Democracy and Local Governance
Report of the Bern Conference, January 11-14, 1996
On the invitation by the Institute of Political Science, University of Bern, a conference uniting the West European teams was held in Switzerland. Participants were: Krzysztof Ostrowski, Henry Teune (Steering Committee), Tania Iskra (Data Base Manager), Werner Pleschberger (Austria), Caroline Andrew (Canada), Matti Malkia (Finland), Thomas Cusack (Germany), Philippos Loukissas (Greece), Michiel de Vries (Netherlands), Soledad Garcia (Spain), Wolf Linder and Ruth Nabholz (Switzerland), Levant Koker (Turkey), Michael Goldsmith (United Kingdom).
Since Bern offered the first opportunity for all West European research teams to meet, the members of the Steering Committee presented the main points of design, data collection and data base of the DLG-Project.
Parts of the results of the German study were presented. United Kingdom, Spain, Canada, Greece, Finland and the Netherlands representatives described their project intentions, to be realized in the next two years. A retake of the Austrian survey is intended. Further, "old" and "new" participants discussed on questions concerning sampling, questionnaire, procedures of data collection, data handling, on the theoretical base of the DLG-project and about particularities of the national surveys.
a) With the participation of West European teams and Canada, the Local Governance project makes a new and important step. Because of the growing number of participants, the organization as well as the activities of the DLG-project will have to be more decentralized. This means that national teams will have more freedom in shaping their surveys for their national and academic needs, and are supposed to undertake initiatives also of their own for cross national analysis. It is essential, however, to keep an identical part of the questionnaire for the comparative research.
b) An intensive discussion on the questionnaire allowed to comment the teoretical backgrounds and the analytical strength of the questions from past experience. Furthermore, the group identified the, "core" questions which should be maintained by every team and which are essential for the international DLG file for cross-national comparison.
The following questions were considered as "essential": (International version 1995) 1 (as an opener), 5, 6, 7, 8 (with selection of items that fits best), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 or 16 (15 preferred), 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 30, 33, 34.
As to the background data, K Ostrowski will look for possibilities to improve categories for socio-economic status.
c) Several of the new teams wish to add questions on the issues of privatization, regionalization and the restructuring of the welfare state.
4. Communication and data sharing
The Project has made considerable effort developing the DLG database for conceptual analysis (see the Iskra/Ostrowski/Teune paper, "Designing a Database fo Comparative Research", Tampere, December 1995). DLG now is on Internet. The WWW-page will be available soon.
New teams recieved the international data file. Data protection and anonymity of the local elites are important. For purposes of the international file, an aggregation of individual data into community files is essential. However, national teams are not required to hand in data with the names of the communes which could make interviewees of local elites identifyable.
Most participants shared the view that, after a profitable period of data collection, it must be one of the primary objectives to produce more publications in order to give the DLG-project an academic reputation. This includes articles in national, cross-national or longitudinal perspectives as well.
This perspective is realistic for different reasons: --with the development of the single DLG-database for conceptual analysis there will be a userfriendly framework which makes it easier to get familiar with the different national data files and to use them for comparative research.
--for teams of Western Europe and Canada, it is not only interesting to share data but to continue in cumulative research which has been done in the last 35 years on international studies of values in politics and (local) democracy.
--some of the teams expressed their interest in using the data for undergraduate and graduate courses, certainly a good investment for developing scholarly work on the DLG-data files.
The participants expressed their wish to include information about theoretical literature and articles based on the DLG-project in the Internet pages as soon as possible.
Volume II of national reports including contributions from China, Czech Republic, Iceland, Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, USA and Uzbekistan should be published by the end of this year. Given the fact that the German study ia almost completed, Thomas Cusack agreed to contribute with his national report to the volume.
The series publication of national reports will not be continued after publication of Vol. II. This means also that national teams are no longer required to produce a national report in the rigid older form. Instead, national teams should be free to produce articles which are of more analytical nature, be it on national particularities or on cross-national comparisons.
S. Eldersveld still offers to edit a volume with articles using the DLG-data on a cross-national focus. Werner Pleschberger contribution comparing environment attitudes in four countries is the only one handed in. Contributions, comparing at least three countries, are requested.
M. Goldmsith made a number of hints concerning a future DLG-publication policy. He insists on the importance of finding commercial editors for future publications which gives DLG a chance of reviews in political science journals. Goldsmith mentions, "Beliefs in Government", a project of similar nature, which was finally published by the European Science foundation. If contributions of the DLG-teams are too heterogeneous to be published in one volume, they could be broken down to smaller parts which gives a chance of publication in journals, Goldsmith suggests.
Participants expressed their gratitude to Monika Spinatsch, Ruth Nabholz and Wolf Linder for organizing the conference.
Bern, January 14, 1996
Wolf Linder
Please send all questions
and comments to either Dr.
Henry Teune, University of Pennsylvania or
Tatiana
Iskra, Pultusk School of Humanities, Pultusk, Poland
This page was last modified on November 28, 2000.