Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 19th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Local Government Author(s) Michaela Batorova University of Tampere Tampere Finland Title How past reforms change the future? Local governance reforms and their impact on mayor’s ability to influence the municipal development File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract The purpose of this paper is to find out if the past institutional changes influence the decision-making power of current political leaders. In particular, this paper deals with the historical analysis of the public administration reform in Slovakia (between years 1989 and 2009), and reveals the consequences of this reform on the perceived decision-making power of the current Slovak Mayors. As the decision-making power is a tool for performing a change, this paper clearly elaborates causal relation between the past state policies and its effects on the future municipal development from the municipal key actors point of view. The research findings were obtained by employing a triangulation method. The data was collected by a survey, a study of documentary material, and interviews with key actors. Thus, for the data analysis rich statistical materials and reports, answers on questionnaires, and interview transcripts were used. The in-depth interviews with open-ended questions were conducted in nine Slovak municipalities with eight mayors and one vice-mayor who have been in charge for at least two electoral periods. The questionnaires were distributed between councilors and civil servants from the same nine municipalities. The research provides interesting results, different data produces different outcome. The documentary analysis shows that the past institutional changes have strong positive influence on the mayor’s formal decision-making power, because the powers (rights) to change the municipal development have been extended. On the other hand, the content analysis of the interview transcripts shows that the opinions of the respondents are ambiguous. More than half of the interviewed mayors think that the analyzed institutional changes have not influenced their decision-making power. This means that for 5 out of 9 studied mayors the ability to influence the municipal development depends on other than institutional change factors. In addition, the results from the survey support the findings obtained from the interviews. In conclusion, the consequences of the past institutional changes – public administration reform – in the Slovak local governments are only one of many factors influencing the perception of the current mayor’s decision-making power used for shaping the municipal development. Other factors, such as composition of the municipal council, professional experiences, and persuasion skills play more significant role in mayor’s ability to influence the future. Key words: institutional change, decentralization reform, the Slovak local governments, mayoral decision-making power,
