This an Open access book. It provides a comparative and multidisciplinary analysis of how local governments perform their tasks and how these are financed. The volume stands out with three essential features. First, the comparative research reflected in the volume has a global geographical scope because it is the outcome of a Horizon 2020 project involving 18 partners from six continents. Therefore, it includes highly topical and so far under-researched case studies beyond just the European continent. Secondly, we look at the above-mentioned topics from a timely urban-rural perspective, as the ultimate aim is to explore the impact of the phenomenon of urbanisation on local governments and the response of urban and rural municipalities. Thirdly, the book focuses within broader research on municipal tasks and finances on several specific topics that have been revealed by our project as particularly relevant. These are public transport policies of urban and rural local governments, different ways of public service provision like PPP and public enterprises, financial equalization between urban and rural municipalities, as well as special fees as alternative sources of local revenue.
Martin Burgi (born 1964) is Professor of Public and European Law at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich as well as Director of Public and European Law Research Centerfor Public Procurement Law and Administrative Cooperations (FVV). He is a Visiting Professor at the George-Washington-University Law School, situated inWashington D.C. As Director of the Public Procurement Research Institute, Professor Martin Burgi rendered outstanding services in European and national public procurement law. He has also been a Visiting Lecturer at Dickson Poon School of Law – the law school of the Kings College in London – since 2016. Professor Martin Burgi frequently attends international conferences and his broad area of expertise includes modernization and privatization in the international context, legal protection at international courts, the roles of regions and municipalities in the global change. He serves as Official expert for parliamentary institutions and as legal consultant for stock exchange enterprises, states and local municipalities. He is a member of the German Association of Researchers of Public Law (Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer) and was its chairman from 2014-2015. Furthermore he has been co-director of the Professors-Dialogue of the German County Assembly (Deutscher Landkreistag - DLT) since March 2013. Besides his work outside the Ludwig-Maximilians-University he is engaged in the Munich Center of Governance, Communication, Public Policy and Law and an active member of the University Senate and Council.
Francisco Velasco Caballero: Título de Licenciado en Derecho por la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Junio 1988. Doctor en Derecho por la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, con la tesis doctoral "Las cláusulas accesorias del acto administrativo" calificada por la Comisión de Evaluación con "apto cum laudem", por unanimidad (15 abril 1994). Mención de honor del Tribunal anual de Doctoradode la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Karl Kössler is Senior Researcher and Group Leader at the Institute for Comparative Federalism of Eurac Research Bolzano/Bozen (Italy). He received a Ph.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Innsbruck (Austria) in 2011. Due to his background in both comparative public law and political science, Karl Kössler's research adopts a multidisciplinary perspective. His teaching includes a wide range of courses at universities, master programs and summer schools in Europe, Africa and Asia. Moreover, Karl Kössler is the author of over 50 academic publications with prestigious publishers such as Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, Edward Elgar, Hart and Oxford University Press. This includes nine books, among them Comparative Federalism: Constitutional Arrangements and Case Law (co[1]authored with Francesco Palermo). The latter book has received acclaim from both political scientists and lawyers as “a work ofreference for generations of scholars” (Prof. Balveer Arora) and as “standing out for its iconoclasm, for its illuminating and entertaining selection of illustrative examples, but most of all for a significant methodological breakthrough” (Prof. James Gardner). Karl Kössler’s consultancy activities for policymakers have covered a wide range of constitutional and political reform projects with assignments ranging from several European countries to Mozambique and Papua New Guinea. In 2018, he was appointed as Alternate Member of the Council of Europe’s Group of Independent Experts on the European Charter of Local Self-Government. His work has obtained third-party funding from private foundations and the European Union. Since 2019 Karl Kössler is the Scientific Coordinator of the five-year EU Horizon 2020 project “Local Government and the Changing Urban-Rural Interplay (LoGov)”, which brings together 18 partner institutions from around the world.
