TY - JOUR A1 - Heinelt, Hubert A1 - Hlepas, Nikos A1 - Kuhlmann, Sabine A1 - Swianiewicz, Pawel T1 - Local Government Systems BT - Grasping the Institutional Environment of Mayors JF - Political Leaders and Changing Local Democracy N2 - This chapter looks for main differences among local government systems as well as similarities among them. This has been done by the authors with the aim to grasp the institutional setting in which mayors have to act. The authors did it by updating and extending existing typologies and indices of local government systems. Nevertheless, an extension was first of all necessary with respect to vertical power relations because previous typologies considering them took neither the local government systems in Eastern and Central Europe nor the changes in the Western part of the continent into account. Furthermore, reflections about typologies are extended to the present one on public administration at the municipal level. All this have been underpinned by statistical data, the recent work on a ‘Local Autonomy Index’ (LAI; see Ladner et al. Measuring Autonomy in 39 Countries (1990–2014), Regional and Federal Studies, 26, 321–357, 2016) and information collected by the partners involved in the survey. KW - Typologies of local government systems KW - types of municipal administration KW - Local Autonomy Index Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-3-319-67410-0 SN - 978-3-319-67409-4 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67410-0_2 SP - 19 EP - 78 PB - Palgrave CY - Basingstoke ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hlepas, Nikos A1 - Kersting, Norbert A1 - Kuhlmann, Sabine A1 - Swianiewicz, Pawel A1 - Teles, Filipe T1 - Introduction: Decentralization beyond the municipal tier T2 - Sub-Municipal Governance in Europe N2 - In Europe, different countries developed a rich variety of sub-municipal institutions. Out of the plethora of intra- and sub-municipal decentralization forms (reaching from local outposts of city administration to “quasi-federal” structures), this book focuses on territorial sub-municipal units (SMUs) which combine multipurpose territorial responsibility with democratic legitimacy and can be seen as institutions promoting the articulation and realization of collective choices at a sub-municipal level. Country chapters follow a common pattern that is facilitating systematic comparisons, while at the same time leaving enough space for national peculiarities and priorities chosen and highlighted by the authors, who also take advantage of the eventually existing empirical surveys and case studies. Y1 - 2018 SN - 978-3-319-64725-8 SN - 978-3-319-64724-1 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64725-8_1 SP - 1 EP - 24 PB - Palgrave CY - Basingstoke ER -