Actors in inter-municipal cooperation

This chapter concentrates on the role of various policy actors: mayors, councillors and bureaucrats, in initiating and conducting activities related to inter-municipal cooperation. Empirical data have been collected through a survey of inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) offices in eight European countries. Using the concept of leadership type and the index of mayoral strength, the variation among the studied countries, as well as variation among municipalities within the country, has been analysed. Empirical tests confirm that mayors are usually the most active and the most powerful actors in inter-municipal cooperation, even in countries which have not adopted the strong-mayor model. Moreover, more developed institutional structures of IMC attract greater attention from mayors than do cases of weaker institutionalization of IMC.