1: Introduction and Scope of the Book

The focus of this book is upon leadership and local governance, with particular attention to the ways in which directly elected executive mayors may be having a significant impact upon the leadership of local government. In the context of continuing institutional change at a local level, our discussion seeks to highlight the limitations of purely structural changes to local government systems and therefore focusses upon human agency and wider processes of political change in understanding local governance today. Our principal focus is upon the UK from which we draw upon our own research with elected mayors and other influential local actors. This is set in the context of wider European and American experience where directly elected mayors are more firmly established as parts of the system of local administration, but we find that the different political context of different countries limits the value of such comparisons. Overall, rather than simply describing the changes that have brought elected mayors to the UK, and specifically to England, we aim throughout for a critical perspective on how we are governed locally.