LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT IN GERMANY AND FRANCE

The authors have described local self-government systems in Germany and France. They have analysed the levels, the number and type of territorial units, and the organisation and structure of German and French local self-governments. Different institutional forms of intermunicipal cooperation and connections springing from a long tradition, as well as from relatively recent territorial reforms, are shown. Modernisation and managerial reforms of local self-government since the 1980s onwards are compared, together with the process of their implementation, which has been conducted bottom-up in Germany and top-down in France.