Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 29th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview WG1: Local Government (Physical) Author(s) Pawel Swianiewicz Wroclaw University of Enviornmental and Life Sciences Wroclaw Poland Kurt Houlberg, VIVE, Denmark Title Evaluation of territorial reforms File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Pawel Swianiewicz Abstract This paper explores whether the territorial reforms in countries of amalgamations have been evaluated and, if so, by whom and with what results. Evaluations of territorial reform are inherently political and involve different stakeholders whose interests – in the reform’s justification, meaning and results alike – differ, and often conflict, as do their views on whether a reform should be evaluated, by whom, how, and for what purpose. Ex-post evaluations of amalgamation reforms are not common practice. The reforms most frequently evaluated are comprehensive, deep, one-off reforms, whereas more shallow or gradual reforms are evaluated in less than forty percent of cases. The most typical form of evaluation is an official evaluation carried out or solicited by the reform-deciding government, providing the reform-deciding government a high level of control over the evaluation. The academic literature studying the consequences of municipal amalgamations shows that municipal amalgamations have both positive and negative outcomes both in realtion to economic consequences and local democracy. Nuances notwithstanding, the extant academic literature broadly suggests that amalgamation reforms experience a trade-off between efficiency and democracy.
