Do changing institutions matter? : the role of the local councillors in Flanders after the local government reform

Due to the 2001 federal state reform in Belgium the authority on local government has been transferred from the federal level to the regional level. This resulted in 2005 in the first Flemish Local Government Act. To strengthen the role of the local council and its councillors was one of the main formal goals of this reform. This implies a reinforcement of the councillors’ controlling role, a quality improvement of the council meetings and a reorientation from detail handling towards broad long term issues during the debates. The Local Government Act offers the councillors several tools to ach... Mehr ...