Elected Mayors: Leading Locally?

The directly elected executive mayor has been with us in England for more than a decade. Drawing inspiration from European and American experience (see Elcock and Fenwick, 2007) the elected mayor has appealed to both Labour and Conservative commentators in offering a solution to perceived problems of local leadership. For the Left, it offered a reinvigoration of local democracy, a champion for the locality who could stand up for the community: in one early pamphlet, a Labour councillor envisaged that an elected mayor could “...usher in a genuinely inclusive way of doing civic business as well as giving birth to an institution that encourages and values people” (Todd, 2000: 25). For the Right, it offered the opportunity to cut through the lengthy processes of local democratic institutions by providing streamlined high-profile leadership. Although inconsistent in their expectations of what the new role of executive mayor would bring, Left and Right shared a view that leadership of local areas was failing. Despite the very low turnout in referendums on whether to adopt the system, and the very small number of local areas that have done so, the prospect of more executive mayors, with enhanced powers, refuses to exit the policy arena

Elected Mayors in England: Leaders or Managers?

Since ancient times philosophers and political thinkers have grappled with the questions of what constitutes political leadership, how political leaders achieve their greatness or otherwise, and which attributes political leaders may require. The aim of this paper is to explore this issue through a study of directly elected mayors in England. Its focus is twofold: first, to assess critically the concept of leadership through the lens of key texts from the philosophical and business literature and, secondly, to use original empirical evidence to evaluate the role of elected mayors as leaders or managers

Elected Mayors: Leading Locally?

The directly elected executive mayor was introduced to England a decade ago. Drawing inspiration from European and American experience, the elected mayor appealed to both New Labour and Conservative commentators in offering a solution to perceived problems of local leadership. There was a shared view that governance of local areas was failing and that elected mayors were the answer. The first local referendums were held in 2001. Most have continued to reject the idea of the elected mayor. During 2012, the coalition government initiated 10 further mayoral referendums in England's largest cities but only one, Bristol, opted for an elected mayor. Overall, there is no evidence of widespread public support, yet the prospect of more mayors - with enhanced powers - remains firmly on the policy agenda. Drawing from a decade of research, this paper considers reasons for the persistence of the mayoral experiment, the importance of local factors in the few areas where mayors hold office and the link to current policy debates. Using the authors' analytical leadership grid, this paper links the governmental, governance and allegiance roles of mayors to the problematic nature of local leadership. It then draws tentative conclusions about the strange case of the elected mayor in England

Has the introduction of directly elected mayors advanced or detracted from democratic innovation in English local government?

Despite very limited adoption of directly elected mayors in English local government, the reform has remained popular with national political leaders from both the Conservative and Labour parties. In this post John Fenwick and Howard Elcock consider why, and explore how elected mayors pose a challenge for several other aspects of local democracy

Elected mayors: Lesson drawing from four countries

Countries can and sometimes do copy the institutions and practices of other countries in order to address problems and issues that they have in common with them. The office of directly elected mayor has become an increasingly common feature of local government throughout the developed democracies, spreading from its largely American origins to a range of European states. This paper develops a matrix for the analysis of elected mayors in different countries using as its horizontal axis the formal, informal and individual attributes of elected mayors and, on the vertical axis, their governmental, governance and allegiance roles. The matrix is then applied to analyse studies of elected mayors in four countries: the United States, England, Germany and Greece, in an attempt to derive comparative lessons applicable to the countries included in the analysis, as well as to countries considering or in the process of developing directly elected executive mayors. The issues examined include improving the internal co-ordination of local authorities' departments, the need for network management in increasingly fragmented or 'hollowed out' local government systems and the ways in which mayors attempt to secure their political survival and that of the offices they hold, by securing and retaining the allegiance of voters and stakeholders. It also explores the benefits and dangers of concentrating much formal power and informal influence in a single pair of hands. Its conclusions are offered both to demonstrate ways in which comparative studies of political institutions can be developed and in the hope that they may be of use to mayors and those concerned with the development and reform of local government and governance