The profile of local political elite and strategy prioritisation at the local level in ECE countries: case studies: Tecuci (Romania), Českà Lípa (the Czech Republic), Oleśnica (Poland) and Gyula (Hungary)

Abstract

The paper constitutes an attempt at examining the outlook and strategies of the local political elites in ECE countries. Specifically, the inquiry employs four elite groups in four towns, demographically similar and in developmental strategies: Tecuci (Galați county, Romania), Česká Lípa (Liberec region, the Czech Republic), Oleśnica (Lower Silesia voievodship, Poland), and Gyula (Békés county, Hungary), through the prism of the members of the Municipal Councils, for identifying and analyzing (a) the values, (b) the interactions with other groups, networks of power at local level, and (c) the priorities of the local elites. The level of decentralization specific for each of the four countries is employed as the major explanatory trajectory for the differences encountered; subsidiarily, the explanation focuses also on legacies of the ancien régime, experienced locally. Three models of local leadership in ECE are proposed: "predominantly elitistic", "democratic elitist", and "predominantly democratic", with the prospects of verifying their validity and pertinence in similar cases throughout the region.