Leadership and Local Democracy: Does Leadership Make a Difference?

During the last few years, there has been a lot of discussion on local leadership in several European countries. The most visible dimension of ongoing changes is in institutional reforms initiated in several countries. Examples of such reforms include a change of traditional collective leadership based on a consensus into a form of the "parliamentary model" (in several Scandinavian cities) and experiments with the direct election of mayors in countries like Germany, Italy, Greece, Norway, England, Ireland, or Belgium. Budapest seems to be an excellent place to discuss this topic, since the same trend is widespread in several countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, and recently also in Poland.
 
But our discussion is not going to stop on institutional changes. We will ask how the change in the institutional position of the leader influences the style of leadership. This includes a changing relationship between the leader and other actors, so it modifies community power structure, the role of parties in local governance, and last but not least, the leader-residents relationship, which may often result in a different mode of community involvement in local politics.
 
We want to stress that in discussing the practical experience of various European countries we will include experiences of reforming Central and East European local governments, with a special focus on New Member States of the EU. It does not mean that we will disregard the experiences of Western Europe and "old" EU members, but we want to have a more even geographical coverage of the whole of Europe, than it used to be in most of the previous EUROLOC Summer Schools.
 
The course invites applications primarily from political science students, but it is also open for students of public administration, economics, sociology, and geography who are working on local government issues.
 
The agenda will include lectures in the morning and workshops during the afternoons. The workshops will be organized around discussion of topics presented during lectures and papers prepared by School participants. Each of the participants will prepare a paper, which will be sent in advance to organizers and will be available for downloading by other participants. Each of the participants will also act as a discussant of the paper prepared by another participant.

Additional course-specific information

Applications on a fee-paying basis are still invited until April 26, 2005.
 
Eligibility: This course expects applications from students of advanced standing (primarily Ph.D. students) within the field of local government studies and related fields, such as political science, sociology, etc. The recommendation letter supporting the application should be sent by a professor from the applicant’s home institution.
 
Funding: All participants will be required to pay a course fee of 300 EUR for the two weeks. Free accommodation, meals, and course materials will be provided by the organizers. Travel costs have to be covered by participants.

Financial aid is available for

1. participants from developed countries: those in need of financial assistance for travel may apply for an ECPR mobility grant if their institution is a member of ECPR.
2. participants from emerging democracies: those in need of financial assistance may apply for a SUN scholarship. For travel, they can also apply for an ECPR mobility grant, if their institution is a member of ECPR.