A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance

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Indicators of Local Democratic Governance
Producer
Local Government and Public Service Reform
Initiative of the Open Society Institute, in partnership
with the Tocqueville Research Center
History
The Local Government and Public Service Reform
Initiative (LGI), and the Tocqueville Research Center
(T-RC), Budapest initiated a project titled
“Indicators of Local Democratic Governance” in
2000. The project aims to help decision-makers
and researchers to assess and explain the state of
local democracy in the countries of Central and
Eastern Europe, which have adopted new local
government structures since the fall of communism
in 1989-90.
Objectives
The Project aims to help decision-makers and
researchers assess and explain local government
performance.The overarching goal of the Project is
to develop a set of operational, flexible, and
adaptable indicators based on internationally
recognized definitions of local democracy and
governance. It is a monitoring programme that
offers comprehensive, longitudinal and crossnationally
comparable information on local
democratic governance in Central and Eastern
Europe. Specifically, the Project aims to:
• generate original survey data and collect other
relevant statistical data;
• regularly report on the state of local democracy
in Central and Eastern Europe;
• disseminate results and standardized datasets
to inform developmental and policy reform
initiatives.
Applicability
The Indicators of Local Democratic Governance
have mainly been developed for use by countries
of Central and Eastern Europe, but can in fact be
used by any country in transition.They can be used
to compare the progress of local democratic
governance within the same country, or amongst
different countries.
Types and sources of data used
Data are collected using three types of surveys,
which use both objective and subjective information:
the Local Government Survey (LGS), the Local
Representative Survey (LRS), and the citizen survey.
The questionnaires were developed on the basis of
the paper “The Indicators of Local Democratic
Governance Project: Concepts and Hypothesis”
(see supplementary tools/guidelines).
The LGS collects factual information about the
activities of local government and the organisation
of civil society. The survey includes questions
related to the administrative staff, the budget, the
decision-making process, polices, democratic
activities and local governments, local parties, local
civil society, local media, local social life, etc. The
LRS survey focuses on elected representatives’
perceptions on local government performance. It
provides an assessment of the relationship
between local government and the citizens. The
LRS investigates relations of trust and power
within the political elite, party and NGO
membership, as well as the respect of democratic
values. The citizen survey address almost all issues
examined in the two other surveys.
Methodology
The project uses a wide variety of variables
to gauge the variance of local governance
performance on the one hand, and its roots in
economic, political, legal, cultural and social factors
on the other:
74 UNDP Oslo Governance Centre