Economic Efficiency Versus Local Democracy? An Evaluation of Structural Change and Local Democracy in Australian Local Government

Title
Economic Efficiency Versus Local Democracy? An Evaluation of Structural Change and Local Democracy in Australian Local Government
Publication Date
2010
Author(s)
Dollery, Brian E
Grant, Bligh
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd
Place of publication
India
DOI
10.1177/02601079X11002300102
UNE publication id
une:8363
Abstract
The debate on local government reform in Australia has been characterised by a dichotomy between arguments for increasing economic efficiency, largely through compulsory consolidation, and concern for the erosion of local democracy through the formation of larger local government entities. After providing a synoptic account of the Australian debate on structural reform and economic efficiency in local government, this paper considers the impact on local democracy of policies aimed at enhancing local government efficiency through amalgamation through the prism of four different models of democracy for local government ('representative', 'participatory', 'user' and 'network') developed by Haus and Sweeting (2006). It is argued that a more positive assessment of reform outcomes is possible provided we conceive of local democracy, and in particular local representation, in broad rather than narrow terms. However, any embrace of 'network democracy' or 'network governance' has to be tempered with caution.
Link
Citation
Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, 23(1), p. 1-20
ISSN
2321-5305
0260-1079
Start page
1
End page
20

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