Comparative Issues In Local Government And Community Studies (eBook)

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2019 im Fachbereich Politik - Allgemeines und Theorien zur Internationalen Politik, , Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: This paper analyses the concept of local governments, taking into account several examples.

Local governments, an authority to determine and execute measures within a restricted area inside and smaller than a whole state. Some degree of local government characterizes every country in the world, although the degree is extremely significant. The variant, local self-government, is important for its emphasis upon the freedom of the locality to decide and act.

There is more than a technical importance in the difference between the two terms, because they are related to the distinction sometimes drawn between deconcentration and decentralization. Local government is often, but not necessarily, related to the former; local self-government to the latter. These distinctions are important, even if they are blurred. Deconcentration broadly means that, for the sake of convenience, some functions have been devolved from a central government to administration on the spot. Power is still administered through officials appointed by and responsible to the centre, and authority and discretion are vested in the centre. On the other hand, decentralization represents local government in areas where the authority to decide has been devolved to a council of locally elected persons acting on their own discretion with officials they themselves freely appoint and discipline.