Forms of Local Government Structures in Switzerland: Same but Different?

Government structures in Swiss municipalities define the roles and responsibilities as well as the management organization within local government. Since the 1990s, several administrative reforms affecting local government structures have been observed. In the context of New Public Management, about a third of the Swiss municipalities reported an enhanced separation of strategic and operational tasks and a delegation of more competencies towards the administration during the last 20 years (Ladner 2016). These changes have been mainly observed in larger municipalities in the German but less in the Italian or French part of Switzerland. To date, there exists little scientific work focusing on local government structures in Switzerland. A methodical analysis of prevailing structures across all regions of Switzerland is lacking. Due to the heterogeneous context in terms of culture, language and size of municipalities but also due to various reform activities, important differences in form and spread of local government structures are expected. The aim of the article is twofold. One, it identifies and systematizes the different structural configurations in Swiss municipalities. We expect to uncover structures that are not discussed so far in the literature. Second, it examines patterns across municipalities and outlines potential explanations of these variations such as, for example, culture or path dependency (Neo-Institutionalism). The comparative analysis approach is based on quantitative data derived from a full census of the 2’300 municipalities in Switzerland (the 6th nationwide Swiss survey of municipal secretaries). The survey contains questions regarding tasks and responsibilities as well as organizational structures (i.e.: Which management tasks does the mayor have? Is your administration organized in a department-system?). The answers allow to extract and to compare the different structures on different levels (executive, administration). The expected findings deepen the knowledge of local government systems by providing the first profound and systematic overview of organizational structures and their spread, among others, in different language and (administrative) culture regions (German, Italian and French) across Switzerland. Furthermore, due to the full survey approach, there is also a potential to discover new forms of structures. The findings will contribute to existing international literature and systematizations of local government systems such as the POLLEADER typology (Heinelt and Hlepas 2006) or Mouritzen and Svara (2002), Hesse and Sharpe (1991) or Svara and Nelson (2008) by widening the perspective on more detailed structures in municipalities of a single European country. Key words: local government structures, municipality, Switzerland