IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/flgsxx/v43y2017i4p555-576.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Territorial upscaling of local governments: a variable-oriented approach to explaining variance among Western European countries

Author

Listed:
  • Jostein Askim
  • Jan Erling Klausen
  • Signy Irene Vabo
  • Karl Bjurstrøm

Abstract

Local government systems change at varying speeds. While some countries have dramatically reduced the number of local governments during a short period of time, other countries have seen only incremental change or relative inertia. A number of explanations for structural change have been put forward in the comparative local government literature, but these explanations have to a small extent been tested empirically. This article uses statistical indicators to analyse changes in the local government systems in 17 Western European countries between 2004 and 2014. Some often-cited explanations for what drives structural change receive little support. Still, the article demonstrates that changes tend to occur in situations marked by different combinations of decentralisation, urbanisation, fiscal stress and a recent history of territorial upscaling.

Suggested Citation

  • Jostein Askim & Jan Erling Klausen & Signy Irene Vabo & Karl Bjurstrøm, 2017. "Territorial upscaling of local governments: a variable-oriented approach to explaining variance among Western European countries," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(4), pages 555-576, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:flgsxx:v:43:y:2017:i:4:p:555-576
    DOI: 10.1080/03003930.2017.1310102
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03003930.2017.1310102
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/03003930.2017.1310102?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tavares Antonio F., 2018. "Municipal amalgamations and their effects: a literature review," Miscellanea Geographica. Regional Studies on Development, Sciendo, vol. 22(1), pages 5-15, March.
    2. Gianluca Egidi & Sirio Cividino & Sabato Vinci & Adele Sateriano & Rosanna Salvia, 2020. "Towards Local Forms of Sprawl: A Brief Reflection on Mediterranean Urbanization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-16, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:flgsxx:v:43:y:2017:i:4:p:555-576. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/flgs .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.