New and established mayoralities: lessons for local governance in constructing new political institutions - the English and Polish cases

Reforming local government is a standard tool of government policy when facedwith local, national and international pressures for change and no more so thanin times of political, social and economic crises. The re-design of the institutionalarchitecture of local political decision-making is therefore driven as much by theneeds of the centre as of the localities with a series of arguments for changepropagated by the centre. Once local government re-designed at the macrolevel, local political actors are faced with opportunities to inspire a micro-level re-engineering of the structures bequeathed to them by the centre. y usingresearch conducted in !ngland and "oland the chapter e#plores how institutionaldesign by central government aimed at solving one set of policy problems, canenergise further local re-design of the new local political institutions. The chapteralso e#plores how central government re-design of local politics can create apattern of un$nished business which leads to further central interference in thearchitecture of local politics