusion: Democracy needs local political capital

Abstract

This book began with the question In what ways are local governing elites important for the success or failure of effective and sustainable democratic development? The central question was explanatory and was aimed at ascertaining local governing conditions for the development of democracy. The assumption was that important determinants for democratic success or decline across the 1990s were based on the local governing elites' political capital, that is, their ability to mobilize resources that are directly or indirectly related to the stable and effective development of democracy. The data comes from the international research program Democracy and Local Governance (DLG). It covers repeated surveys across the 1990s from between 15 to 30 top political and administrative leaders in over one hundred middle-sized European and Eurasian cities, collected by national teams who have contributed chapters for this book. © 2006 VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften GWV Fachverlage GmbH, Wiesbaden.