Measuring Local Autonomy in 39 Countries (1990–2014)

A composite index of formal sovereignty for small islands and coastal territories

“…Arguably, coding for legal sovereignty can be done more easily than for de facto sovereignty, which is more subjective. Among other examples, coding formal institutions and rules is the basis of Hooghe et al's (2010) Regional Authority Index, Ladner et al's (2016) Local Autonomy Index for subnational administrations, and Cukierman's (2009) index of the legal independence of central banks. Our general principles are borrowed from these works.…”

“…Hooghe et al (2010Hooghe et al ( , 2016 present in detail their methodology and explain that making the coding explicit allows replication, amendment, and/or refutation. Ladner et al (2015Ladner et al ( , 2016 developed an index for measuring and comparing local autonomy in 39 European countries partially following the work of Hooghe et al (2010). They used a network of experts to assess the autonomy of local governments of their respective countries on the basis of a common code book covering 11 subcomponents of various aspects of local autonomy.…”

“…Scoring from coding institutions and rules is, among other examples, the basis of Hooghe et al's (2010) Regional Authority Index, Ladner et al's (2016) Local Autonomy Index, and Cukierman's (2009) index for the legal independence of central banks. We follow the general principles of the methodology of these works to build our index.…”

Municipally Owned Enterprises as Danger Zones for Corruption? How Politicians Having Feet in Two Camps May Undermine Conditions for Accountability

“…Although a unitary state, local self-government is stressed in the Swedish constitution (Chap. 1, §1), and municipalities enjoy a comparatively high degree of policy-making autonomy and financial independence (Ladner, Keuffer, & Baldersheim, 2016). Additionally, local governments have been made responsible for core areas in the welfare state (e.g., preschool; elementary school; upper secondary school; social services; and care for the elderly).…”

Doing Comparative Research on Local Politics

“…A recent comparative research project (Ladner et al, 2016) has in turn led to the development of a local autonomy index (LAI) for about 40 countries (including all EU-member states) for the period 1990-2014. The index describes (substantial changes in) the extent of place-bound discretion through 11 aspects: institutional depth, policy scope, effective policy discretion, fiscal autonomy, financial transfer system, financial self-reliance, borrowing autonomy, organisational autonomy, legal protection, administrative supervision, and central or regional access.…”