in relation to both the historical and cultural classification of traditions
from Lidström (2003) and the classification of welfare states by Huber and
Stephens (2001). As predicted, no country registers high levels of both
local capacities and supralocal supervision, or low enough supervision
and high enough capacities for local government to qualify as autonomous.
For three of the four Social Democratic welfare states, each with the
Northern European system of local government, the highest measures of
local capacities combine with moderate degrees of supralocal supervision.
These most clearly fit the model of nationalized local government. Norway,
with greater supervision and lower empowerment, remains one of the
closest countries to this group.
The other types of welfare states generally correspond with local governments
in the less consistent ways the initial hypotheses predicted.
Several Middle European local government systems with Christian
Democratic welfare states (Germany, Austria, the Netherlands) stand
closest to the Social Democratic group. But lower local capacities and in
some instances more supervision make local government in these systems
more state-dependent. Christian Democratic or Southern European
welfare states in the Napoleonic tradition, such as Belgium and Greece,
come closest to supralocal monopolies. Local governments of Liberal and
Wage-earner welfare states besides the United Kingdom and Ireland fall
into a largely distinct category. At the same time the infrastructures there
subject local government to less supervision from above, local governments
there also receive fewer capacities than Northern European counterparts.
Switzerland, although Christian Democratic, also belongs to this
category. The UK and Ireland, although also Liberal welfare states, score
higher for supervision.
Contemporary cross-sectional institutional comparison thus highlights
a distinctive nexus between the Social Democratic welfare state and the
nationalized local governance infrastructure. This correspondence raises a
crucial question. Is the distinctive combination of strong local capacities
and moderate supervision in these countries a consequence or a cause of
their distinctive type of welfare state?
Local Government and the Development of the Social Democratic
Welfare State
Cultural and institutional conditions common to the Nordic countries
have fostered favorable conditions for both Social Democratic welfare
states and the nationalized local governance infrastructure. Cultural and
religious homogeneity has fostered less division over policy than that in
many countries. Unitary central institutions and executive–legislative
relations have encouraged fewer veto players in national policy (cf. Tsebelis
1995). Yet other countries with similar homogeneity and national
institutions have developed neither nationalized local governments nor
Social Democratic welfare states. This distinctive form of local government