ABSTRACT
In 1995 one of us edited a book Local Government in Eastern Europe: Establishing Democracy at the Grassroots (Coulson, 1995). It described, and reflected on, the recreation of local government following the revolutions of 1989 and 1990. It included studies of local government in the different countries, alongside thematic discussions of finance for local government in Hungary, city government in Russia, economic development in Slovakia, and community participation in Poland. When that book was published, local government in what we now call
Central and Eastern Europe (the term Central Europe reflecting confidence and a refusal to be marginalised or pushed to the far boundaries of Europe) was a new and exotic plant. Local leadership, and local democracy – the people electing their own leadership – was a radical departure from the centralisation of power under communism. The right to have local elections had been quickly enshrined in the new constitutions, and a new cohort of local politicians had been elected. Many professional people had given up time or careers to stand as mayors in their home towns or villages. It became clear then that what was occurring in Central and Eastern
Europe in terms of local government was not simply the democratisation of a level of government, nor the direct transfer of institutional models from Western Europe. Rather it was the rediscovery and reinvention of the purpose and rationale of local government, seen as playing a central role in the political and social life of the country, bridging the state and civil society. In the early years this may have seemed distant from the realities of the mainstream of contemporary local government in Western Europe. In retrospect the rediscovery of local democracy in Central and Eastern Europe may be seen as having helped to strengthen the institution of local government internationally in ways that perhaps need to be rediscovered in the wider Europe.
