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This paper reports the results of a survey on the policy priorities of municipal candidates in the 2014 municipal elections in Ontario. As part of a survey of municipal candidates in 47 Ontario municipalities, we asked a series of questions relating to perceived policy priorities, election issues, and electoral success to shed light on the extent to which municipal political candidates are "policy seekers," and the extent to which their policy priorities vary across municipalities and municipal types, successful and unsuccessful candidates, and urban and rural candidates. We find that reported policy priorities tend to fall into two major categories: fiscal issues and economic development or administration and good governance. The prominence of these fiscal and procedural priorities is steady across a range of local candidate types, including successful and unsuccessful candidates, incumbent and non-incumbent candidates, and even urban and rural candidates. Only in very large municipalities, according to our findings, does the structure of candidate priorities begin to diverge from this standard emphasis on finance and procedure.

Abstract
Citizen participation can be considered a key part of public policy making and is also one of the reasons for the growing expert interest in this issue. This article focuses on specific knowledge, socalled "lay knowledge", which can be identified as knowledge gained from "non experts" through civic participation. The article establishes when and how this type of knowledge enters the policy-making process via specific selected tools and provides practical examples from local and municipal public policy.

The article presents an analysis of the main novelties of the reorganization of local self-government related to the proposed draft law No. 40361-8 "On the general principles of the organization of local self-government in a unified system of public power" through the prism of the phenomenon of public policy. The latter is a framework concept related to the civil competencies of state/municipal management, the quality and level of public activity of civil society, which allows influencing the adoption of socially significant decisions. Municipal public policy is more based on the use of tools of intersectoral social partnership, which contributes to building a public dialogue of all active parties of the local community and the formation of an "agenda". The reform proposed by the bill "centralizes" local self-government, significantly changing the principles of its territorial and organizational structure, enlarging municipalities by abolishing the settlement level. The multilayered concept of municipal public policy allows us to judge the optimal ratio of political and administrative properties of state and municipal authorities, combining administrative regulation and the use of forms of public participation of the population. From the point of view of the interests of the development of civil self-organization and "grassroots" public initiatives, the desire to make local self-government bodies the lower level of state power through the concept of "unity of public power" is undoubtedly alarming, which can lead to its administratization, affect the quality of the implementation of the principles of municipal public policy, reduce the opportunities for the subjective formation of an increasingly complex society.

This article provides an analysis of the allocation of attention to policy problems on the local level, focusing on the executive agenda of six municipalities in the Netherlands over a 25-year period. It reveals that there is specifically a local politics of attention, showing differences between national and local policy agendas in specific policy areas. We did not find evidence that the political composition of the local executive coalitions leads to agenda differences, revealing the more problem-oriented and pragmatic nature of local politics. We did find evidence of an effect of institutional arrangements between national and local government on shifting patterns of attention, such as due to decentralisation. This shows that the local politics of attention is limited in scope and conditioned by the functions of local government and the institutional arrangements of policy making in the Dutch decentralised unitary state and that rearrangements affect these patterns of attention. Adapted from the source document.

Se sugiere que las elecciones municipales celebradas en más de 8.000 ciudades y pueblos españoles, no son gobernadas de una forma específica siguiendo líneas electorales del ámbito particular de lo local; sino que, más bien, tienden a reproducir, con ligeras variaciones, los parámetros de las elecciones generales. De esta forma, se deduce que las elecciones municipales o locales no son simplemente administrativas, sino altamente políticas. A través de conjuntos de datos cuantitativos se examinan las elecciones locales y generales a lo largo del período histórico de consolidación del nuevo sistema democrático; desde 1979, año de las primeras elecciones locales, hasta 1991. Se centra en la relación entre las candidaturas independientes y partidistas, la evolución de la abstención, y la formación de un sistema de partidos nacionales que se extiende al ámbito local. El análisis sugiere que las elecciones locales en España se presentan mucho más ?nacionales? que en países vecinos. Sin embargo, más que la progresiva ?nacionalización? del voto, se refleja el ciclo electoral en el que se presentan las mutuas interferencias entre ambos ámbitos electorales.

La Ley 5/2010 de Autonomía Local de Andalucía profundiza en las capacidades de los municipios para decidir sobre sí mismos: los procedimientos de segregación de términos municipales necesitan conformidad expresa de la mayoría absoluta del pleno del ayuntamiento del municipio que sufre la segregación. Por otro lado, los municipios tienen la posibilidad de organizar espacialmente su término municipal, o parte de él, en circunscripciones territoriales como manifestación de su plena autonomía política, pudiendo ser de carácter desconcentrado (caseríos, parroquias, aldeas, barrios, anteiglesias, concejos, pedanías, lugares anejos y otros análogos) o descentralizado (Entidades Locales Autónomas o Entidades Vecinales). En cuanto a las Entidades Locales Autónomas conformadas en Andalucía, suelen ser un paso previo a la creación de un nuevo municipio, por lo que la Ley 27/2013, de Racionalización y Sostenibilidad de la Administración Local ha fijado un límite poblacional que, en la práctica, supone acabar con las aspiraciones segregacionistas. ; The Law 5/2010 of Local Autonomy of Andalusia deepens in the capacities of the municipalities to decide on themselves: th e procedures of segregation of municipal terms need express conformity of the absolute majority of the plenary session of the local government of the municipality that suffers the segregation. On the other hand, th e municipalities have th e possibility of spatially organizing their municipal area, or part of it, in territorial districts as a manifestation of their full political autonomy, and may be of a deconcentrated nature (hamlets, parishes, villages, neighborhoods, churches, councils, districts, adjoining and other analogous places) or decentralized (Autonomous Local Entities or Neighborhood Entities). As for the Autonomous Local Entities conformed in Andalusia, they are usually a previous step to the creation of a new municipality, for which the Law 27/2013, of Rationalization and Sustainability of the Local Administration has established a population limit that, in the practice, suppresses segregationist aspirations.

In a federated country like Canada, diversity challenges universal policy prescriptions for local governments. The success of its provincial governments, which have exclusive jurisdiction for systems of local government, depends on balancing the need to act comprehensively and systematically while dealing thoughtfully with the unique situation of individual local governments. Canada's provinces are shifting their approach to strengthening rural governance – shifting away from more directive interventions and now seeking to facilitate capacity-building in a manner that is less state-centred, more bottom-up, and better adapted to variable local circumstances. A dialogue was organised to focus on this shift in provincial practice. It brought together more than 50 savvy and influential policy practitioners representing all provinces and most local government associations at the provincial level. Practice recommendations emerged for provinces, local government associations, and local governments focusing on concrete actions and tools but also on the potential for redefining the roles played by, and relations between, the associations and provincial governments.