Page 295 - POLITIEK OF MANAGEMENT?

Although municipal councils with their own municipal social services also find it difficult to play this role in the political process, the study shows that the inter-municipal cooperation has increased the distance between the council members and the social services, thereby further reducing councillors’ powers.
Other, non-intended effects
In order to determine if other than the intended effects have occurred we examined the case studies from the four perspectives. The analysis was deliberately limited to a few key characteristics for each perspective. As previously stated, the intended effects were in line with the key characteristics of the managerial perspective. From the political perspective, the reform sought to avoid any effect on municipal discretion. Nevertheless that unintended effect did occur. Policy was harmonised on an inter-municipal level. The already weak scrutiny of the agenda and resource decisions by the municipal council was weakened even further, thus diminishing democratic legitimacy. A greater distance between the people’s elected representatives and the Board of Mayor and Aldermen further undermined democratic legitimacy. However, on the public perception and support dimensions no effects could be shown. So in that regard, democratic legitimacy has not been further compromised. The study found that there was no effect on legality. Neither was any effect found on legal certainty. There is evidence of an effect on equality before the law. Policy and regulations and the rights that follow from these have been harmonized for the inter-municipal territory. Previously, these were specific to each municipality. Clients and their representatives experience this harmonisation as an improvement on equality of rights. At the same time there is criticism of the diminished capacity to customise the collective service and take inequality of circumstances into account when dealing with citizens. The effect on equality before the law therefore has both positive and negative aspects. Social effects of the cooperation were not observed either in the municipal government’s care for its citizens or on the commitment of the citizens to each other and to their communities. This is noteworthy since the domain of social services has a pre-eminently social significance.
To summarise the study’s findings, it can be stated that inter-municipal cooperation in the case-study settings is mainly organised on managerial considerations. This is in keeping with the dominance of managerial thinking identified in the literature. However, the often optimistic expectations of
SUMMARY
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