Councils and Councillors in Germany

The proposed paper addresses local representative bodies, i.e. city councils, and their members, i.e. councillors. The paper contributes to the knowledge of local representative assemblies and combines the field of legislative studies with local democracy research, dealing with the representative quality of councils and the ambitions of councillors in multilevel systems. In the paper two questions are addressed: (1) Social identity, representative quality and professionalization of councils This research interest refers to recent developments, esp. the increasing importance of the local level in multilevel democratic systems. The local level is recently being considered as the very heart of politics and therefore back in the game (e.g. in the planning of large infrastructure projects). Consequently, local representative assemblies gain importance, esp. in representing the local citizens as well as linking citizens and the local government. As a consequence, local representative bodies become more and more like regular legislative bodies. Councils esp. in large cities professionalize at least in some dimensions, and aspects of party competition become more important and overrule factual decisions. Party politicians become more important and notabilities are replaced by party candidates. The local level is no longer a semi-political administrative level, local councils should be understood and analysed as fully-fledged political institutions. But if councils are largely regular representative bodies, aspects of representation become important in councils as well (as already discussed in literature referring to (sub-) national legislatures). Due to that these aspects will be addressed in the first part of the paper. (2) Career ambitions of councillors It is often said that the local level of politics functions as a training ground for political competence and that the involvement on local level, in local representative assemblies, is quite important for further legislators’ careers. Being elected as a councillor can be seen as a first step in a political career. Therefore it is asked in the paper, which career ambitions local councillors have. Is running for council a project on its own or is this seen as a first step in a multilevel career plan? This question refers to arguments of recent literature on legislators’ professionalization and of the general incentive model, which is normally used for explaining party membership and involvement. This model is adapted to analyse multilevel career ambitions of local MPs. Thereby it can be analysed which different patterns of multilevel career ambitions of councillors are given, how these ambitions can be systematized and how these different patterns can be explained. Both aspects will be analysed in the paper by using multivariate quantitative methods, aiming to systemize and explain the findings. The empirical work is based on data from a recent representative survey addressing councillors in large German cities. This cross-sectional online-survey was conducted in summer 2015 and includes almost all large cities in Germany (more than 100.000 residents; response rate (if contactable): 27.7 per cent, n=846). Due to this unique and yet unpublished dataset, well-founded analyses will be possible.