Stein and Tocqueville in Metropolis

Abstract

The contemporary ideas of local government and of citizenship in the local polity carry with them a great deal of sentimentalism. In Germany, the word Heimat conjures up images of individual towns inspiring the affections and loyalties of people unimpressed by references to a German nation or transnational European Union. The Heimat is thought to operate on a more »human« scale than the nation or federal state (Bundesland). When in the late 1960s, citizens' movements (Bürgerbewegungen) arose in Germany, they did so in local communities, seeking to enlist people united by a common geography and an apparently local common cause. The post-modern Green Party and lately the post-Communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) have concentrated their efforts at the local level to effect political change and gain the trust and support of the citizenry.¹ In German constitutional law and political science, local self-government (kommunale Selbstverwaltung) is seen as a pillar of a peculiarly German tradition of liberal democracy. In the U.S.A., the term »grassroots« has overwhelmingly positive connotations in academic circles, the news media, and popular idiom, and has come to denote »of local origin.« Meanwhile, the Republican Party has placed new emphasis on the devolution of federal powers to the state- and local levels. It has rejected »big government« in the hands of the Federal government in Washington and invoked a return to a highly decentralized model in which local government would possess greater responsibility and autonomy.