Urban Political Decentralisation

Henry Bäck, Professor of Public Administration, Göteborg University; Gunnar Gjelstrup, Senior Lecturer, Roskilde University; Marit Helgesen, Researcher, Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo; Folke Johansson, Associate Professor of Political Science, Göteborg University; Jan Erling Klausen, Researcher, Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo

• Foreword.- 1: Metropolitan Regions and Urban District Councils.- The constitutions of the cities.- Strength of the party system.- Urban district councils.- Six urban decentralisation reforms in three countries.- The chapters to follow.- 2: The institutional structure of the Urban District Councils.- Actors and preferences.- Tasks.- Resources.- City implementation and community networking.- 3: Methodological considerations.- The survey data.- The comparability of survey questions.- How we wrote this book.- 4: Citizen participation in urban district politics.- Comments on the data.- Differences between the cities.- How can the differences between the cities be explained?.- Summary and conclusions.- 5: The politicians in the UDC.- Group representation.- Attitudes towards UDCs.- Dimensions of conflicts within UDCs.- The relationship between politicians and civil servants.- Contacts with citizens.- Contacts with voluntary organisations.- Willingness to run again.- Conclusions.- 6: District politicians on central-local relations.- The electoral dimension.- The task dimension.- Intra-party co-ordination.- Summary and conclusions.- 7: Efficiency in service provision.- A note on the concept of efficiency.- A comment on the methodology.- Size of UDCs.- UDC funding and resources.- UDC organisation.- User involvement.- Summary and conclusion.- 8: Transverse processes.- Major findings.- The role of politicians.- The role of the administration.- The role of co-workers.- The role of users.- Conclusion.- 9: Conclusions: Institutions, time and politics.- Citizen participation.- The district politician’s role.- UDC members and inter-level relations.- Efficiency in service provision.- Transverse processes.- Effects of the institutional set-up.- Time.- Politics.- The self-destructivedynamic of party politics and urban decentralisation.- References.