This book considers local autonomy, measured as a multidimensional concept, from a cross-country comparative perspective, and examines how variations can be explained and what their consequences are. It fills a gap in the literature by providing a comprehensive study of the different components of local autonomy across a large number of countries, over time. It offers a theoretically saturated concept to measure local autonomy and applies it to 39 countries, including all 28 EU member states together with Albania, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland Turkey and Ukraine, over a period of 25 years (1990-2014).

Andreas Ladner is Professor of Political Institutions and Public Administration at the Swiss Graduate Institute of Public Administration, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Harald Baldersheim is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway. Nikos Hlepas is Associate Professor for Local Self-Government and Regional Administration at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. Nicolas Keuffer is Research Assistant at the Swiss Graduate Institute of Public Administration, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Carmen Navarro is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, University Autónoma of Madrid, Spain. Kristof Steyvers is Professor of Political science, Ghent University, Belgium. Pawe Swianiewicz is Professor in the Department of Development and Local Policy, University of Warsaw, Poland.   

Chapter 1: What is local autonomy?.- Chapter 2: Measuring local autonomy.- Chapter 3: Legal foundations.- Chapter 4: Functional responsibilities.- Chapter 5: Financial control.- Chapter 6: Organisational choice.- Chapter 7: Administrative supervision.- Chapter 8: Vertical access.- Chapter 9: The Local Autonomy Index (LAI).- Chapter 10: A new typology of local government? Beyond North-South and East-West.- Chapter 11: Who governs? Patterns of responsiveness and accountability.- Chapter 12: Roadmap to local autonomy? Drivers of variation.- Chapter 13: Blessings of local autonomy? Does it matter? For what? How?.- Chapter 14: Conclusions: Local Autonomy patterns, dynamics and ambiguities.