INTERMEDIATE LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AND THEIR METROPOLITAN PROJECTION

This article analyses the evolution of intermediate local governments structured according to the Napoleonic model, and reveals the recent breakdown of their defining elements in some southern European countries. In the case of Spain and Catalonia, it shows the perverse effects that the attempts to drastically reformulate the system have had, as well as the possibilities of gradual reform through the municipal configuration of counties and of the simplification and re-founding of provincial, veguerial and metropolitan institutions.