Strong Leadership and Local Democracy: Rivals or Potential Allies?

Abstract

Many reforms within local government in the last decades have been preoccupied with efficiency rather than democracy. Following from this the managerial side of local government has been strengthened. Focus in reforms has also been on managers, not political leaders, maybe as a consequence of importing organisational ideas from the private sector. Political leaders have received less attention than managers also within research (Cole 1994). Studies of political leadership are not always very explicit whether the prefix political makes any difference compared to leadership in general. The literature all the same indicates that important tools for political leaders are coalition building, persuasion and negotiations.