ABSTRACT
People knowledge of the nature of local political leadership in modern democracies based on systematic comparative scholarship is limited. Central-local government relationships in the three countries differ greatly and should be kept in mind constantly in interpreting our data. The three countries are: the US, Sweden and the Netherlands. The evolution of local government forms and the status of local units of government in the system vary considerably for the three systems. The three systems are: US System Swedish System and Dutch System. In the United States (US) the nature of the expansion of local government has been rather paradoxical, according to Thomas Anton. The comparative study of the values of local political elites in the US, India, Poland, and Yugoslavia directed by Philip Jacob, referred to earlier, explored techniques for the measurement of elite values and attempted to link them to community participation and innovative outputs.
