Abstract

When it comes to political-administrative relations, New Public Management has aimed for a stronger differentiation between political and administrative matters and for an empowerment of the administration towards the political level.

This article investigates the perceived degree of administrative discretion at the municipal level in the Flemish region of Belgium. We use data from a survey with Flemish municipal CEOs from 2019.

The results suggest that the degree of administrative discretion in Flemish municipalities is relatively high during policy preparation. Nevertheless, during other phases of the policy cycle most municipal CEOs perceive a certain political impact on the functioning of their administration, which reaches further than steering on the main policy lines. Second, a majority identifies a lack of mutual trust between the executive board and the administrators.

Furthermore, administrative discretion increases with the size of the municipality and the assessed capacity of the administration. Also in municipalities where the key actors of political-administrative relationships remained unchanged for a longer period, the administration has more leeway to act. Lastly, the results nuance the impact of the municipal financial situation and the composition of the majority on the degree of administrative discretion.

中文翻译：

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佛兰德地方一级的政治与行政之间的关系：城市间的差异解释

摘要

在政治与行政关系方面，新公共管理旨在加强政治与行政事务之间的区分，并赋予行政部门以政治上的权力。

本文调查了比利时佛兰芒地区市政当局对行政自由裁量权的认识程度。我们使用了从2019年开始对佛兰德市政官员进行的一项调查数据。

结果表明，佛兰芒市的行政自由裁量程度在政策制定过程中相对较高。然而，在政策周期的其他阶段，大多数市政首席执行官都对其行政管理职能产生了一定的政治影响，其影响远不止于指导主要政策方针。其次，多数人认为执行董事会与管理人员之间缺乏相互信任。

此外，行政自由裁量权随市政当局的规模和行政管理能力的评估而增加。同样，在政治和行政关系的主要角色在较长时期内保持不变的城市，政府有更多的行动余地。最后，结果细微地影响了市政财政状况和大多数人的构成对行政自由裁量权的影响。