Stupnjevanje lokalnih samoupravnih jedinica ; LEVELLING OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT UNITS
Jedan od praktično i teorijski najvažnijih problema teritorijalne organizacije lokalne samouprave svodi se na dilemu uspostave jednog stupnja ili više stupnjeva lokalnih samoupravnih jedinica. Stupnjevanjem se odgovara na problem i potrebu integracije sustava lokalne samouprave te na potrebu povezivanja tog sustava sa širom državnom organizacijom. Nakon opće rasprave o prednostima i nedostacima stupnjevanja, opsežno je komparativno analizirano stanje u 39 zemalja, 23 razvijene i 16 tranzicijskih. Ustanovljena su četiri tipa teritorijalnih okvira za integraciju sustava lokalne samouprave, jednostupanjski, mješoviti ili segmentirani, dvostupanjski i trostupanjski. Kao glavni faktori koji uvjetuju izbor jednog od tih okvira u pojedinoj zemlji utvrđeni su: veličina lokalnih jedinica, njihovo monotipsko ili politipsko uređenje, veličina države izražena brojem stanovnika te oblik društvenog uređenja (federacije, unitarne države). ; The dilemma about the establishment of one or more levels of local self-government units is one of the most important problems of territorial organisation of local self-government. Levelling is structural answer to the problem and needs to integrate local self-government system itself and to integrate that system into a wider organisation of a state as a whole. At the beginning, the paper deals with general discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of levelling. The situation in almost forty countries has been analysed, including two groups of countries: developed democracies (Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Island, Italia, Japan, Luxemburg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA) and transition countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Serbia). Four different types of territorial frames for local self-govern mentsystem integration have been identified: one-tier, mixed or segmented, two-tier, and three-tier systems. Decision to select one of them is conditioned by the average size of local units, monotypic or polytypic design of territorial division of a country, the size of a country in terms of the number of inhabitants, and form of political organisation (federation or unitary state).