“All politics is local.” This saying of former US House of Representatives Speaker Thomas O’Neill Jr. (Heywood 2002: 157), might sound to many political science students as somewhat of an ...exaggeration. Yet, the local level is often identified with a number of surpluses not so easily found at the other layers of government. Local self-government is seen by many as a necessary liberty to a place bound community, underpinned by considerations of democracy and efficiency. Being close to citizens, the local level is deemed to breed unique opportunities to influence daily-life decisions, and to apprentice other forms of participation (Beetham 1996). At the same time, local knowledge and the multipurpose character of local government, place it in the optimal territorially position, to allocate local services most efficiently (Walsh 1996). Today, this appeal of legitimacy seems to be reinforced, albeit through other means, as the local level often functions as a laboratory for politics and policy to face problems that often surpass the municipal level (Pilet et al. 2005).
