Kuntateoriat ja kuntatutkimuksen lähestymistavat

Theories and Approaches in Local Government Studies

Below you find some links to web sites dealing with the theories and approaches in social sciences. These all can be used in doing empirical or theoretical research on local government. These are, however, theories and approaches which have been constructed within broader philosophical and social scientific fields. For this reason they are not always very useful in studying the phenomena related to local government. For more specific literature and discussions see other sites of VALOGOS.

Traditionally the studies on local government have focussed on institutional aspects of this phenomenon. Until 1960's these were mainly on administrative law. A little later the emphasis was more and more on administrative practices and management. Also political discussions became more common during this period. The more serious theory construction started approximately during 1960's continuing in following decades. When discussing on the general theory formation, the most prominent challenge seemed to have been to contextualize the institutional aspects of local government, i.e. to widen the approaches beyond the descriptive work in public administration.

What kind of analytical approaches to local government evolved during these last three or four decades? According to Chris Pickvance and Edmond Preteceille these can be devided into two broad categories, orthodox and Marxist-inspired theories. The explanations of orthodox theories focus on
- values (founded particularly in the public administration literature),
- party politics and its influence on central - local relationship,
- organizational aspects (service provision, professionalism, implementation etc.) and
- pressures from bodies external to local government, such as employers, trade unions, associations an alike.

These all give their own answers to the dilemma of formation of local government within its context. Marxist-inspired theories resemble in some respects these explanations, but their foundation is more closely related to the theory of capitalist society which, in turn, is based on the process of capital accumulation. From this point of view local government can be seen as a part of state apparatus whose role is to facilitate capital accumulation and manage the class conflict arising out of it. Three main types of this kind of explanation are instrumentalist and structuralist theories and dual state thesis. (See Pickvance, Chris & Preteceille, Edmond, eds., State Restructuring and Local Power. A Comparative Perspective. Pinter Publishers 1991, 5-10).

The most important family of theories which tries to conceptualize the local government within the context of modern society can be labelled as new urban political economy. It includes such theories as instrumentalist Marxist theory known as the local state theory (Cynthia Cockburn), structuralist urban sociology (Manuel Castells), Marxist urban political economy (Michael Harloe, Elizabeth Lebas and Larry Sawers), other critical conceptions of urban political economy (David Harvey, Robert L. Lineberry and Louis H. Masotti), well-known British theory called dual state thesis (Peter Saunders), new institutionalism in various forms (Francesco Kjellberg, Bruno Dente, Chris Pickvance and Edmond Preteceille), regulation theory (Michel Aglietta, Robert Boyer and Alain Lipietz), theory of fiscal crisis of the state (James O'Connor), regime theory (Clarence Stone) and growth machine thesis (Harvey Molotch and J. Logan). These relate closely to the category of radical and critical sociology of which you may find some interesting links from the list below. But before the www-links I present the table of suggestions for further reading concerning the theoretical local government studies.

The main categories of the list below: social constructionism, culturalism and semiotics, functionalism and general systems theory, empiricism and positivism, game theory, liberalism, radical and critical sociology and dialectic.

Social Constructionism
- social constructionism, interactionism, phenomenology, hermeneutics