TY  - JOUR
A1  - Franzke, Jochen
A1  - Schapp, Linze
T1  - Beyond Charter and Index
T2  - The Future of Local Self-Government : European Trends in Autonomy, Innovations and Central-Local Relations
N2  - The Chapter examines the concept of local autonomy in modern European states by analysing theoretical approaches. The classical, deductive approach defines local autonomy mostly through legal, economic and financial conditions, especially by formal structures. This proves to be too weak to define the internal strength of local authorities and their real political-administrative power. A more multidimensional definition of autonomy, including indicators as importance, capacity, as well as discretion and democracy at local level is needed. The authors utilise the indicators, used by the Local Autonomy Index (LAI) developed by Ladner et al. and the European Charter of Local Self-Government to find out what is still missing. The contribution redounds to stimulate the scientific debate on local autonomy in Europe. Until the concept of local autonomy will fit for all European states with extremely differentiated local authorities, the research in this field remains a conceptual and heuristic endeavour. Especially, because local government and democracy are until now territory-based, whereas the reality is one of multilevel and cross-border governance.
KW  - European Charter of Local Self-Government
KW  - Local Autonomy Index
KW  - Capacity
KW  - Discretion
KW  - Democracy
Y1  - 2021
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/49584
SN  - 978-3-030-56058-4
SN  - 978-3-030-56059-1
SP  - 31
EP  - 42
PB  - Springer
CY  - Cham
ER  -