Suchergebnisse

The 2014 elections were held, in Languedoc-Roussillon, in a triple context that applies unevenly to municipal, senatorial and European elections. We will focus largely on the first, only mentioning that the following two illustrations and a few final comments. The first element of context is, of course, binds to the fact that for the first time in years (2001 or 1983 if one considers the remote municipal elections in more than a year of presidential), these elections were an intermediate poll unfavorable to the left. In the second place, they operate has after a fairly long period, or the establishment of electoral cork playing on some political positioning ambiguities, has allowed the right to retain much of its urban electoral capital, do assignor only narrowly cities of Carcassonne and Narbonne in 2008. The rise of these blatant partly explains the relative stability that we recorded in 2008 in a municipal election or left had clearly triumph national scale but the results obtained more limits in Languedoc-Roussillon: right retained a same capital 71 municipalities with more than 3,500 inhabitants, against 61 for the left. Adapted from the source document.

This paper analyzes the implementation of a new tool of institutional cooperation in France, the Communaute d'agglomeration (Community of Urban Areas [CUAs], drawing on 10 case studies of newly formed CUAs. CUAs are becoming increasingly common in France's historically fragmented system of local government. The paper begins by describing the rules of the new system & their political consequences. It then goes on to evaluate the salience of two competing explanations of political activity in relation to CUAs: territorial political culture (ie, context) & institutional learning. The paper then assesses the relative importance of three dimensions of institutional building: political leadership; incentives for cooperation, focusing on financial support & the prefect's capacity to impose a process of municipal integration; & the democratic dimension of CUAs. Many politicians & scholars have criticized these institutions because of what is thought to be their democratic deficit. This discussion is then related to the more general debate about participatory &/or representative democracy in France. 61 References. Adapted from the source document.

Whatever their limits & internal contradictions, French decentralization reforms forced a reconsideration of the concept of local government & how it is studied. New conceptualizations of public action emerged which were closer to those found in European scholarship than to the traditional French notion of 'cross-regulation'. The aim of this work was to account for the two main developments at the local level caused by the reforms: first, the rise of multi-level local empowerment, problems of co-ordination & the redefinition of the political capacity of the local state; &, second, the changing political dimension of local government, including the differentiated power structure between levels of local government & the nature of local political legitimacy. In this essay, the adaptation of French local government will be examined; concluding that in a European context the French system is now less exceptional than it was previously. 3 Tables. Adapted from the source document.