Full Description
The book provides a comprehensive analysis of local government in federations. It fills the gap in current legal research and positions local government in federal studies through the lenses of comparative law, adopting a more nuanced approach to local government. The book considers the shortcomings between the black-letter constitution and its operational rules. Whether (and how) the regime of local government is implemented is more relevant than its formal-but-ineffective recognition. The comparative survey discloses the variety local institutions take in different federal contexts. Divided into three parts, the book comprises chapters investigating local government in systems that, to various degrees, have been examined and classified as federal. Scholars throughout the world have examined the federal-local connection in aggregative federations, (the USA, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and Austria), devolutionary ones (Belgium, Bosnia Herzegovina, Italy, Spain, the UK, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and the Russian Federation), as well as in federations beyond the West, where federalism-as-a-colonial-legacy has undergone a process of reinvention affecting the federal-local connection (South Africa, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia; St. Kitts and Nevis; United Arab Emirates; and Pakistan).
Contents
Comparing and Contrasting Local Government in Multi-Layered Systems.- Part I - The Federal-local Connection in Mature Federations.- The US Local Government Organisation: Origins, Development, and Federal Implications.- Local Governments in the Canadian Federal System - Institutions, Jurisdiction and Cooperation.- Local Governance in the Swiss Federal System. Comparative and Alternative Approaches to the Traditional Paradigm.- Local Governments in Germany between Growing Challenges and Precarious Budgets.- Local Government in Australia: Constitutionally Subordinate, but Vibrant and Fundamental.- Local Governance in Austria: Diversity in Homogeneity.- Part II - The Federal-Local Connection in Devolutionary Federations.- The Municipal Regime in Argentina.- The Municipality in the Mexican Federal System.- Local Governance in Belgium: A Taste of 'Institutional Lasagna' Belgian Style.- Local Governance in Brazil: The Unresolved Contradiction between Claims to Autonomy and Centripetal Trends.- The System of Local Government in Italy: A Stress-Test to Traditional Paradigms?.- Local Autonomy in Spain: Between Autonomic Jurisdictions and the Central Level of Government.- Local Government in the United Kingdom.- Federalism, Local Government, and Transition to Authoritarianism in Russia.- 'Everything is Bridgeable' in a Post-Conflict Situation? The Situation of Local Government in Bosnia and Herzegovina.- Part III - Postcolonial Reinventions of the Federal-Local Connection.- The Federal-Local Connection: The South African Case.- Autonomy of Local Government in Ethiopia.- Local Governments, Federalism, and the Governance of Public Health in India.- Reconceptualising the Federal-Local Connection. Postcolonial Reinventions. Nigeria.- The Legal Framework of Centre-Local Connections in Malaysia. Beyond the Postcolonial Narrative: Legacy or Reinvention?.- Revisiting Taxonomies: Local Governance Beyond Western Federal Systems.
