Explaining the Reactions of Swiss Municipalities to The ‘Amalgamation Wave’: At the crossroad of institutional, economic and political pressures

Abstract

Public sector organizations are simultaneously subject to three types of environmental pressure: institutional, economic and political. How do these pressures influence the strategic behaviour of public organizations when confronted with efficiency-oriented reforms? We focus on the strategic behaviour of Swiss municipalities facing the amalgamation wave: a reform characterized by a strong economic rationale. Results confirm that the success of reforms depends not only on its matching with economic underpinnings. It is also necessary to take the political leadership and the responsibility of reform implementation.

Key words:

• Amalgamation
• strategic behaviour
• environmental pressures
• local government

Acknowledgments

This article is part of a research project (no. 127512/1) financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (www.snf.ch), and supported by the Swiss Public Administration Network (SPAN; www.swipan.ch) and the Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+; www.ssphplus.ch).

Notes

About 40 per cent of the population lived in twelve municipalities.

In 2009, Canton Ticino was made up 169 municipalities (with on average 1,963 inhabitants) arranged in eight districts (Ufficio di Statistica del Cantone Ticino, Ticino in cifre, 2010, USTAT). Districts do not have administrative functions in Ticino, but they aggregate locally political parties – especially for the election of representatives in the Cantonal Parliament – and have a cultural value for the local identity.

The “capacità di autofinanziamento” is the ratio of two measures: (a) the difference between revenues and expenditures excluding assets depreciation and (b) the amount of revenues. It is an indicator of the municipality's relative capacity to face new investments by means of its own financial resources.

The term here refers those, among the Council members (or councilors) appointed as members of the executive branch of the local government (i.e. deputy majors in the US spelling). The maximum number of Commissioners for each municipality is seven.