Institutes & CentersInstitute for Comparative Federalism - Projects - Local Gov (PhD) Stiftung Sparkasse

Local Gov (PhD) Stiftung Sparkasse

2f/2025 Municipalities and institutional cooperation in multilevel systems: The local level of governance between identity, participation and efficiency - a comparative analysis with special focus on South Tyrol

This project is a PhD project, completed in 2023, which focuses on horizontal cooperation between municipalities in three Alpine regions: the Autonomous Province of Bolzano/South Tyrol, the Land Tyrol (Austria), and the Canton of Grisons (Switzerland).

In the context of recent societal changes among them aging population or youth migration as well as institutional administrative reforms, Municipalities are increasingly under pressure to perform their duties efficiently and in close proximity to citizens. In this context, horizontal cooperation – that is, collaboration between municipalities – is gaining importance.

The aim of the project was to analyze the legal framework and the implementation of intermunicipal cooperation. A focus was placed on collecting empirical data and comparing three subnational entities.

The PhD project was carried out in cooperation with the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and was co-financed by the Stiftung Südtiroler Sparkasse. The dissertation was successfully defended (summa cum laude) in December 2023 and was published as a monograph by Peter Lang Publishing in 2025.

Project duration: October 2017 - May 2025
Project status:
Funding:
Stiftungen (Other projects /Project)
Total project budget: €5,000.00
Institute: Institute for Comparative Federalism

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governance participatory democracy

Scientific Publications

Book2025

Interkommunale Kooperation im Alpenraum: die lokalen Dienstleistungen in Graubünden, Südtirol und Tirol

Klotz G

Greta Klotz

ISBN: 978-3-631-93080-9

Im Alpenraum gehören die Gemeinden schon lange zu den zentralen politischen Akteuren. Allerdings sind sie vielerorts für die Fülle ihrer komplexer werdenden Zuständigkeiten personell wie finanziell nicht ausreichend ausgestattet. Der Ausgangspunkt dieses Buches ist, dass Gemeinden zwar eine wesentliche Rolle im Mehrebenensystem zukommt, sie diese aber häufig nicht (mehr) allein bewältigen können und zunehmend auf Zusammenarbeit angewiesen sind. Dieses Buch untersucht die interkommunale Kooperation als mögliche Lösungsstrategie für lokale Herausforderungen. Ziel ist es, aufzuzeigen, in welcher Form und Intensität Gemeinden in Graubünden, Südtirol und Tirol kooperieren und ob diverse Gemeindetypen Kooperation unterschiedlich nutzen und bewerten. Die ausgewählten Fälle betreffen drei Gebiete, die einerseits über ähnliche Bedingungen verfügen, andererseits aber zum Teil unterschiedliche politische Strategien verfolgen, um das lokale Regieren effizienter zu gestalten. Dieses Buch ist eine interdisziplinäre Forschungsarbeit im Bereich der vergleichenden Föderalismus- und Regionalismusforschung.

Journal article2021

Context-driven Local Autonomy. The importance of differentiated assessments in asymmetric countries

Bolgherini S, Klotz G, Fromm UL

Greta Klotz

Local autonomy is a core issue in democracies, and there have been multiple attempts to measure it. Most of these efforts provide cross-country comparable data based on country-level scores, thus neglecting in-country territorial differences. This study stresses the multidimensionality of local autonomy, its context-driven variability, and the importance of acknowledging and assessing territorial differentiation in order to provide more accurate measurements of municipal local autonomy. It thus explores the variations in the degree of local autonomy at the municipal level in Italy by region and not only at the country level. Italy is a particularly interesting case due to its quasi-federal asymmetry, while the federal systems of Austria and Switzerland provide further evidence of these variations. Our findings—gathered in two original datasets—show that discrepancies in local autonomy across regions are remarkably present, particularly when regional autonomy is high, that they emerge regardless of the formal competences allocated by the legal framework, that they dissimilarly vary across the dimensions of autonomy, and that they can be traced back to the impact of austerity measures, the reforms indirectly but substantially impacting local government, and the context-driven perceptions of the meaning of autonomy. These results may be relevant to analyses of asymmetric realities in multilevel democracies in Europe and beyond.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.3917/ripc.281.0207

Inbook2021

The System of Local Government in Italy

Klotz G, Kössler K

Karl Kössler

DOI Source

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5254705

Database2020

Differentiated Local Autonomy in Italy (2020)

Bolgherini S, Klotz G, Lennart Fromm U

Greta Klotz

This dataset provides updated and more detailed data on the ‘Local Autonomy Index’ (LAI) for Italy. It is part of a more articulated project seeking to explore the link between territorial policies and citizens' participation. The degree of Local Autonomy has been assessed in Italy in the two main clusters of subnational units, namely the 15 Ordinary Status Regions and the five Special Status Regions. The two clusters enjoy different constitutional and legal prerogatives, which influence the degree of autonomy of their relevant local authorities.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.7802/2119

All Publications

Interkommunale Kooperation im Alpenraum: die lokalen Dienstleistungen in Graubünden, Südtirol und Tirol
Klotz G (2025)
Lausanne: Peter Lang
978-3-631-93080-9
(Minderheiten und Autonomien)
Authored book

Assessing the climate change vulnerability of mountain winegrowing regions in Europe
Tscholl S, Candiago S, Marsoner T, Fraga H, Giupponi C, Egarter Vigl L (2022)
Presentation/Speech

Conference: VII International Congress on Mountain and Steep Slope Viticulture | Vila Real | 5.12.2022 - 5.12.2022

More information: https://www.cervim.org/en/presentation/international-con ...

Assessing the climate change vulnerability of European winegrowing regions by combining exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity indicators
Tscholl S, Candiago S, Marsoner T, Fraga H, Giupponi C, Egarter Vigl L (2022)
Presentation/Speech

Conference: Terclim 2022 | Bordeaux | 7.8.2022 - 7.8.2022

More information: https://terclim2022.symposium.inrae.fr/

Our partners

University of Perugia

University of Fribourg

Project Team

Greta Klotz

Francesco Palermo

Karl Kössler

Günther Pallaver

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Local Gov (PhD) Stiftung Sparkasse