西方国家地方政府改革述评

Review of Local Government Reform in Western Countries

从上世纪70年代末开始,在西方世界兴起了新一轮政府改革运动,对地方政府的职能、机构、内部流程、外部关系以及管理方式等,进行了大刀阔斧的改革。本文以20世纪70年代末(1979年)以来三十年为研究时间段,以主要西方国家为研究对象,全面考察新一轮地方政府改革运动的来龙去脉,具体分析其起源、指导理论、发展走向等,从中找出一些普遍性的特征,以对中国当前的地方政府改革与创新提供借鉴。

From the late 1970s, a new round of government reforms developed in the Western world. The movement includes drastic reforms of the local governments＇ functions, institutions, internal processes, external relations and management methods, etc. This paper takes the major Western countries in recent three decades as the research object, discusses the development of the new round of reforms of the local government. The author analyses the origin of th local government reform movement, the guiding theory, the development of direction and so on, to find some universal characteristics and to get references for China＇s current reform and innovation of the local governments.