Local Government:

A Conceptual Analysis

Lecture 01

PA 211

1
Local Government refers to a political subdivision of a
nation or state which is constituted by law and has
substantial control of local affairs including the power
to impose taxes or exact labor for prescribed purpose.
The governing body of such an entity is elected or
locally selected.

 It is some form of government.

 It serves a small area.
 It exercises only the delegated powers.

2
 The Features
of
Local Government

3
 Local government is that level of government which is closest
to the citizens.
 It has a role in representing the concern and view of local
peoples demand and idea in the particular area of the country.
 Leaders of local government are appointed by central or
provincial government through acts and ordinances. It
provides the legal basis.
 Local government cannot spend locally raised money without
the permission of central or provincial government.
 It’s main responsibility is to realize the demand and interest of
local people and then accumulate those.

4
Local government is part of overall governance. Local government
institutions, being nearer to people, can involve them in various
ways:
(a) planning and implementation of projects
(b) supervision of educational institutions, hospitals and other
government financed units
(c) mobilization of support for new initiatives like campaign
against dowry, child labor etc.
(d) enforcement of laws regarding gender discrimination, violence
against women, environment protection
(e) mobilization of resources in the form of taxes, fees, tolls etc.
Popular participation also assumes importance because of its
potential for holding the local government institution
accountable to the community.

5
Local Government
In
South Asia
6
In some countries, the local extensions of the central government,
and in others, traditional local power structures utilized for
supporting field administration, have been misconstrued as being
equivalent to local government.
At times local government has been mistakenly considered an
insignificant segment of the government.
However, in industrialized countries, the number of civil servants at
the local level is much larger than is commonly believed.
In the United States, for example, there are four times as many local
government employees as federal employees; even in a
developing country, like India, the number of local level
employees is as high as 40 percent that of federal employees

7
With a view to avoiding confusion, it is better to
differentiate ‘local government’ from ‘local politics’
and ‘local administration’.
Local politics is a wider term and covers a host of areas
besides local government.
On the other hand, local administration means
implementation of decisions by not only local
government institutions but also national/ provincial
government units operating at the field level.
In South Asia, local government is widely known as
local self-government.

8
 Local Government
Vs
Local Self Government

9
The term ‘local self government’ originated during the colonial
times when most of South Asia did not enjoy any self
government, either at central or provincial(state) level.
Self government means a people or group being able to exercise
all of the necessary functions of power without intervention
from any authority which they cannot themselves alter.
Today the term self-government has lost its old significance, as
all the seven countries of South Asia now enjoy self
government at the national level.
However, in the changed context, the justification of the prefix
‘self’ perhaps lies in emphasizing the representative character
of local government.

10
Evolution of local government in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh
upto 1947 appears to be almost the same despite some local
variations.
Pakistan and Bangladesh Continued with the same pattern of
local government upto 1971.
The pattern of local government in Sri Lanka from the ancient
times upto independence in 1948 was not very different from
the mainland South Asia, despite her island situation and
somewhat different colonial experience.
In Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives, the evolution of local
government in the pre-modern times bears a strong
resemblance to its evolution elsewhere in South Asia, although
these countries were also affected by their peculiar geography
and history.

11
 Local Government
in Bangladesh
Rural Local Urban Local
Government Government

Zila Parishad City

Corporation
&
Upazila Parishad
Pourashava
Union Parishad
12
Local government in Bangladesh remained relatively weak and
dependent upon central government through various means of political
and administrative control.
Several of the major local government reform efforts addressed
secondary issues, i.e. number and level of tiers, relationship between
tiers, composition, distribution/ share of functions among the tiers and
central government etc, at the expense of the substantive/ core issues
like devolution of authority for enabling local government to operate
in an autonomous manner.
For example, personnel management including mechanisms of effective
accountability of deputed government officials and other personnel
whose recruitment are finally approved by the national government
functionaries; the other issues such as, resource generation,
management and utilization remained out of the purview of the reform
agenda.

13
 Note on Theories of Local Government

Twentieth century scholars on American state and local

government have largely abandoned such a strong localist
position.
Influenced by notions of economies of scale and “burden
spreading” (redistribution of resources) in urban areas,
the post-World War II period has been dominated by the
so-called “consolidationist” school of local government.

More recently, however, a contrary strand of theory has

gotten a foothold.

14
Grounded in public choice economics, the ideas of
Vincent and Elinor Ostrom and Robert Bish have been
disseminated in academe as an alternative way of
thinking about local government.
These scholars argue against the consolidationist position.
They maintain that the model of the marketplace fits local
government.
Like de Tocqueville, they highlight the idea of
community. Their theory challenges the “crazy quilt”
caricature of American government as too fragmented
and highly inefficient.

15
Public choice theory is the use of modern economic tools to study
problems that traditionally are in the province of political science.
From the perspective of political science, it may be seen as the subset
of positive political theory which deals with subjects in which
material interests are assumed to predominate.
In particular, it studies the behavior of politicians and government
officials as mostly self-interested agents and their interactions in
the social system either as such or under alternative constitutional
rules.
These can be represented a number of ways, including standard
constrained utility maximization, game theory, or decision theory.
Public choice analysis has roots in positive analysis ("what is") but is
often used for normative purposes ("what ought to be"), to
identify a problem or suggest how a system could be improved by
changes in constitutional rules.

16
Bish and the Ostroms take the view that people “consume”
government.
Following the public choice school of economics, they see people
as choosing the governmental arrangements and services they
want to consume.
The organization of local services reflects the governmental
services people want, how much they want, and whom they
want to buy it from.
The size of the service “shed” (that is, the geographical area for a
given local public service), depends on the nature of the service
involved.
For example, transportation and sewerage may have a bigger
service shed than police or schools, etc. The resulting
fragmentation and layering of American local governments
(cities, towns, schools, and special districts) is said to reflect
this political marketplace.
17
 The Necessity of Local Government

The major advantage of local government is that it allows the

local public goods and services it provides to be adjusted to
suit the tastes and the preferences of local residents.
Local government plays a crucial role in delivering better
outcomes for their citizens and in shaping the local area.
Leaders of local government are themselves responsible for a
broad range of services – either directly or through
commissioning and for monitoring how services are delivered.
They lead or act as one of the major players in many
partnerships.

18
Local Governance means application of various governance
criteria (accountability, transparency, decentralization,
efficiency, financial integrity, participation, equity, etc.) to all
important and relevant development oriented local
organization/ efforts, such as local government bodies, local
administration, local NGOs, CBOs (Community Based
Organizations), cooperatives, local media, information
community activities, etc.

The End
19