Parliaments in Disguise? How German Councillors perceive Local Councils

Abstract

Drawing on a survey among German local councillors, the article is discussing the question if German local councils do constitute ‘parliamentary’ bodies. To which extent do local councillors perceive the council as a parliament and themselves as members of a parliament? This question is especially interesting in Germany, where the public largely associates terms like ‘parliament’ with the local council and ‘government’ with the mayor and the executive officers, even if local institutions by law all belong to the executive branch. Despite the institutional setup, I claim that councillors perceive themselves as ‘local MPs’. By using the concept of parliamentarism, this article analyses the self-assessments of nearly 900 German local councillors. The article shows that German local councillors act in a quasi-parliamentarian style by controlling the executive, but take important decisions within the frame of ‘local laws’ and seek to implement their party’s programme. Councillors, representing their respective party in the council, also negotiate coalitions and divide themselves into ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ benches, resembling the setup of a ‘real’ parliament.

Key Words:

• Local councillors
• Germany
• role perception
• politics
• parliamentarism
• public perception

Notes

^1. For a detailed description of the different electoral systems, see van der Kolk (2007).

^2. Pearson’s r = −.015 with p = 0.648 while N = 884 for mayors and population size, Pearson’s r = 0.140 with p = 0.001 while N = 599 for executive board and population size.

^3. Pearson’s r = −0.074 with p = 0.029 while N = 883.

^4. Correlation analysis shows that the strongest link can be detected between population size and ‘organisation of collective services’ with Pearson’s r = 0.197 and p = 0.000 while N = 857.

^5. Correlation analysis shows that the strongest link can be detected between population size and ‘opportunity to control the administration’ with Pearson’s r = 0.129 and p = 0.000 while N = 887.

^6. Pearson’s r = 0.513 with p = 0.000 while N = 879 for importance of task and own contribution. Pearson’s r = 0.106 with p = 0.002 while N = 882 for importance of task and population size. Pearson’s r = 0.111 with p = 0.001 while N = 879 for own contribution and population size.

^7. For the history of the term ‘representation’ and its implications, see Rehfeld (2006, p.1ff).

^8. Correlations between groups and population are even lower: The strongest link is (not surprisingly) existent between representation of farmers and population size with Pearson’s r = −0.186 and p = 0.000 while N = 875.

^9. Membership in organisations is not correlated to population size at all.

^10. Pearson’s r = 0.544 with p = 0.001 while N = 827.

^11. Pearson’s r = −0.110 with p = 0.001 while N = 877.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Björn Egner

Björn Egner is senior researcher at the Institute of Political Science at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, and speaker of the research group ‘local politics’ within the German Political Science Association (DVPW). His research interests include local politics, policy analysis, public finance and methodology in political science. His latest book (as editor) is Local Councillors in Europe (Wiesbaden: Springer+VS)