Regionalisation and the democratic legitimacy of local governments

Abstract

Throughout Europe, local authorities are facing face problems of scale. Municipalities have various tasks, such as the delivery of services and local policymaking. In addition, they represent local society at other levels of government. The size of local authorities is unsuitable for many of these tasks because they are sometimes too small and sometimes they are too big. Many local issues demand answers at the regional level. Therefore, in many cases, policymaking is not the exclusive responsibility of single local governments.