The Evolution of Local Governance: A New Democracy

Abstract

Increasingly, I hear local government managers talk disparagingly and with frustration about the councilmembers they work for. I also observe elected officials thrusting managers into the policy lime-light – either in response to council ineptness or through a conscious choice. These trends challenge the viability of democracy in a professionally administered local government – a form of government whose rationale is deeply embedded in a healthy respect for politics and in the belief that in some increasingly indistinct yet fundamental way there is a difference between politics and administration. These observations lead me to the following conclusions: 1. Legislative bodies do not fully perform their legitimate role of allocating values because issues coming before them are more complex, conflictive, and ambiguous than ever before. 2. Managers play an increasingly political role in professional local government in response to the abdication or ineptness of political leadership by elected leaders. 3. Despite the need for political leadership and the ideal position the manager is in to fill this void, democracy suffers as legislative oversight is weakened. 4. While we cannot expect to see councils regaining the legislative oversight the Progressives idealized during the reform movement, we are seeing a democratization of administration that is legitimizing the political role of the administrator.