Mayors facing local government reforms: from muncipal organization leadership to public management transformation processes

Abstract

Local public authorities have traditionally been an area for experimenting with reforms of varying impact for the overall institutional framework. In implementing these reforms, a prominent part has been taken by mayors in their role as the highest-ranking officials in their organisations. This article reports evidence for, and reflects on, the connection between the figure of the Spanish mayor (in the way mayors perceive their own role) and their relations with both the municipal governments they head and the processes of transformation to which these governments are exposed. Based on data obtained from the project entitled “Political Leaders in European Cities”, concerned with identifying mayors' attitudes towards several aspects of local government, this article develops its argument in two stages. In the first stage, we describe the profiles of Spanish mayors, with a prime focus on how they perceive their functions and the importance they attach to their role as managers of the local authority. In the second stage, we analyze the connection between these perceptions and the relations the mayors establish with the local authority (that is, the relations between politicians and public executives and governmental employees). Finally, based on the classifications made, the positions taken up by mayors in relation to various processes of government reform are determined. The conclusions allow for various scenarios of administrative reform to be established based on the degree of involvement of the respective mayors, and they also point to further lines of research.