How institutional designs condition perceived local political leadership

ABSTRACT

This article aims to test whether local governments can enhance the elected councillors’ perceived political leadership by changing the institutional design that conditions their ability to define problems that call for collective action, design policy solutions and mobilise support for their implementation. The study draws on new research on political leadership and institutional design and data from surveys conducted in Denmark and Norway. The analytical framework distinguishes between four different but overlapping institutional design strategies, and the main finding is that institutional designs aiming to enhance executive, collective or distributive political leadership are associated with an increase in perceived political leadership, whereas – surprisingly – institutional designs aiming to enhance interactive political leadership are not. Upon closer inspection, however, the impact of interactive institutional designs on political leadership seems to be conditioned on whether the power relation between politicians and administrators is balanced or unbalanced.

KEYWORDS:

• Local councillors
• political leadership
• institutional design
• democracy
• collaborative governance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In traditional Weberian and Wilsonian thinking politics is above administration, but in reality, the relative influence between the political and the administrative level varies. In mayor-led municipalities the formal hierarchy between politics and administration is reinforced, whereas in manager-led municipalities the administrative level can be very powerful.

Additional information

Funding

The work reported in this paper was funded by Grant 254781 from the Norwegian Research Council.

Notes on contributors

Jacob Torfing

Jacob Torfing is a professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Business of Roskilde University, Denmark, Director of the Roskilde School of Governance, and a professor at Nord University, Norway. His research interests include public sector reforms, political leadership, collaborative innovation and co-creation. He has published several books and scores of articles on these topics.

Tina Øllgaard Bentzen

Tina Øllgaard Bentzen is an associate professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Business of Roskilde University, Denmark. Her research focuses on participatory processes in the public sector and involves political leadership in municipalities, co-creation, administrative burdens and trust dynamics within governance.

Marte Slagsvold Winsvold

Marte Slagsvold Winsvold is a research fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo, Norway and the Norwegian Institute for Social Research. Her research interests include political representation, political leadership and political participation. She has published several articles and book chapters on these topics.