Councillors' Notions of Democracy, and their Role Perception and Behaviour in the Changing Context of Local Democracy

Abstract

This article starts with an analysis of responses by councillors which can be related either to a representative or to a broader participatory understanding of democracy. This general pattern appears, with slight variations, in all the countries included in the study on councillors in municipal assemblies. The findings on the understanding of democracy will be linked to the formal horizontal power relations between councillors, the mayor and the leading bureaucrats of the municipal administration, as determined by different local government systems. This is done to test whether or not the appearance of councillors with a particular understanding of democracy is determined by different institutional conditions which offer councillors options to perform a specific role according to their understanding of democracy. Also considered is the question of whether councillors' understanding of democracy is linked to personal characteristics. As argued in the introduction to this special issue, particular options offered to councillors by a council's formal competences may neither attract nor repel actors with a specific understanding of democracy to become councillors. Instead, notions of democracy as expressions of a person's basic beliefs and subjective norms can be related to that individual's personal character. Finally, councillors' role perceptions, role behaviour and attitudes towards reforms at the local level are identified and analysed to see whether or not councillors' notions of democracy can be related to their role perceptions, role behaviour and attitudes towards reforms as dependent variables.

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