Parliaments in Disguise? How German Councillors perceive Local Councils

Topic Coverage of Coalition Agreements in Multi-Level Settings: The Case of Germany

“…8 Note that the institutional setting at the German local level with a directly elected mayor and a local council is a neither a pure presidential nor a pure parliamentarian system (Bäck, 2005;Egner 2015) but rather a 'mixed democracy' (Gross and Debus, 2018a) or 'institutional hybrid' (Egner, 2015) between a 'quasi-presidential' (Benz and Zimmer, 2011;Egner and Stoiber, 2008) or a 'semi-presidential' (Debus and Gross, 2016;Bäck, 2005) government system, depending on which German state authors are primarily basing their analysis on. This does not change, however, the equivalence of local coalition agreements to coalition agreements at the federal and state level because local government parties can still shape policy-making and portfolio allocation at the local level, even if the directly elected mayor is from an opposing party.…”

“…This does not change, however, the equivalence of local coalition agreements to coalition agreements at the federal and state level because local government parties can still shape policy-making and portfolio allocation at the local level, even if the directly elected mayor is from an opposing party. 9 For a detailed justification why cities in Germany with at least 100,000 inhabitants are 'parliaments in disguise' and why parties frequently form coalitions see Egner (2015) and Gross (2018). Note that coalition agreements at the local level were not always publicly available, thus we might be slightly underestimating the number of coalition agreements at the local level.…”

Local Councillors and Citizens. An exploratory study of the interaction between councillors and citizens in 4 municipalities in the Meuse-Rhine Euregion

“…He examines to what extent local councillors perceive themselves as local members of parliament implying that local councils resemble parliaments. Looking at classical functions of parliaments, Egner (2015) highlights that "interest representation is quite important for German councillors" (p. 192). Depending on the political orientation councillors claim to represent specific interests such as those of ethnic minorities in the case of councillors from the political left.…”

“…Depending on the political orientation councillors claim to represent specific interests such as those of ethnic minorities in the case of councillors from the political left. Moreover, Egner (2015) shows that councillors are usually members of local organisations, sport clubs and church being the most common, and thus engage with local society (p. 193).…”

Aktuelle Reformen lokaler Politik

“…B. Egner 2014;Egner und Heinelt 2008;Getimis und Hlepas 2013;Haus und Heinelt 2002;Heinelt 2013c). Empirische Befunde zur Wahrnehmung kommunaler Handlungsspielräume vor allem im deutschen Kontext liegen dagegen -von wenigen Ausnahmen abgesehen (z.…”