RC05 - Comparative Studies on Local Government and Politics

RC05 held its Business Meeting during the IPSA World Congress in Seoul on July 15th, 2025. We are pleased to share the Minutes of the Meeting, which include a summary of activities from the past two years and outline the RC05 Work Plan for 2025–2027. You can read the full document [here].

 

The Local Autonomy Index (LAI) is a multi-dimensional tool for conceptualizing and measuring local autonomy, first developed in 2015. The initial volume, published in 2019, focused on constructing the index and applying it to European countries, exploring patterns, causes, and consequences of local autonomy. This second volume introduces the LAI 2.0—an enhanced and expanded version covering countries across six continents. It offers a comparative analysis of local autonomy dynamics over a 30-year period (1990–2020). We hope this work becomes a key reference in the academic and policy debates on territorial organization, decentralization, public administration, local governance, and intergovernmental relations.

Link: https://www.elgaronline.com/monobook-oa/book/9781035337958/9781035337958.xml

https://congresoxii.gigapp.org/ipsa-rc05-seminar The initiative was held successfully and received papers from Italy, Brazil, Colombia, South Africa, Germany and Spain.

Announcement of the Chair with the resolution of the travel grants for the Summer School of Local Government and Politics attached in the pdf below

http://rc05.ipsa.org/public/Decision_on_travel_grants.pdf

Below, you'll find an overview of the panels on Comparative Studies on Local Government and Politics for the upcoming IPSA conference in Buenos Aires.

RC 5 Business  Meeting is on Tuesday 13.7. at 15:30  (UTC) (17:30 German summer time)
Use the zoom link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84573466490?pwd=NS9kNElmcjVOUHZZQXhzeXZWU0xndz09. 
The RC5 business meeting is open for all interested colleagues (no IPSA conference registration required!)

Please find here the updated list of all Panles held by the RC05 at the IPSA 2021. You can also access more details by clicking on the Panel name. We are looking forward to interesting and entertaining discussions with all of you.

RC5 organized together with RC 32 the International Conference  “Public administration in a democratic society. Thirty years of democratic transition in Europe”, which took place in Dubrovnik on October 3.-5. 2019.

More than 50 colleagues presented papers at parallel sessions. Others took part at the Round table discussions. The conference was perfectly organized by Prof Ivan Kopric and his team. This important theme, which showed an evaluation of the transitional process, 30 years after the winds of Change in 1989, focused furthermore on research questions such as: What are the key public administration concepts that promote and preserve democratic values in public governance in transition countries?  How did different types of relations between public administration and politics determine transition outcomes?  How did people, political actors, and scientists assess and evaluate the results of public governance transition? What were the goals of the transition and did or can transition end?

In the Award Ceremony Professor Emeritus Hellmut Wollmann (Humboldt University) received a – RC5 Recognition of Merit – for his important role in RC5 and his numerous academic contributions.

During the IPSA World Congress in Brisbane, the RC05 has organised the following panels:

IPSA 2018 Brisbane RC 5: List of panels, papers and authors

Panel: Local Elections

Papers

• Elections in the Amalgamated Territorial Communities and establishment of the local politics in Ukraine
• Identity Politics in Okinawan Elections: The Emergence of Regional Populism
• Local Election in Nepal: Means for Ensuring Electoral Accountability
• The effect of municipality size on levels of political efficacy and political participation. A systematic review.

Panel: Local Government Structures

Papers

• Bridging the Gap Between Capacity and Proximity in Territorial Rescaling. Italy as a Pilot Case
• Emerging Model Villages In India: A Study Of Punsari Village From The State Of Gujarat
• Impact of Small Municipalities in Slovakia on the Performance of Local Policy
• The Theory of the Urban Regime in Comparative Perspective. The Institutional Framework as an Analytical Tool
• Where Social Networking is Reachless and Educationally Inadequate

Panel: Local Participatory Democracy

Papers

• Democratic Constitutionalism in Brazil: Between the Crisis of Representation and Participation
• Participatory Systems as Precipitators of Protest - A Case Study of Two Municipalities in South Africa
• The Form and the Essence: Effects of Transparency and Citizen Participation Laws on Democratic Local Governance in Chile
• The Relationship between Municipality Size and Notions of Democracy among Czech Mayors

Panel: Local Policies and Administration

Papers

• Spanish Local Government Facing the Global Sustainability Challenge: The Experience of Municipalities in the Region of Madrid
• The Short-Run Effects of CETA on Municipal Procurement in Canada
• The Urban Dimension of Climate Policies: Shaping the Policy Content of Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies in Cities

Panel: Mass Migrations, Integration and Local Governments: Issues and Prospects

Papers

• Between Security and Humanity: Local Media and Societal Actor's Narrative during the 2015-2016 Refugee Crisis in Croatia
• Can the Migrants be Integrated Centrally? Paradoxes of the Croatian Local Government System Revealed after 2015 Migration Crisis
• Coping with the Challenge of Migration in German Municipalities
• Local Governments in Dealing with Mass Migrations and Integration of Migrants in Hungary
• National-Local Networks and Immigration Governance: Playing Politics in South Korea with Immigrant Pawns
• The Role and Capacity of Local Government in Managing Migration in Istanbul

Panel: Metropoles

Papers

• Accommodation, Transformation, Inertia. Model of Transfer of Rules and Norms from the PRC to the HKSAR and Adjustment of Hong Kong Society
• Decentralised Governance in India: 25 Years of 73rd Constitutional Amendment
• How Immigrant Integration Policies in Central-Eastern Europe Metropolises Highlight a European Frame of Integration Policy
• The Territorial Policy Integration: The case of Barcelona and Its hinterland

Panel: Political Culture and Alternation in the Subnational Democracies in Mexico: an Evaluation of Democratic Quality

Papers

• Political Culture, Alternation and Quality Democracy in Puebla. Inconsistencies in a Subnational Case
• Quality of Democracy in Chihuahua and Coahuila, Mexico
• What kind of political culture prevails in Guanajuato?
• Women in charges of popular representation, factor in the quality of democracy. The case of the states of Chihuahua and Guanajuato, Mexico

Panel: Urban Poverty Alleviation

Papers

• Gentrification as a Global Urban Strategy - Is there an Alternative?
• On the Margin - an analysis of a cooperation process in four small municipalities in The Lofoten Islands
• The Role of Foreign and International Agencies in the Promotion of Human Security and Resilience after Disasters: The Case of Leyte after Super Typhoon Haiyan

The submission process for the IPSA World Congress on Political Science has started. Here are the key informations and dates:

Submission of Proposals

All paper and panel proposals must be submitted online via the Congress website. No emails, PDFs or Word documents will be accepted as submissions.

Paper proposals may be submitted in up to three (3) sessions of interest.
Paper submissions for panels must be submitted using the specific link provided in the invitation from a panel convenor.

Submit a Paper
Instructions

Panel proposals may be submitted in up to three (3) sessions of interest.

Please note that the Program Chairs have established new submission procedures for panels for this Congress and only complete panels (closed) may be submitted during the Call for Proposals.

Submit a Panel
Instructions 

View All Sessions Open to Submissions

Key Dates

The IPSA RC05 Comparative Studies on Local Government and Politics and Research Email Listserver is online. To subscribe to the existing RC05 email list go to https://listserv.uni-muenster.de/mailman/listinfo/ipsa-rc5-local-government.

This Listserver is supposed to keep you up to date on current projects and research topics. Every member can share and provide information by sending an email to .