local government

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local government

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

local government political administration of the smallest subdivisions of a country's territory and population.

Characteristics and Types

Although there are special-purpose local government bodies (e.g., school boards in the United States), more important are those that carry out a broad range of public activities within a defined area and population. Almost all such local government bodies share certain characteristics: a continuing organization; the authority to undertake public activities; the ability to enter into contracts; the right to sue and be sued; and the ability to collect taxes and determine a budget. Areas of local government authority usually include public schools, local highways, municipal services, and some aspects of social welfare and public order. An important distinction among types of local government is that between representative bodies, which are elected locally and have decision-making authority, and nonrepresentative bodies, which are either appointed from above or, if elected locally, have no independent governing authority. While most countries have complex systems of local government, those of France and Great Britain have served as models for much of the rest of the world.

The French System

The French system is among the most nonrepresentative. Its basic structure, codified by Napoleon I, developed out of the need of revolutionary France to curtail the power of local notables, while hastening government reform. It stresses clear lines of authority, reaching from the central government's ministry of the interior through the centrally appointed prefect of the department to the municipality, which has a locally elected mayor and municipal council. The prefect, being both the chief executive of the department and the representative of the central bureaucracy, provides the channel of centralization, with wide authority to overrule local councils and supervise local expenditures. Variants of this system are found throughout Europe and in former French colonies.

The British System

The British system of local government, which has been the model for most of that country's former colonies, including the United States, is the most representative of the major types. Largely reformed in the 19th cent. and extensively restructured in the 1970s, the system stresses local government autonomy through elected councils on the county and subcounty levels. This system was marked by less central government interference and greater local budgetary authority than in other systems. However, in 1986, six major county governments were abolished by Parliament, while the powers of others were restricted. A special feature of the British system is its use of an extensive committee system, instead of a strong executive, for supervising the administration of public services.

Despite differences among states, local governments of the United States follow the general principles of the British system, except that a strong executive is common. The county remains the usual political subdivision, although it has retained more authority in rural than in urban areas, where incorporated municipalities (see city government ) have most of the local power. In both rural and urban areas the local government's relationship to the state is a complex one of shared authority and carefully defined areas of legal competence. Local governments are pulled two ways, increasingly reliant on state and federal funding to carry out their expected duties, while fearful of losing their traditional degree of local control.

Bibliography

See J. J. Clarke, A History of Local Government of the United Kingdom (1955); D. Lockard, The Politics of State and Local Government (2d ed. 1969); S. Humes and E. Martin, The Structure of Local Government (1969); R. D. Bingham, State and Local Government in an Urban Society (1986); N. Henry, Governing the Grassroots (3d ed. 1987); R. H. Leach and T. G. O'Rourke, State and Local Government (1988).

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"local government." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 12 Nov. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

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local government

The Oxford Companion to Irish History | 2007 | © The Oxford Companion to Irish History 2007, originally published by Oxford University Press 2007. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

local government. Although considerably changed, the county and the borough remain the focus of local administration seven centuries after they were introduced by the Anglo‐Normans.

The county (French comté) was first introduced into the areas of Ireland that were reserved to the crown by Henry II and John, lord of Ireland. Dublin was organized as a county by the 1190s, if not earlier. In 1206 a boundary commission was established to determine the border between the kingdoms of Cork and Limerick, no doubt with a view to dividing Munster into the two counties that appear in the records shortly afterwards: Cork with Waterford, and Limerick with Tipperary. Outside the royal demesne, the liberties or palatinates of Leinster and Ulster were subsequently subdivided into counties under private jurisdiction, so that by the end of the 13th century only the Gaelic north‐west remained unshired. A uniquely Irish aspect of the county system was the introduction of the counties of the cross in the 14th century. Governed by royal sheriffs, they consisted of scattered church lands (‘crosslands’) inside the liberties. Thus, for example, there were two counties of Tipperary: the county of the liberty of Tipperary under a sheriff appointed by, and answerable to, the earl of Ormond; and a county of the cross of Tipperary, under a sheriff appointed by the crown.

The county was divided into cantreds or baronies, which corresponded to the hundreds in English counties. In each cantred the sheriff presided twice a year over a court called the tourn, where he inquired into the alienation of royal jurisdiction by feudal or ecclesiastical courts, breaches of the peace, burglaries, homicides, and abuses of power or neglect of duty by royal officials such as serjeants, who served writs, or coroners, who kept a record of the pleas of the crown.

The county court, summoned once a month, was attended by those who owed suit in virtue of their tenure. While its judicial importance was greatly reduced by the introduction of the assizes in the 13th century, it retained important public functions: proclamations, elections, outlawries, and (probably) consent to local subsidies in time of war.

The second pillar of local government was the Anglo‐Norman borough. Every borough had its own hundred court and corporate protections against outside interference secured by charter. Between 1171 and 1229 Dublin achieved a large measure of self‐government through successive royal charters, including the right to elect a mayor.

Early modern local government continued to be organized through the counties, those of medieval origin being supplemented by a larger number created between 1542 and 1606. A few medieval towns, such as Dublin, Galway, and Carrickfergus, were regarded as counties. Within the county the principal royal official was the sheriff, appointed annually from the landowners of the county by the privy council with the advice of the justices of assize. The sheriff was the link between central government and the localities, receiving and executing writs from Dublin and collecting certain royal taxes for which he accounted at the exchequer at the end of his term. He was assisted by a number of subsheriffs. The sheriff was also responsible for the operation of law within the county, including jail delivery at the assize, and for executing writs from the assize. In time of war the powers of the sheriff were considerably augmented by grants of martial law which might be exercised by provosts marshal. During the 17th century another county institution, the grand jury, emerged. Originally drawn from the freeholders to approve indictments at the assizes, it became responsible for bridge building and raised local taxes (the ‘county charge’, later ‘cess’) for this purpose.

Two areas were exempt from these structures. The palatinate of Tipperary, finally abolished in 1716, had its own officials and procedures, as had the major ecclesiastical liberties of Dublin, such as St Sepulchre's (abolished 1856). The second exemption was the provincial presidencies of Connacht and Munster (abolished in 1672) which had their own system of administration. At a local level three institutions were important. Where there was a Church of Ireland presence the parish, through the meeting of the parish vestry, exercised some local government functions through its officials, including the churchwardens and parish constable. The vestry was responsible for local taxation, poor relief, and the maintenance of roads, and in some larger urban parishes watches were established. Secondly, the great estate through its manorial structures such as the court leet and court baron provided ways of obtaining legal redress for grievances and in some small Ulster towns formed a layer of urban government. Thirdly, urban government through corporations, of which over 80 were erected in the reign of James I, provided a wide range of services including franchisal courts.

During the 18th century the grand jury became more significant as more duties were assigned to it, including responsibility for roads and provision for the sick and the poor. Concern about standards of public health in the early 19th century led to legislation requiring grand juries to provide certain facilities, such as fever hospitals, under the supervision of central government.

After 1838 poor law boards took over responsibility for the provision of health and welfare services and grand juries resumed their original role of maintaining the local infrastructure. In contrast to grand juries, which were composed of members of the predominantly Protestant landed gentry, poor law boards combined elected guardians with magistrates sitting ex officio. The boards were to provide a training ground for Catholic/nationalist politicians, and, from 1896, were to give women their first experience of local government office. Under the Local Government Act of 1898 the administrative responsibilities of grand juries were transferred to popularly elected county councils, while poor law boards were absorbed into rural district councils.

Local government in independent Ireland has seen the gradual narrowing of its traditional roles and the loss of functions, in matters such as public health, vocational education, social welfare, road development, physical planning, and most recently environmental protection, either to central government or to national or regional administrative boards. Its structure has remained largely unchanged: county borough corporations for city government, and county councils for county government. Beneath county councils the only effective administrative units are urban district councils and a handful of borough corporations: rural district councils were abolished in 1925, while no new electoral ‘towns’ (legally defined as between 1,500 and 8,000 in population, and therefore too small to administer increasingly complex local services themselves) were established between 1900 and 1978. Since then a court decision has forced the government to provide for elected town commissioners in a number of towns.

Since the 1920s, reforms including the city and county management system have wrought a shift in power from politicians to officials. The funding base of local authorities has also undergone change. The bulk of revenue now comes through block grants from central government rather than from local property taxation and other discretionary sources: domestic rates were removed in 1978, and those on agricultural land in 1982.

Local government occupies a peculiar place in the Irish political system. Elected on a universal adult franchise since 1934, it remains the main stepping stone to a seat in the Dáil, yet local politicians have little direct power. Local elections should be held every five years. They have frequently been postponed by central government, yet very few people bother to protest. With central government as the dominant funder, the democratic link between local representation and local taxation has all but gone, and is not much mourned: there has been intense communal resistance to efforts to supplement revenue through charges for specific local services. Furthermore, while local politicians of all parties have routinely condemned what they term administrative and political overcentralization, those who have later achieved national office seldom do much to reverse that trend.

Bibliography

Crossman, Virginia , Local Government in Nineteenth‐Century Ireland (1994)
Feingold, W. L. , The Revolt of the Tenantry: The Transformation of Local Government in Ireland 1872–86 (1984)
Otway‐Ruthven, A. J. , A History of Medieval Ireland (2nd edn., 1980)

CAE,/RG,/VC,/ and Revd Canon C. A. Empey

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local government

World Encyclopedia | 2005 | © World Encyclopedia 2005, originally published by Oxford University Press 2005. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

local government System of regional administration differing in each country. The systems that developed in France, the former Soviet Union and England served as models for much of the rest of the world. Local government in England developed from the Municipal Reform Act (1835), which first established elected councils in cities; the Local Government Act (1888) set up county councils elsewhere. In 1974, a two-tier system was established in England, Scotland, and Wales, with counties subdivided into districts, each with an elected council. Some metropolitan counties were abolished in 1986, and replaced by a single tier of smaller, local borough councils.

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