Project objectives

The main goal of this project is to assess the democratic quality of the second tier of local government in Romania with emphasis on aspects of political representation and local political leadership. To this purpose the following concrete objectives will be pursued:

• To analyse comparatively the role orientations and role behaviours of officials and their relationship with personal, party-organisational and institutional variables. A first comparative dimension contrasts presidents of the county councils with councillors and is intended to highlight the slightly different representational roles assumed by the presidents, especially in terms of focus of representation. Second, we compare in terms of focus of representation elected officials at the second tier of local government level in countries included in the Second Tier Survey, in an attempt to test the influence of party and electoral system related variables. The Second Tier Survey is an international comparative research project focused on the attitudes, values and behaviours of elected officials at the second tier of local government. The project comprises several European countries and is co-ordinated by Prof. Hubert Heinelt and his team at the Institut für Politikwissenschaft,Technische Universität Darmstadt. More details about this project can be found here.
  • To identify the informal rules in-use that shape leadership roles within the second tier of local government in Romania and assess their impact on the policy process. We approach processes of informal rule-making and rule-shaping, triggered by the recent reform of the electoral formula for the election of county presidents.
• To assess current second tier reform proposals in Romania against the background of research findings from this project. We aim at discussing in a practical perspective the main findings of the project concerning policy-making processes within county councils in Romania. In doing so, we will have in mind the potential discrepancy resulted from the 2008 introduction of the direct election of the presidents of the county councils (which increased their legitimacy) without a review of the formal rules governing the horizontal power relations.
  • To collect systematic data on the values, attitudes and behaviours of officials at the second tier of local government in Romania using a multi-method approach. We link a survey of all elected officials at the second tier of local government in Romania with the content analysis of the annual activity reports of the councillors and four case studies (based on in-depth interviews, qualitative text analysis, and observation) aimed at identifying the rules in-use in four county councils.