Kurzbeschreibung
(Englisch)
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COST action IS1207 'Local Public Sector Reforms: An International Comparison' (LocRef) which unites 29 countries offers for the first time an opportunity for methodologically robust comparative local government research in Europe. The research proposal entitled 'Local Government Performance and Reforms in Switzerland' aims at advancing local government research in Switzerland using a quantitative, longitudinal and comparative approach. The project is embedded into LocRef COST Action by planning the scientific work along the lines of the Action. The main research questions are: (A) What are the actual reforms in Switzerland at the local level? How do they vary in the different cantons? How do they differ from other countries? (B) What are the causes for municipal reforms in Switzerland compared to other countries? and (C) What are the effects of these reforms? Due to their high autonomy and manifold responsibilities in service provision, the 2352 Swiss municipalities are a highly important tier of government in Switzerland. The Monitoring of the Swiss Municipalities, which has been conducted by the applicants and other Swiss researchers on a regular basis since 1988 needs to be updated. Three large-scale surveys of all Swiss municipal secretaries (the top level bureaucrat), the municipal executive politicians and the cantonal administrations (superordinate tier of government) are being conducted. These are replication surveys based on previous work done by the applicants of the research proposal. Because the surveys will be conducted simultaneously in several European countries, we can expect a methodologically robust comparison of the Swiss with other European Municipalities. A planned conference and publications providing knowledge and policy recommendations are addressed both to academics and practitioners.
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Abstract
(Englisch)
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The SERI project ‘Local Government Performance and Reforms in Switzerland (C14.0106)’ is well integrated in the COST Action ‘Local Public Sector Reforms: An International Comparison (LocRef IS1207)’ with the project leaders and collaborators working in different working groups on territorial/functional re-scaling, democratic renewal and internal (post-)NPM reforms. The opportunities for networking activities in meetings and conferences are used to build research consortiums and produce joint deliverables. With the organization of the annual COST Conference on ‘Local Government Reforms in Europe’ in Bern in March 2016, with the project leader as local organiszer, a major event with 80 researchers from 27 countries could successfully be brought to Switzerland. A considereable number of high-quality book chapters, journal articles and further work have already been published, for example in Public Management Review and International Review of Administrative Sciences. The main research focus in the project is on comparative local government research, administrative reforms and territorial restructuring, and the local autonomy index. Numerous international publication projects are still ongoing, among them a special issue of International Journal of Public Sector Management entitled ‘Is Local Always Better? Strengths and Limitations of Local Governance for Service Delivery’ and a chapter on intermunicipal cooperation in a Palgrave edited volume. In the framework of this project, a survey of all local secretaries, local executive members and cantonal administrations in Switzerland is conducted to enlarge the empirical database and enable longitudinal studies in the local government field. Links have been created to other research programs outside the COST framework: a Horizon 2020 proposal entitled ‘Changing attitudes reforming government effectively (CHARGE)’ is elaborated with Swiss participation, and there is a close collaboration between this COST Action and EGPA (European Group for Public Administration) Permanent Study Group V on Regional and Local Government. Furthermore, the long-standing and successful collaboration between Prof. Reto Steiner (now Swiss Institute for Public Management; formerly Centre of Competence for Public Management of the University of Bern) and Prof. Andreas Ladner (IDHEAP Lausanne) can be carried on and intensified. Again in the framework of this project, Dr. Claire Kaiser successfully completed her PhD on strategies, incentives and effects of amalgamations in Switzerland at the University of Bern. Finally, the project has led to policy relevant results. In a practical manual on public management, guidelines for merger processes and intermunicipal cooperation have been elaborated. For the LocRef Policy Brochure Project, the Swiss contributed to topics like local service delivery, management and performance as well as austernity and rescaling. In several advisory projects, a knowledge transfer from research to practice was made.
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