EUROPEAN

FORUM
LOCAL COUNCILLORS: BETWEEN LOCAL
GOVERNMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE
KARIN HANSEN
With a two-dimensional concept of New Public Management as its point of depar-
ture, the article points to the development of a specic Danish model of NPM at
the local level of government. In the municipalities the market-oriented NPM
dimension has been almost absent and the managerial dimension has been inter-
preted and translated into a governance-oriented model that combines decentral-
ized self- and user-governance from below with centralized goal-steering from
above. This combined model institutes new governing roles including a new leader-
ship role for elected councillors as central goal-steering decision and policy makers.
Rather than strengthening the local councillors, the new leadership role has turned
out to be problematic for the elected councillors. The problems inherent in the new
institutional role as goal-steering decision makers are discussed and arguments are
put forward in favour of a more governance and less NPM and government-ori-
ented role for elected councillors. What seems to be needed is another new role
that stresses local councillors as co-governors and guardians of an inclusive and
democratic form of local governance.
INTRODUCTION
Local government is like government in general in a state of change.
Since the beginning of the 1980s, a wave of reorganization has swept the
welfare states of Europe and the Western world in order to modernize
the political and administrative institutions and structures of the public
sector. These efforts to reorganize and modernize the public sector are often
gathered under the common denominator of New Public Management
Karin Hansen is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, Politics and Public Adminis-
tration at the University of Aalborg, Denmark.
Public Administration Vol. 79 No. 1, 2001 (105123)
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
106 KARIN HANSEN
(NPM). NPM has become a new discourse and guiding principle for the
institutional form and structure of modern welfare states.
Commonly NPM is comprehended as a special, new kind of administrat-
ive policy, aiming at the institutional form and practice of public adminis-
tration, i.e. the administrative and service-delivering institutions of the pub-
lic sector. However, not just administrative and service-delivering
institutions are being reorganized and modernized. The last twenty years
of NPM restructurings encompass political institutions and ways of
organizing politics and public decision and policy making as well.
In this regard, New Public Management might more accurately be called
New Public Government. The modernization policies of NPM cannot be
reduced to a new kind of administrative policy, only dealing with prin-
ciples and institutional organization of public administration and service
delivery. The NPM restructurings are of a more far-reaching and consti-
tutional kind, dealing with principles and institutional structures of public
politics and government.
This constitutional aspect and perspective of the ongoing modernization
of the public sector is more or less ignored in public and political debate.
As pointed out by the Norwegian political scientist and new insti-
tutionalist, Johan P. Olsen, the modernization reforms of Western welfare
states accentuate the need for a public constitutional debate about what
kind and form of democratic government we are going, and wish, to have.
The ongoing modernization efforts are not just about public administration.
It is the political and democratic constitution the institutional form of
government that is at stake and being reorganized under the guiding
principles of NPM (Olsen 1990, 1991, 1992).
Emphasizing NPM as a New Public Government concept and discourse,
the article will focus on NPM reorganization at the local government level
of Denmark. As a guiding principle for the institutional restructurings of
the modern welfare states, NPM has been interpreted and introduced dif-
ferently and with different impacts in various countries. There is no one
model of NPM at play. Various NPM elements are stressed and combined
in more or less specic ways according to existing institutional structures
and traditions of the countries in question. At the Danish local government
level a specic NPM model has been instituted, a model that attributes
a set of new governing roles to the political and the administrative actors,
including a new role for local councillors.
With an analytically claried NPM concept as its point of departure, the
rst part of the article describes the specicity of the Danish NPM reorgani-
zations at the local level of government. The second part deals with the
new governing roles that are being instituted at the local level, especially
the NPM role of local councillors as goal-steering political leaders. The goal-
steering role will be discussed and arguments presented for another new
kind of governance role for local councillors.
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
LOCAL COUNCILLORS 107
NPM AT THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEVEL THE DANISH CASE
As a common denominator for the various efforts to modernize the public
sector in advanced welfare states, NPM is a somewhat mixed buy. The
literature often attempts to clarify the concept of NPM by shorter or longer
lists of the many and different reorganization elements that have been
on the agendas and implemented as part of the various public sector mod-
ernization programmes since the beginning of the 1980s. Often, these NPM
descriptions are coloured by the country-specic programmes and efforts
of the particular states under consideration.
In an analytical perspective, such a descriptive NPM concept is not very
useful. Not all reorganizations since the early 1980s can be aptly charac-
terized as NPM oriented. Besides, such an all-encompassing NPM concept
does not leave room for a more precise specication of NPM variations and
proles in different countries, at different times and at different levels and
areas of government.
In order to grasp the different organization principles and elements gen-
erally associated with the concept of NPM in a more conceptualizing and
analytically fruitful manner, these principles and elements may be categor-
ized along two lines or dimensions: a market- and a management-oriented
dimension of reorganization. A combination of these two dimensions can
help narrow down the concept of NPM, as shown in gure 1. The vertical
axis, from hierarchy to market, illustrates efforts to marketize the public
FIGURE 1 Organizational principles of NPM: market and management dimensions
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
108 KARIN HANSEN
sector either directly or indirectly by introducing market-like mechanisms
into the public sector at the expense of the hierarchical structure that
has been a characteristic feature of traditional public sector organization.
Examples of such market-oriented reorganizations are:
privatization
contracting out
purchaser-provider models
free choice/exit opportunities
competitive and economic incentives
These examples are not meant to be illustrative of the continuum perspec-
tive of gure 1. A continuum perspective may be relevant, some reorganiza-
tions being more market-oriented or market-like than others. What is
important here, however, is to differentiate reorganization elements of this
vertical, market-oriented type from the horizontal, managerial type.
Whether we are talking about direct marketization through privatization
or of introducing various market-like mechanisms into the public sector,
these reorganization elements lead to limitation or restraint of the scope
and degree of collective, political and administrative, decision-making in
favour of more self-regulating and non-political mechanisms of social co-
ordination. In this regard, the vertical types of reorganization differ from
the ones illustrated by the horizontal axis in gure 1.
The horizontal axis, from rule-bound regulation and planning to auto-
nomy of management, illustrates efforts to organize the public sector
according to new principles of leadership and management developed in
the private business sector. Common to this managerial reorganization is
a new orientation of the public sector towards the output and outcome
dimensions of political and administrative decision making at the expense
of input and process dimensions of public decision and policy making. The
public service institutions and administrative units are being freed from
traditional rule-bound regulations and planning directives from above in
order to deliver high quality services efciently and responsively according
to the needs of citizens as customers of public services. They are given
increased possibilities and autonomy to manage their task performance and
service delivery in varying ways according to criteria of efciency and out-
come. Examples of this type of reorganization are:
decentralization of decision making competence and responsibility
user inuence
goal steering/management by objectives
joint forums of strategic leadership
efciency monitoring
service and quality management systems (Total Quality Management,
benchmarking, and the like).
These horizontal elements do not restrain, but innovate and restructure
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
LOCAL COUNCILLORS 109
the organization of political and administrative decision and policy making.
The principle of collective and public decision making is not being con-
tested in favour of non-political and self-regulating mechanisms of co-ordi-
nation as is the case of vertical reorganization elements.
These new managerial ways of organizing public decision and policy
making are primarily directed against institutional forms and centralized
systems of planning and policy making, developed during the post-war
period of welfare state expansion. It is the central, rule-bound regulations
and planning systems of the welfare state that are being questioned in fav-
our of more decentralized and autonomous forms of public decision mak-
ing and task performance at the different policy areas and levels.
NPM may be seen as a complex combination of these two different types
of reorganization indicated by the lower-right quadrant of the gure
whereas the upper-left quadrant indicates the organizing principles and
structure of the traditional public sector.
This combined, two-dimensional conceptualization of NPM is general in
perspective. In most countries the efforts to reorganize the institutional
structure of the public sector have consisted in various combinations of
elements along both lines of reorganization, but the country-specic combi-
nations can be identied by means of these two different NPM dimensions.
In some countries reorganizations of the vertical axis type have been domin-
ating, in others the horizontal axis type has come to the fore. Thus, the
combination of NPM reorganizations that has characterized the develop-
ment of the Anglo-American countries such as England, New Zealand and
Australia has been more of the market-oriented type than has been the case
with continental European countries. With the exception of England, the
processes of European modernization have not become dominated by the
market-oriented type of reorganization (Olsen and Peters 1996; Kickert
1997; Peters and Pierre 1998). However, this does not mean that the NPM
concept and principles have not caught on. In some continental European
and in the Scandinavian countries NPM has got rather a strong foothold
as well, but here the managerial dimension of NPM has become the domi-
nant one.
During the last fteen to twenty years of Danish modernization the
efforts have predominantly been of the horizontal axis type, encompassing
various managerial restructurings of the public sector, whereas the vertical,
market-oriented type has been, if not absent, then rather insignicant.
The comparative unimportance of the market-oriented NPM dimension
in Denmark and in the other Scandinavian countries is sometimes inter-
preted as an indication of a more reluctant and moderate NPM develop-
ment (Dunleavy 1997). Rather than talking about more or less NPM one
can, according to the two-dimensional concept of NPM outlined in gure 1,
talk about different types of NPM reorganization and about the Scandinav-
ian development as a development dominated by the managerial NPM
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
110 KARIN HANSEN
dimension, giving less importance to the market-oriented dimension
(Christensen and Lgreid 1998; Klausen and Stahlberg 1998).
Especially at the local government level of Denmark, market and meso-
market ideas have not caught on, and municipal efforts like privatization,
contracting out, free choice and competition are rare. Owing to nancial
restraints, more municipalities have begun to consider and are attempting
to contract out services for the elderly and day-care for children. But up
until now, such reorganization elements have been far from dominant.
Besides the absence of market orientation, Danish restructuring at the local
level has taken a path of its own, differing from the local government
reorganizations of both Norway and Sweden. This specic path of munici-
pal reorganization does not t well into the more general NPM perspective
outlined by gure 1.
With the dominant horizontal, managerial kind of public reorganization
from gure 1 as a point of reference, Danish restructuring at the local level
of government since the late 1980s is illustrated in gure 2. In terms bor-
rowed from British local government literature (Stewart and Stoker 1995;
Stoker 2000; Rhodes 1998, 2000), reorganization of Danish municipalities
can be described as a restructuring from local government towards local
governance.
This line of reorganization covers a structural change from one formal
and authoritative centre of public decision and policy making at the local
level (government) towards a multitude of more or less autonomous enti-
ties, public as well as private institutions, associations and actors, net-
working within their respective domains of policy making (governance).
The traditional, vertical relations of local government from above are being
supplemented and, to some extent, replaced by more horizontal relations
and interaction between the many centres and entities of local governance.
In the literature, the concept of governance is often mixed up with the
NPM concept. Despite their interconnectedness, governance is, however,
distinguishable from NPM, stressing interaction and co-operation between
the many interdependent entities and actors of local policy making (Peters
and Pierre 1998).
In Denmark this multi-centring of local government is taking place by
way of delegation and decentralization of more or less delimited decision
making competence and responsibility from the central local government,
i.e. the elected local council and council committees, to the different produc-
ing and service-delivering institutions and their users, to voluntary associ-
ations and groups of citizens, setting the status of self-governing entities
within their respective domains of local policy making.
In the British context the new multi-centring and governance-orientation
of the traditional structure of local government goes hand in hand with a
limitation of authority for municipalities as political institutions of local
self-government. By means of central state regulations, local authorities
have been deprived of tasks and competence in favour of various private
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
LOCAL COUNCILLORS 111
agencies (Stewart and Stoker 1995). This has not been the case in Denmark.
On the contrary, as part of the modernization programmes, municipalities
have been granted new tasks as well as increased decision-making com-
petence regarding organization and management of public tasks and ser-
vices (Hansen 1997). Thus, in the Danish case, we can speak of a two-fold
decentralization from the central state to the local government level, as well
as from local government to a multitude of more or less self-governing
entities, networking together and with municipal authorities. To a large
degree, local councils have, themselves, renounced their increased munici-
pal competence within the various areas of service provision and task
fullment in favour of decentralized self- and user-governance.
This kind of multi-centred self- and user-governance along the vertical
line of reorganization is combined with a horizontal line covering a with-
drawal of detailed regulation from above in favour of superior goal steering
and economic frame regulation, giving new and increased latitude to the
self-governing institutions and units.
The dominant prole in Danish NPM restructuring at the local level
of government can be described as a combination of these two lines of
restructuring. It is illustrated by the lower-right quadrant of gure 2,
whereas the upper-left quadrant describes the traditional structure of
government at the local level.
As a result of these local restructurings, a new and combined model of
governing is taking shape at the local level. This model can be illustrated
FIGURE 2 Organizational principles of Danish restructuring at the local level
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
112 KARIN HANSEN
in the simplied and ideal-typical gure 3. The new model of governing
taking shape at the local level in Denmark consists of three main elements:
Decentral self-governance:
Decision-making competence and responsibility are being delegated to vari-
ous administrative and service-delivering institutions and units, such as
nurseries and schools, homes for the elderly, youth centres, etc. Decentral-
ized institutions are becoming more or less self-governing, taking over com-
petence and responsibility for their own nances and production. The
scope and degree of self-governance may vary from one eld to another, as
well as in and between different municipalities; just as private associations,
organizations and groups of citizens may be attributed various degrees of
competence and responsibility within demarcated domains of local govern-
ance.
User participation:
The self-governing competence of public institutions and units is carried
out in co-operation with users of public services. Users are given new rights
of participation as well as decision-making competence through elected
user councils and user boards that function as governing bodies of the insti-
tutions. Besides these formalized channels of participation, users have
inuence through more informal channels of participation and through user
surveys at the decentralized as well as at the central municipal level.
Central goal steering and economic frame regulation:
Decentralization delegates many detailed matters, traditionally assigned to
elected local councils, to the various administrative and service-delivering
institutions. Simultaneously, detailed regulations from above are being
revoked in favour of broad goals and economic frames determined by the
central, elected council. In various degrees of formalization, central goal
FIGURE 3 Combined governing model at the local level
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
LOCAL COUNCILLORS 113
steering by local councils is carried out in co-operation with the self-govern-
ing institutions and their users by way of procedures and forums of dia-
logue. This economic frame and political goal steering by elected local coun-
cils belongs to the realm of local self-government. The municipalities are,
however, not autonomous entities of local government. They interact and
negotiate with the central state government about overall public nances
and services, and municipal decisions regarding goals and economic frames
must comply with negotiated agreements and obey national laws and the
social rights of citizens indicated by the dotted lines in gure 3.
This combined model of governing recurs in various versions in many
Danish municipalities where the model has been implemented to various
degrees since the end of the 1980s. Decentralization of the service-
delivering institutions is the most prevalent element of Danish local govern-
ment reorganization and has been introduced in most municipalities. User
participation through formal user boards is instituted for primary schools,
day-care and services for the elderly. Besides these forms of user partici-
pation, other and less formalized types of user participation and inuence
are common in a wide range of service areas. Goal steering, embracing a
range of municipal tasks and services, has been introduced in about half
of the Danish municipalities (Sehested et al. 1992; Andersen 1996; Ejersbo
1997; Klausen and Stahlberg 1998).
A specic Danish NPM-model has taken shape at the local government
level; a model that entails a range of clear NPM-oriented and inspired
elements, but that deviates from the more general NPM discourse on sev-
eral points. The market-like elements of NPM are only modestly integrated
in the model, and the managerial elements are combined in a specic way,
stressing decentralized self- and user-governance within central goals
and frames.
This specic variant of NPM at the local government level in Denmark
also deviates from the kind of NPM-inspired restructuring and new models
of local government that have been instituted in Swedish and Norwegian
municipalities since the 1980s (Hansen 1999).
Compared to the Swedish local government restructuring, the weak inte-
gration of market-oriented restructuring comes to the fore. Although the
market-oriented NPM dimension has not been dominating in Sweden,
elements of contracting out, purchaser-provider models, and voucher sys-
tems have been introduced in a number of municipalities (Wise and Amna
1993; Montin 1990,1993,1997; Klausen and Stahlberg 1998). In addition, the
Swedish restructurings do not contain the same characteristics of decentral-
ized self- and user-governance.
This goes for the Norwegian restructurings too. Besides the little weight
given to decentralized self- and user-governance, Norwegian local govern-
ment restructurings have been less inspired by NPM ideas than has been
the case in Denmark and Sweden. The Norwegian local government
restructurings are more traditional public administration-oriented, stress-
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
114 KARIN HANSEN
ing municipalities as local implementation agencies of the central welfare
state (Baldersheim et al. 1997; Vabo and Opedal 1997; Vabo 1998). As a
result of the modernizing restructurings, the so-called Scandinavian model
of local government seems to have become less unitary, being restructured
in somewhat different directions.
In Denmark, management-oriented NPM reorganizations have caught on
at the local level, but not in a pure managerial version. The managerial
ideas and elements have been mixed with historically developed traditions
and institutionalized norms and forms of rather open government at the
local level, giving opportunities of participation and inuence to local
associations and groups of citizens and users of public services (Gundelach
and Torpe 1999). Thus, diverse forms of consultation and participation were
instituted as part of the local government reforms during the 1970s. The
NPM discourse has been articulated and interpreted within the existing
institutional reality of Danish local government, and the managerial rec-
ommendations have been translated into that reality. On the other hand,
this reality has been restructured and given form and colour by the NPM
discourse, attaining a specic NPM prole characterized by the combined
model of decentralized self- and user-governance and central goal and
frame steering.
NEW GOVERNING ROLES AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
The specic Danish NPM model at the local level of government institutes
a range of new governing roles for the different actors in local politics and
policy making:
Citizens are being instituted as users of public services. As users, citi-
zens have new specied rights to participate and inuence the various
service-delivering institutions and municipal sectors. They are given
formalized voice opportunities and competence as specially concerned
participants in the local decision- and policy-making processes.
Professionals and employees of municipal institutions and administrative
units have obtained more competence and responsibility as producers
of public services. This competence and responsibility are exercised in
accordance with the users of the services by way of new formal and
informal procedures of dialogue and co-operation. Thus, the formal
user boards consist of elected user and employee representatives.
Heads of various municipal institutions and units are attributed a new
and enhanced role as leaders and managers with more authority and
responsibility internally in regard to their own institution, as well as
externally in regard to leadership and management of the municipality
as a whole.
Central administrative staff of the municipality are turning into consult-
ants in relation to the decentralized, self-governing institutions and
producing units which they service within their respective realm of
administrative capacity.
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
LOCAL COUNCILLORS 115
Administrative chiefs have been assigned a new role of municipal leader-
ship and management as directors functioning as a forum of strategic
leadership and as advisers and sparring partners in relation to the pol-
itically elected council and the mayor. At the central level of municipal
administration and management, these new roles are often instituted
in combination with an abolition of the sector-oriented divisions and
departments of the traditional administrative structure in favour of
more cross-cutting and comprehensive units of service adminis-
tration.
Finally, local councillors have been attributed a new role as general goal-
steering decision-makers, formulating and deciding overall goals and spe-
cic objects as well as the nancial frames of the municipality. This
new goal-steering role of the councillors is commonly combined with
more or less formalized and developed procedures of dialogue
between the local council and different self-governing institutions and
their user boards. And often, the traditional standing sector committees
of the local council are abolished and restructured in favour of fewer,
more comprehensive committees in order to make the local council
function as a unied political forum.
According to the common perception and discourse of the new model
of local government, these sets of roles and relations will make local
government both more effective, more responsive and more democratic. More
and better services will be delivered for the money. The different needs
and preferences of the local citizens and users will come into focus. Local
government will be strengthened and democratized from below by the
development of new forms of participatory democracy for users of public
services and from above by a strengthening of local councillors as crucial
goal-steering decision and policy makers.
As such a promising form of government, this NPM-inspired model and
set of governing roles have been propagated by a host of municipal organi-
zation experts and consultants during the past decade of public and local
government modernization. No wonder the new governing model and
roles have caught on and that municipalities have sought to institute them
in various versions and to various degrees.
Whether the new governing model at the local level will have the prom-
ised effects in efciency and democracy from below will not be discussed
further here. The focus turns to the new leadership role for local councillors
that is being instituted as part of this NPM-inspired restructuring of local
government.
THE NPM ROLE OF LOCAL COUNCILLORS
Generally, the new leadership role of goal steering is seen as strengthening
elected councillors as primary political decision and policy makers in local
government, and thus strengthening political democracy at the local level.
The alleged strengthening of local councillors is based on a new NPM
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
116 KARIN HANSEN
distinction between political and administrative decision making and on
a separation of the roles of elected politicians and public administrators
and service providers. Politics and political decision making are seen, on
the one hand, as the making of overall goals and objects for the general
development and the various public services and tasks of the municipality.
On the other hand, administration and administrative decision making
are seen as operational management and running of concrete service pro-
vision and task performance in accordance with the political goals of the
elected councillors.
According to the NPM discourse, these two kinds of political and
administrative decision making and roles must not be mixed. Politicians
must not interfere with the detailed matters of service delivery and task
performance, giving the administrative and professional staffs and units of
the municipality increased competence and latitude to do what they are
good at, namely manage and operate task performance and service deliv-
ery. Delegating management and operational competence to the various
service-delivering institutions and task-performing entities will simul-
taneously give the elected politicians more time and opportunities to do
what they are good at and elected to do, namely make politics and policy.
This new distinction and separation of politics and administration has
really resonated at the local government level.
Historically and constitutionally, such a distinction and separation of
political vs. administrative competence and decision making has not been
instituted as part of the local government structure. Contrary to the consti-
tutional separation between political and executive authority at the central
state level, the local council has as an elected assembly of representatives
and ombudsmen of the local citizens been granted complete political as
well as administrative competence and responsibility to handle local affairs.
Since the local government reform of 1970, which entailed a new statute
for municipalities, this competence has been implemented by a number of
standing council committees, in charge of the immediate administration
and management of their respective elds and realms of municipal auth-
ority. Increasingly, executive and administrative competence has been del-
egated to professional staffs and units. Decisions in concrete cases and
detailed matters have, however, remained a signicant share of the work
of elected councils and standing committees. Because of the growing num-
ber of public tasks and services allocated to municipalities during the wel-
fare state expansion of the 1970s and the new wave of modernizing decent-
ralization from central state to local government in the 1980s (Hansen 1997),
local councillors became ever more buried in detailed matters and concrete
case work throughout the 1980s which encouraged increasing sector spe-
cialization by elected councillors.
This combination of overload by detailed matters and increasing sector
orientation attracted growing criticism of local councillors, who were
accused of playing case workers and administrators, leaving important
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
LOCAL COUNCILLORS 117
political issues to professional administrators who were in turn, accused of
playing politicians.
Against this background, the NPM discourse about what is political and
what is not, as well as the propagated new role of councillors as goal-
steering policy and decision makers, elicited a positive response in the
municipal world. The new separation of politics and administration became
a sesame and an answer to the problematic state of local government
affairs with its unclear mixing of roles, growing overload of detailed mat-
ters and increasing sector specialization by local councillors.
However, efforts to institute a new goal-steering role for local councillors
have been far from successful. Generally, local councillors have experienced
many difculties in their attempts to adapt to the recommended role of
goal-steering. But sooner or later, we will be able to handle it and get a
better grasp on political goal steering. We just arent used to it and havent
learned it yet, the councillors console themselves and each other in the
face of accusations of falling back on and continuing their involvement in
concrete, detailed matters of municipal administration and management.
The question is whether the difculties experienced by local councillors
are just a matter of getting used to and learning their new role of general
goal-steering political leadership. Two sets of problems may be raised in
connection with this new role:
the role of goal-steering decision making does not t well into the
reality of democratic politics and public decision making at the local
level.
the new leadership role of local councillors does not match the demo-
cratic challenges of a local governance structure.
These two sets of problems will be discussed below.
GOAL STEERING AND DEMOCRATIC POLITICS AND DECISION-
MAKING AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
From one perspective, municipalities may be seen as service-delivering enti-
ties that are and may be governed from above by objects and goals which
function as guiding principles for the management and delivery of services
by different producing municipal units. This is the perspective of the NPM-
oriented reforms of local government. The municipalities are, however, also
democratic political institutions, organizing public and common concerns
of the citizens of the municipality. This perspective is absent or neglected
in the NPM discourse.
Concurrently, local councillors are more than goal- and decision-making
leaders of various service-delivering institutions. They are elected represen-
tatives of the plurality of opinions and interests of the citizens as regards
the common concerns and affairs of the municipality. Making the plurality
of voices, opinions and interests heard, making them agree and compro-
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
118 KARIN HANSEN
mise in public deliberation and decision making may be seen as the bottom-
line of democratic politics and policy making.
From this democratic and political perspective, the distinguishing dimen-
sion of the role of elected councillors is to be able to comprehend a subject
matter from different points of view, to consider them, to compromise con-
icting interests and judge what is most reasonable and appropriate in a
given situation. And this is what local councillors learn in practical political
life and what they are trying to do well in local political decision making.
This genuine political and democratic dimension of the role and skills of
elected councillors is not easily combined with the propagated role of goal-
steering. First, when public decision and policy making takes the form and
character of setting overall goals for the development of the various tasks
and services in the municipality, politics and policy making are raised to
a level above the many different opinions and conicting interests of the
municipality. As a rule, different opinions and interests are not articulated
and confronted at the level of overall goals and objects. At this abstract
level, agreement is often easily arrived at and the need to listen to, argue
with and reconcile the many different points of view and interests is not
at stake. So the particular and distinguishing political skills of the local
councillors are difcult to bring out and develop in the determination of
overall goals for municipal service delivery and task performance. Second,
as a result of the NPM separation of politics and administration, local coun-
cillors lose touch with real life in the task-performing and service-delivering
municipal institutions and with the different opinions and interests mani-
fested at this decentralized and concrete level of local government. They
are dealt with by the self-governing administrative institutions and their
users, and are of no concern to the central political level of the local council
and the councillors.
Although the reorganized municipalities have instituted more or less for-
malized procedures of dialogue between the central, goal-steering level of
the local council and the decentralized level of the self-governing insti-
tutions and user boards, the contact between these two levels of local
government has faded, both from the point of view of the local councillors
and of the service-delivering institutions and their users.
With the delegation of self-governing competence and responsibility to
the service institutions, they have become their own masters within the
overall goals and frames decided upon by the local council. The ipside is
being left alone at home. The same might be said for local councils and
councillors as central goal and decision makers. Because of weak contact
and missing information and knowledge about what is going on at insti-
tution and user level, it becomes difcult for local councillors to relate their
goal-steering efforts to the real-life problems of institutions and users.
Goal making and steering by local councils and councillors can easily
become irrelevant to and out of touch with what is going on out there, in
service-delivering institutions, among users of various services and among
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
LOCAL COUNCILLORS 119
citizens in general. Thus, many local councillors see their goal-steering
efforts as more or less meaningless and many have become pessimistic
about their promising new leadership role as goal-steering decision makers.
But we just have to learn how to do it and get better, the optimists say.
Maybe they will get better, but so far, the new role has apparently not
strengthened local councillors as primary political decision makers. Instead,
local councillors have, as goal-steering decision makers, become more
lonely and invisible in local political life. They seem to be passive
bystanders, while local politics and policy making goes on anywhere but
at the level of central goal steering of local councils and councillors.
So local councillors are searching high and low for new ways that may
revitalize their role as important political actors and decision makers in
local government. They have no intention of returning to the traditional
role as case workers, preoccupied with and getting buried in detailed mat-
ters of service delivery and task performance. Returning to the good old
days is not seen as any solution to the problems of losing touch with reality
in local politics and decision making.
Municipalities and local councillors invest much talent in various efforts
to make the new role of goal making and steering more politically meaning-
ful and important in relation to real-life problems in local politics and policy
making. Attempts are being made to concretize and operationalize the over-
all goals, making goal decisions by the local council more intervening and
steering for concrete services and outcomes of institutions. Often, this is
recommended to local councillors as the way to make their goal-steering
role more relevant and important.
Other attempts are being made to improve the contact between the cen-
tral level of the local council and the real-life problems of different service
institutions, users and citizens in general. Information and dialogue pro-
cedures are being elaborated and remedied in order to render the local
councillors more visible and more aware of what is going on.
Generally, such efforts to make the goal-steering role of local councillors
more politically important and meaningful are in line with a government-
oriented perspective. A search is on for new ways and means to bring
elected councillors back on stage and to the centre of local decision and
policy making. Instituting the NPM concept of a goal-steering political lead-
ership role has turned out to be problematic in regard to the promised
strengthening of local councillors as political leaders and that is what local
councillors are searching for, i.e. new ways and means to reinvent govern-
ment and get back in to the centre of local policy making without
returning to the traditional institutional structure and roles of local govern-
ment.
The big question is, however, whether such efforts of reinventing
government are what is needed to meet the new challenges of political
democracy and decision making at the local level. This question will be
discussed in the following and last section of the article, including some
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
120 KARIN HANSEN
tentative arguments for another new role for elected councillors one
which may be called a new governance role.
THE NEW CHALLENGES OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE AT
THE LOCAL LEVEL
As illustrated in gure 2, the modernizing reorganizations since the late
1980s have changed the traditional structure of local government towards
an emerging new structure of local governance. The formal-constitutional
centre of political authority and decision making has been reorganized into
or supplemented with a decentralized and multi-centred structure of
governance, consisting of a range of more or less self-governing institutions
and entities, being in charge of their own affairs.
No doubt, this kind of reorganization has come to stay. The different
service-delivering institutions have no intention of giving up their self-gov-
erning competence and responsibility. Neither have the users; nor the local
councillors. The new institutional forms of local self- and user-governance
from below can hardly be rolled back to the traditional form of local
government from above. Even if local political opinion and wills should
change in favour of a recentralization of the delegated competence and
responsibility, local political decision making has become too complex an
affair to be handled by one centre of authority, governing from above on
behalf of the citizens of the municipality.
If public decision and policy making are no longer within the solitary
sphere of one centre of local authority and not to be controlled from above
by the local council and the elected councillors, this new fact of decentring
and multicentrism of local decision and policy making must be recognized
and taken into account. The democratic challenge is to make and how to
make the plurality of decision-making entities on different levels and
elds of competence accountable, not only to their own but to the common
concerns of the municipality. In order to meet this challenge two things
seem important.
First, and contrary to the NPM discourse and demarcation of what is
political and what is not, the various self-governing entities, institutions
and users must be recognized as political and governing entities and actors
along with the elected councillors. They should be seen and accepted as
more than just administrative and managerial. Local government and
decision making must be recognized as and take institutional form and
character of local co-governance between the elected councillors and the
many other units and actors of local governance. To comprehend a subject
matter from different points of view, to take these into account and to make
judgements in regard to a reasonable and fair course of action must also
become a concern and skill of the many governing entities and actors of
the municipality. The specic political skills of the elected representatives
must be learned by and become a skill of all actors and participants in local
governance. Authoritative public decision and policy making cannot be left
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
LOCAL COUNCILLORS 121
to the local council and to the elected councillors as the one and only gov-
erning body, in charge of and accountable for the common and public con-
cerns of the municipality. This is what the NPM discourse and the concept
of a new political role of goal-steering leadership is advocating, disre-
garding the genuine political and democratic dimension of public decision
making as well as the emerging new fact of a de-centred structure of polit-
ical decision making and governance.
Second, elected councillors need a new governance role. Instead of being
strengthened as central political leaders and decision makers, governing
from above, elected councillors must become participant co-governors, con-
tributing to public-oriented interactions between the many institutions and
actors in local governance. The traditional vertical political relations and
interactions from above and below between elected councillors and voting
citizens must be supplemented with lateral relations and interactions
among institutions, professionals and users, who become politically inte-
grated into, and made publicly accountable for, the common and public
concerns of the municipality and the citizenry.
Without such political integration of the decentralized institutions and
users, and without development of a public structure of co-governance
between local councillors and the many self-governing institutions and
units, there is a risk of growing fragmentation and exclusivity, which is
inherent in the local structure of self- and user-governance, as well as of
increasing marginalization of elected councillors who will be decoupled
from the political problems and opinions out there among the decentred
entities and actors in the local governance structure.
This new governance role for local councillors emphasizes other role
dimensions than the ones that are being stressed by the NPM discourse
and the concept of political leadership from above.
In a local governance structure local councillors have as elected rep-
resentatives of the citizens to become guardians of the all-embracing, pub-
lic concerns of the municipality, ensuring that the plurality of opinions and
interests have voice opportunities and that no one is excluded from the de-
centred processes of public opinion and decision making. No other body
or institution than the elected council can full such a guardian role, and
accepting this role has become ever more important because of the inherent
tendency towards particular and exclusive self- and user-interests in a local
governance structure.
To be guardians of public concerns and the plurality of opinions and
interests in local governance is, to some extent, more a matter of procedure
than of substance. Thus, an important dimension of the new governance
role of the councillors is one of organizing and staging public decision and
policy making at the different levels and elds of local governance, ensur-
ing a public deliberation in and between the many decision-making entities
and actors.
As regards the substance and subject matter of local governance and
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
122 KARIN HANSEN
decision making, local councillors must rather become active participants
in processes of public opinion and political will making than important
goal and decision makers. Besides making central decisions about budgets
and economic frames of the municipality as well as other public decisions
that may not be delegated to decentralized self- and user-governance, coun-
cillors must participate and engage in public deliberations about common
concerns of the municipality, ensuring that all citizens get an opportunity
to voice their opinions and interests, and that the plurality of voices are
considered on various levels and elds of local decision and policy making.
These governance dimensions of the role of local councillors are absent
from or neglected in the NPM concept of political leadership and are not
met by the various efforts to strengthen and reinvent government. To
develop and institute such a new role for local councillors, combining
government and governance in an institutional structure of local co-
governance, is one of the big challenges to the emerging new structure of
governance at the local level.
CONCLUSION
In the case of Denmark, the specic NPM reorganizations of local govern-
ment have restructured local government towards a more de-centred struc-
ture of local governance, characterized by increased self- and user-govern-
ance for various municipal service institutions and task-performing units
and organizations. Rather than strengthening elected councillors as central
and crucial goal-steering leaders, as advocated by the NPM discourse and
aimed at by the various efforts to reinvent government, this restructuring
calls for a new kind of governance role for local councillors.
In order to meet the problems of self-governing fragmentation and exclu-
sivity inherent in a de- and multi-centred local governance structure, the
institutional structures of government and governance must be combined
into a new structure of local co-governance giving the elected council and
councillors a role as co-governors and guardians of the all-embracing, pub-
lic concerns and the plurality of interests and opinions in municipalities.
Local councils and councillors cannot be the only governing body in charge
of and accountable for the public and common concerns of the municipality.
As elected representatives, the councillors are, however, the only body that
can ll a role as guardians of common and public concerns and voice
opportunities of all opinions and interests.
This guardian role has become more important than ever for ensuring
and developing a democratic form of governance at the local level.
How to develop a new combined structure of local co-governance and
how to institute a new governance role for elected councillors seem to have
become some of the great challenges implied by the ongoing NPM-oriented
restructurings at the local government level.
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
LOCAL COUNCILLORS 123
REFERENCES
Andersen, Vibeke N. 1996. Udbredelse af nye styringsinstrumenter i de danske kommuner. Institut for konomi,
Politik og Forvaltning, A

lborg Universitet.
Baldersheim, Harald et al. (eds.). 1997. Kommunalt selvstyre i velferdsstaten. Otta: Tano-Aschehoug.
Christensen, Tom and Per Lgreid. 1998. Den moderne forvaltning om reformer i sentralforvaltningen.
Oslo: Tano.
Dunleavy, Patrick. 1997. The globalization of public service production: can government be best in world
in A. Massey (ed.), Globalizaton and marketization of government services. Comparing contemporary public
sector developments. London: MacMillan Press.
Ejersbo, Niels (ed.). 1997. Politikere, ledere, og professionelle i kommunerne. Effekter af struktur-ndringer. Viborg:
Odense Universitetsforlag.
Gundelach, Peter and Lars Torpe. 1999. Befolkningens fornemmelser for demokrati: foreninger, politisk
engagement og demokratisk kultur in Jrgen Goul Andersen et al. (eds.), Den demokratiske udfordring.
Copenhagen: Reitzels forlag.
Hansen, Karin. 1997. The municipality between central state and local self-government: towards a new
municipality, Local Government Studies 23, 4 (winter).
. 1999. New Public Management pa det kommunale niveau: En dansk NPM-model, Nordisk Administra-
tivt Tidsskrift 2.
Kickert, Walter J.M. 1997. Public management in the United States and Europe in W.J.M. Kickert (ed.),
Public management and administrative reform in Western Europe. Chelterham: Edward Elgar.
Klausen, Kurt K. and Krister Stahlberg. (eds.). 1998. New Public Management i Norden. Nye organisations- og
ledelsesformer i den decentrale velfrdsstat. Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag.
Montin, Stig. 1990. Den kommunale multiorganisationen om nya normer och institutioner i kommunerna
under 1980-talet, Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift 93, 3.
. 1993. Swedish local government in transition. The series O

rebro Studies. O

rebro: University of O

rebro.
. 1997. New Public Management pa svenska, Politica 29, 3.
Olsen, Johan P. 1990. Demokrati pa svenska. Stockholm: Carlssons Fo rlag.
. 1991. Modernisation Programmes in Perspective, Governance 4, 2.
. 1992. Utfordringer for offentlig sektor og for statsvitenskapen. Noen sentrale sprgsmal og problemstillinger.
LOS-senter Notat 92/46.
Olsen, Johan P. and B. Guy Peters. 1996. Lessons form experience. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press.
Peters, B. Guy and Jon Pierre. 1998. Governance without government? Rethinking public administration,
Journal of Public Administration 8, 2.
Rhodes, R.A.W. 1998. Understanding governance. Policy networks, governance, reexivity and accountability.
Buckingham: Open University Press.
. 2000. Governance and public administration in J. Pierre (ed.), Debating governance. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Sehested, Karina et al. 1992. Effekter af strukturndringer i kommuner. AKF-rapport. Copenhagen: AKF-forlag-
et.
Stewart, John and Gerry Stoker. 1995. Fifteen years of local government restructuring 19791994: an evalu-
ation in John Stewart and Gerry Stoker (eds.), Local government in the 1990s. London: MacMillan.
Stoker, Gerry (ed.). 2000. The new politics of British local governance. London: MacMillan.
Vabo, Signy I (ed.). 1998. Nasjonale ideologier bak endringene i kommunesektoren. En dokumentstudie fra Dan-
mark, Norge og Sverige, NIBR, AKF. Oslo: Novemus.
Vabo, Signy I. and Stahle Opedal. 1997. Oppfatninger om forholdet mellem staten og kommunene, En dokuments-
tudie, NIBR-Notat, 112.
Wise, Charles R. and Erik Amna. 1993. New managerialism in Swedish local government, in Scandinavian
Political Studies 16, 4.
Date received 26 November 1999. Date accepted 17 April 2000.
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001