Dimensions of Local Authority: Mapping Local Political Institutions in Canada's Cities
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE-REVUE CANADIENNE DE SCIENCE POLITIQUE(2024)
Abstract
Our knowledge of the institutional features of local government in Canadian cities is surprisingly fragmentary. The academic literature has long identified dominant tendencies in Canadian local institutions, but systematic empirical data has been missing. In this article, we address this gap in knowledge in two ways. We introduce the Canadian Municipal Attributes Portal (CMAP), a new open-access database that contains information on dozens of institutional features of local government for nearly 100 of the most populous municipalities in Canada. We then propose a new multidimensional index of authority concentration, which is designed to capture variation in the local structure of decision-making authority in a systematic and nuanced manner. We apply this index to a systematic pan-Canadian subsample of 65 CMAP municipalities. The result is a rich portrait of institutional variety, one that both corroborates and substantially extends our current understanding of the shape of municipal institutions in Canadian cities. Notre connaissance des caracteristiques institutionnelles des collectivites locales dans les villes canadiennes est etonnamment fragmentaire. Les publications universitaires identifient depuis longtemps les tendances dominantes des institutions locales canadiennes, mais les donnees empiriques systematiques font defaut. Dans le present article, nous comblons cette lacune de deux manieres. Nous presentons le Portail canadien des attributs municipaux (PCAM), une nouvelle base de donnees en libre acces qui contient des informations sur des dizaines de caracteristiques institutionnelles des collectivites locales pour une centaine des municipalites les plus peuplees du Canada. Nous proposons ensuite un nouvel indice multidimensionnel de concentration de l'autorite, concu pour saisir de maniere systematique et nuancee les variations dans la structure locale du pouvoir decisionnel. Nous appliquons cet indice a un sous-echantillon pancanadien systematique de 65 municipalites du PCAM. Il en resulte un riche portrait de la variete institutionnelle, qui corrobore et elargit considerablement notre comprehension actuelle de la forme des institutions municipales dans les villes canadiennes.
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Key words
municipalities,urban politics,local government organization,databases,decision-making structures,municipalites,politique urbaine,organisation des administrations locales,bases de donnees,structures decisionnelles
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