Political fragmentation and land use changes in the Interior Plains

Recent years have witnessed growing interest in the critical role of local/regional governance structures in shaping physical land development and associated natural resource management processes. This article investigates how political fragmentation in local governance can affect land use patterns through a watershed-level analysis of population and employment density changes in the Interior Plains, the largest physiographic division of the US. Population density change rates are found to be negatively associated with a higher degree of political fragmentation, while employment density does not show such a clear relationship with political fragmentation. This finding shows that political fragmentation may present significant challenges to land and water resource management, a result consistent with the previous empirical research

From Princeps to President? Comparing Local Political Leadership Transformation

Using conceptual dimensions identified by the literature on political leadership, this article compares its transformations at the local level in Europe. Often associated with the alleged shift to governance, the strengthening of the executive comes forward as the underlying tendency in contemporary local leadership. Empowered individualised leadership emerges, in terms of coming to and taking office, challenging traditional notions of tasks, style and conditions of local leadership. Such a tendency does not imply the apparent Americanisation of political leadership however, as the articles in this collection show, rather a path dependent European route has emerged