In the current debate about a decline of democratic legitimacy in Western democracies, strengthening ‘strong’ or participatory democracy is often seen as a way of coping with the legitimacy crisis. In this chapter we want to explore in how far mayors as important actors of local democracy share the notions of either ‘thin’ or ‘strong’ democracy.
It will test (a) in how far combinations of these two notions of democracy are supported by mayors, (b) what changes in the prevalence of these two notions of democracy have occurred between 2002-2004 and 2014-2015, which differences we find regarding (c) levels and (d) changes in the mayors’ notions of democracy between the countries.
