Download or read book Local Governance Reform in Global Perspective written by Norbert Kersting and published by Springer-Verlag. This book was released on 2009-07-15 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Good local governance" reflects the dual functions of local government. On the one hand, democratic regimes gain input legitimacy by responsiveness and by being inclusive towards the preferences of their citizens. On the other hand, they achieve output legitimacy by effectively delivering public goods and services. Their governance strategies follow three major paths - "decentralisation," "political administrative reforms" and "participatory reforms". But national contexts, actors, political culture and path dependency matter a lot. In this book continent-wide developments are compared by using relevant country studies. This comparative approach focuses on "developing countries" in Asia, Africa and Latin America, comparing and contrasting their experience with that of European countries