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This paper focused on conflicts among councillors in Tanzania's Local Government Authorities, where qualitative approaches were employed in data collection and analysis. The study focused on understanding the causes and effects of conflicts in the Local Government Authorities where Msalala District Council in Shinyanga Region was used as a case study. A sample of 22 participants was interviewed through mobile calls. Various local government documents, including the minutes of meetings and reports, were reviewed. The study found three types of conflicts at Msalala District Council. The conflict between the elected councillors themselves, conflicts between the District Council Chairperson and other councillors and conflicts between elected (Ward) councillors and special seat councillors. It was further found that the conflicts were contributed by the low level of education among councillors, personal interest and selfishness, poor communication, conflicting roles and unequal distribution of resources. The study found that the conflicts among the councillors affected the implementation of projects in the council, reduced the morale of the special seat councillors and increased unnecessary costs to the council. Different mechanisms have been adopted to resolve conflicts, like collective bargaining and cooperativeness, which are emphasized for the growth of local government authorities, and this reduces the rate of biased decisions. This study recommends training for councillors immediately after being elected to provide awareness of their roles and duties in the local government authority.

In many countries, important features of municipal government (such as the electoral system, mayors' salaries, and the number of councillors) depend on whether the municipality is above or below arbitrary population thresholds. Several papers have used a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to measure the effects of these threshold-based policies on political and economic outcomes. Using evidence from France, Germany, and Italy, we highlight two common pitfalls that arise in exploiting population-based policies (compound treatment and sorting), and we provide guidance for detecting and addressing these pitfalls. Even when these problems are present, population-threshold RDD may be the best available research design for studying the effects of certain policies and political institutions.

In light of increasing pressure to deliver climate action targets and the growing role of citizens in raising the importance of the issue, deliberative democratic processes (e.g. citizen juries and citizen assemblies) on climate change are increasingly being used to provide a voice to citizens in climate change decision-making. Through a comparative case study of two processes that ran in the UK in 2019 (the Leeds Climate Change Citizens’ Jury and the Oxford Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change), this paper investigates how far citizen assemblies and juries are increasing citizen engagement on climate change and creating more citizen-centred climate policymaking. Interviews were conducted with policymakers, councillors, professional facilitators and others involved in running these processes to assess motivations for conducting these, their structure and the impact and influence they had. The findings suggest the impact of these processes is not uniform: they have an indirect impact on policy making by creating momentum around climate action and supporting the introduction of pre-planned or pre-existing policies rather than a direct impact by truly being citizen-centred policy making processes or conducive to new climate policy. We conclude with reflections on how these processes give elected representatives a public mandate on climate change, that they help to identify more nuanced and in-depth public opinions in a fair and informed way, yet it can be challenging to embed citizen juries and assemblies in wider democratic processes.

Local politics in Spain has triggered iconic shifts over the last few years, and the electoral success of new ‘movement parties’ in particular has dramatically challenged the political establishment. Between 2015 and 2019, many municipalities – including, crucially, the two biggest cities, Madrid and Barcelona – were governed by coalitions originating from anti-austerity, anti-eviction and pro-democracy struggles. This has significantly affected hegemonic and widely normalised discourses supporting the neoliberalisation of urban politics, and to some extent has also prompted novel governance approaches. Based on empirical research undertaken with local councillors, officials, consultants and activists, the article develops an in-depth analysis of governance transformations in the Spanish capital of Madrid. By doing so, it evaluates the ambiguities and contradictions that the government coalition Ahora Madrid was facing during the 2015–2019 legislative term. The debate stimulates critical reflections for academics, practitioners and movements on the transformative capacities that new municipalisms may enact, as well as the constraints faced by established multi-level urban governance regimes. 过去几年，西班牙的地方政治引发了标志性的转变，尤其是各个新“运动党”在选举中的成功，极大地挑战了政治建制派。2015年至2019年间，许多城市（最重要的是，它们包括了两个最大的城市马德里和巴塞罗那）由反紧缩、反驱逐和支持民主斗争的联盟治理。这极大地影响了支持城市政治新自由主义的、霸权性的、和普遍常态化的话语，并在一定程度上推动了新的治理方法。本文基于对地方议员、官员、顾问和活动家的实证研究，对西班牙首都马德里的治理变革进行了深入分析。藉此，我们评估了政府联盟马德里阿霍拉 (Ahora Madrid) 在2015-2019任期内面临的含糊和矛盾。这场辩论激发了学术界、从业者和活动人士对“新自治”可能实现的变革能力、以及现有的多层次城市治理制度面临的制约因素的批判性思考。

This paper explores the perceptions of municipal councillors and officials regarding their role in promoting social cohesion within local government contexts. Social cohesion is closely tied to how communities experience trust, inclusion, and equitable service delivery, making local government a critical actor in fostering unity and resilience. The perceptions of municipal councillors and officials are therefore essential, as their attitudes, decisions, and practices directly shape how social cohesion is promoted or hindered within municipalities. A qualitative research approach was employed, using a multiple case study design to explore two metropolitan municipalities in South Africa, the City of Cape Town and the City of Ekurhuleni. These municipalities were purposively selected as they explicitly identify the facilitation of social cohesion, particularly through fostering trust and a sense of belonging, in their policy and strategic documents. The main findings of this study revealed three interrelated challenges that undermine the promotion of social cohesion at the municipal level: a lack of commitment, a lack of political will, and inadequate budget allocation. The lack of explicit budget allocations undermines the effectiveness of social cohesion policies at the local level. Municipalities must therefore consider integrating social cohesion into their budgeting processes as a strategic priority, thereby signalling their commitment to building cohesive, inclusive, and resilient communities.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the current nature and content of biodiversity reporting practices adopted by English local councils. By adopting a multi-theoretical framework that relies on economic and social theories such as agency, stakeholder, legitimacy and institutional theories, this study also aims to investigate the factors that explain the extent of biodiversity disclosure provided by local councils.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a self-constructed disclosure index to analyse the biodiversity-related information published in the official websites of 351 English local councils. A multivariate analysis was conducted to analyse the association between local councils’ characteristics and biodiversity disclosure.FindingsThis study shows that the information disclosed on local biodiversity is limited and does not allow the interested stakeholders to get a comprehensive picture of the current status of local biodiversity. It also provides evidence that the level of biodiversity disclosure is significantly associated with the level of local council’s population, the presence of councillors from environmentally oriented parties and environmental non-governmental organisations operating in the local council area, poor biodiversity management practices and local councils’ visibility.Originality/valueThis study is one of the few accounting studies that provides a comprehensive analysis of biodiversity disclosure by analysing its nature and content and investigating the factors associated with such disclosure. It extends agency, stakeholder, institutional and legitimacy theories, by showing that local councils use voluntary disclosures to satisfy the informational needs of the main stakeholders and to assure that their strategies and practices conform to the values and expectations of the community they represent.

How can elected representatives' attitude to citizen participation in policymaking function as a driver of, and barrier to, democratic innovation? This paper aims to answer this question and empirically assess local councillors' views on innovative efforts to enhance citizens' participation in interactive governance processes in Norway. Unlike the bulk of previous research, which has focussed on the potential impact of citizen participation, this paper contributes to the understanding of what politicians think of the innovative measures. With councillors acting as gatekeepers with respect to democratic innovation, investigating their attitudes can help clarify why democratic renewal is or is not being prioritised. The findings of this empirical study on attempts to introduce new participatory initiatives in four Norwegian municipalities indicate that local politicians see an urgent need to innovate in order to increase public problem-solving capacity and efficiency; however, they are less concerned about strengthening democracy in and of itself. In addition, established democratic structures prevent elected representatives from seeing it as desirable or possible to involve citizens more directly in policymaking - even when they acknowledge that there are good reasons for doing so. Furthermore, councillor's attitudes may more generally affect democratic innovation at the local level of government since politicians decide whether and how to promote innovations in a local representative democracy.

Local councillors play a fundamental role at the community level in our democracy. They help to shape the places they live and work in, and in so doing they come to understand many of the most difficult and most critical pressures facing their communities. Communities expect their elected councillors to listen to their ideas, take their complaints seriously, and ensure that decisions about planning, policies and resourcing priorities are made in their best interests. Moreover, local government is often a training ground for further leadership roles, whether in government at other levels or in other walks of life.

This paper is on the role of the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in bridging the disconnection in donor assisted projects and electoral administration and the perceptions of state institutions in an interface with donor support, electoral dynamics and democratisation in the municipality. The study on the perception of the BCMM on donor support and democratisation is to ascertain the reciprocal relations the BCMM have with donors, including government and stakeholders in an election and the local community where they operate. This paper argues that donor support to a large extent induces democratisation but no political democracy can survive and flourish if the mass of its people remained in poverty, and in a state of inequality and unemployment without real prospects for a better life. Although the state policies ensures and facilitates inter alia the free market economy, the deregulation of public institutions and state sponsorship of infrastructural development, the citizens in the local communities have been mostly impoverished as a result of their inability to access fully the benefits that were supposed to have been administered to them by sub-state institutions and donor managers. The study utilized the qualitative research approach and data was analysed through content analysis. The emerging findings indicate that donor conditionalities promote good governance, transparency and free and fair representation. The findings further shows that donor support in the municipality reduces poverty through academic skills training, vocational skills training, Agricultural entrepreneurship and Agro-processing. Nevertheless, the paper is of the view that the municipality and local communities are at a tipping point with regard to what can only be described as unequal and exploitative relationship between donor elites and community voters. The outcome of this paper and recommendations has great implications and influence for municipal officials, Communities voters, policy makers, Departments and Ministries, the Independent Electoral Commission, Social institutions, organizations and economic managers and administrators in developing countries

This book, now available in paperback, is the result of national research conducted amongst England’s directly elected mayors and the councillors that serve alongside them. It is the first such major publication to assess the impact on local politics of this new office and fills a gap in our understanding of how the Local Government Act 2000 has influenced local governance. The book also draws from a range of research that has focused on elected mayors - in England and overseas - to set out how the powers, roles and responsibilities of mayors and mayoral councils would need to change if English local politics is to fundamentally reconnect with citizens. It not only explores how English elected mayors are currently operating, but how the office could develop and, as such, is a major contribution to the debate about the governance of the English localities.