Local Governance: Developments and Democratic Challenges

European local governments have witnessed important changes in their macro-environment (major catchwords: urbanization, globalization and Europeanization) and in the nature of their local communities (emancipation of citizens, changes in local social networks and civil society, challenges to traditional party system and representative democracy). These changes have resulted in new developments in local government, in terms of intergovernmental relations (e,g, in the governance of metropolitan areas), in terms of internal organisation and management procedures, and last but not least in terms of the democratic relations to the local political community. By consequence the nature of local government appears to have changed. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting a shift from local government to local governance, emphasizing the relevance of multi-agency working, public-private partnerships and policy networks. The shift from government to governance raises new challenges for democracy at the local level. A key issue is how to secure democratic accountability and responsiveness of the new politico-administrative arrangements. In this section we will deal with the developments in local governance and analyse the (potential) implications of these changes for the nature of local democracy. For the main themes and the related panels see above. This session aims at providing a platform for presenting and discussing high quality theoretical contributions and empirical research on such issues.