ABSTRACT

The local government reforms introduced around 1990 took the standard Western form as their model: the institutions for local service provision based on local political pluralism and a certain amount of local autonomy and discretion in policy-making and revenue-raising. A widespread distrust or official institutions seems to have been earned over into the post-communist societies, leading especially to a personalization of political processes that may pave the ground for the appeal of populism and caesarism as political styles. The posts of local councilors and local government officials belonged to the nomenklatura, which meant that the persons occupying them had to be approved by the responsible communist party authority. Decentralization of government and renewal of local democracy are vital elements of transformation in East-Central Europe. Transformation of local democracy in alternative potential model is viewed as the result of diffusion of political innovation from the centers to the periphery.