Mayors and Their Local States: An Introduction
All of the three national constitutions (Belgium in 1830, the Netherlands in 1848 and France in 1884) created decentralized states with a high degree of local autonomy. 1 Most scholars agree that the Belgian state developed into an outspoken decentralized form, with a political and administrative culture of laissez-faire. 2 After the Belgian municipal law was adopted in 1836, local autonomy became a cornerstone of the Belgian system. Local autonomy referred to administrative autonomy and self-government, but to a more symbolical narrative of civil liberties as well. 3 Traditions of local (or, better still, urban) liberties became an important supporting narrative for the Belgian state.
Belgium could be characterized as a low capacity state, which is to say that the Belgian state exercised negligible control in most public domains. 4 To explain this, the American historian Carl J. Strikwerda points to the tension between nineteenth century political parties and the central state. 5 Others point to pre-modern historical forces. These culminated in a constitution that built historic traditions of distrust against central power into its core. 6
As a nation-state, the Netherlands was more centrally organized. 7 One popular theory that has particular relevance for this book says that Belgian society was pervaded by a deep-rooted distrust of central governmental power, and this, in turn, led to a culture where there was a lower threshold for the evasion of certain central regulations. Conversely, Dutch collective mentality was supposedly conditioned to display much greater obedience to central power and regulations. The Flemish historian Lode Wils argued that this Belgian attitude had been moulded by centuries of foreign occupation. 8 The Dutch mentality, on the other hand, was founded in historic, socio-economic liberal traditions combined with an obedient strand of Protestant culture.
A variation on this theme points to the medieval urbanized culture in the Low Countries, where larger cities developed modern liberties. Belgium and the Netherlands had, since medieval times, been among the worldâs most densely urbanized regions. In 1850 the percentage of people living in the larger cities was 29.5 %, 20.5 % and 14.5 % in the Netherlands, Belgium and France respectively. 9 This would continue to live on in the high degree of local autonomy in both nineteenth century states, but was much more evident in the southern (Belgian) part. If there was such a deeply rooted difference in political and administrative cultures of obedience to central authority it would perforce become visible during the German occupation of WW II.
The localistâcentralist struggle was at the heart of the creation of the French Third Republic. 10 The process of reversing the authoritarian centralist tendencies of the Second Empire proved difficult. 11 The debates took ten years. As in Belgium and the Netherlands, the French municipal legislation of 5 April 1884 implemented a fairly decentralized system. The French mayors (and their adjuncts) in all citiesâincluding the larger onesâwere elected from and by the municipal council. 12 As such, local autonomy was also a key part of French republican specificity.
A mayorâs function would, of necessity, always be dual. The nomination procedure was therefore important. Was the mayor selected and appointed by the central state, or was he (indirectly) democratically elected by his local population?
In Belgium, the latter was the case. The mayor was clearly the defender of âlocal interestsâ first and foremost. He presided over the municipal council and committee of aldermen, and was head of the local police. He had to be an elected member of the municipal council. An amendment of 1842 created the possibility for the King to appoint mayors outside the municipal council (this emergency clause would hardly ever be used until 1940â44). After local elections, the political majority proposed a candidate-mayor from within their ranks and following approval by the provincial governor (or district commissioner) the mayor was appointed by the King, via the minister of the Interior.
The Belgian mayor became a local notable who sometimes remained in office for decades. Through systematic entrenchment in provincial and national political mandates (in parliament for instance), mayors became an important political force within the Belgian system, certainly when the larger cities became forerunners in the development of specific urban socio-economic policies.
One author argues that the large number of independent municipalities and the significant political autonomy of mayors vis-Ă -vis national parties and the national state were the two main characteristics of French municipal administration by 1914. 13 Both of these characteristics were equally applicable to Belgium, indeed perhaps even more so. As in Belgium, the French mayor was selected by the municipal council from among its own members, elected for a four-year term (in Belgium this was six years), was president of the municipal council and did not receive a salary. French municipal law did, however, stress that the mayor remained a representative of central authority first. 14
Another Franco-Belgian similarity was the mayorâs jurisdiction over the local municipal police force. 15 In both countries, the mayor was head of the administrative police, concerned with the daily maintenance of order and preventive policing within municipal boundaries. They could issue local police decrees (under the supervision of the intermediary provincial/departmental level).
Despite these similarities, French local autonomy was weaker. It is telling that the French word for âmayorâ in Belgium was chosen to be bourgmestre and not maire (as in France). This was perhaps a deliberate way of indicating the greater degree of mayoral autonomy in the Belgian system. Belgian municipal law explicitly designated a committee (collĂšge) consisting of the mayor and aldermen as the local âgovernmentâ. The French equivalents of Belgian aldermen, the adjoints, were âmereâ council members who did not govern specific domains. Belgian aldermen would gradually (certainly after 1918) absorb specific policy domains. The Belgian mayor presided over both the committee of aldermen and the council.
Belgian local autonomy was stronger in police matters as well. Whereas in Belgium the municipal council (theoretically) had to approve the mayorâs local police decrees, in France this authority lay with the central state. French police commissioners were appointed by the state, while in Belgium this was the responsibility of the local government. In French cities with a population over 40,000, the central state even maintained its control over the local police.
A last crucial difference is to be found on the intermediate level. Much more than the relatively weak provincial administrations, the French regional authorities (the dĂ©partements) represented strong instruments of central control. Here, the differences between the Belgian governor and the French prefect were essential. While both were civil servants, appointed by the state to represent central authority and to operate above party politics (despite every governor and prefect having a clear political profile), the Belgian governor had nowhere near the influence and powers yielded by the French prefect. The French Napoleonic ideal had been that of the âimperialâ prefect: a direct regional representative of the head of state. 16 Indeed, this had been their role under the Second Empire. Despite the fact that under the Third Republic attempts were made to transform this role into that of a more âneutralâ civil servant and mediator, an authoritarian aura would continue to cling to the prefectural function. 17 In practice, much depended on the individual personality of the prefect (and the size of municipality). Larger cities gradually developed a direct link with Paris. 18
The Dutch system was radically different. The Dutch mayor was not a locally elected member of the municipal council, but rather a civil servant, selected and appointed by the central state for a six-year term (which in most cases was renewed until retirement). Dutch mayors received a wage, underwent administrative training and had to pass state exams. Although the mayor presided over the municipal council as well as its executive body (the committee of aldermen or wethouders in Dutch), he had no voting rights.
Therefore, it was clear that the Dutch mayor was first and foremost the representative of the central state. His position limited local autonomy, and this impacted his relationship with local populations. In Belgium and France, mayors represented local groups and interests. A Dutch mayor came from outside a local community, and indeed was supposed to take a neutral stance in local struggles.
The typical so-called âpillarizedâ nature of society meant that every mayor did have a certain political colour. Nevertheless, the nineteenth century Dutch mayor was a âregentâ who preserved a distance between himself and the locality. Despite the attempt by a new generation of mayors in the 1920s to adopt a somewhat less distant style of government, the real âregencyâ period of the Dutch mayoralty would only end after 1945. In 1930, 91 % of all mayors still came from the top two strata of society (which consisted of six levels). 19 In that same year, 86 mayors were sons of former mayors, and 86 were members of the nobility. 20
Like his Belgian and French colleagues, the Dutch mayor was head of the local police and responsible fo...