America and local self-government

Abstract

In Britain, local government units enjoy a lot of autonomy. This autonomy is there even though Britain has a unitary government in which the central government is all powerful and the local units can exercise only those rights which have been given to them by the centre. Apart from this, in the jurisdictions which have been given to the local units by the centre, most of the local units are free to do as they wish. Central control is required so that the local units can develop equally and their work can be uniform. Local self-governance and local governance are the same but there are some fundamental differences between them due to which both of them get separated from each other. Local governance is just an agency of the government and which is controlled by the central or state government, whereas local self-governance is complete in itself and no one has any direct control over it. For example, in India, local governance is that whose head is the District Magistrate. On the contrary, institutions like Gram Panchayats, Nagar Palikas and District Panchayats come under local self-governance. Local governance does not formulate its own policies but it only implements the policies formulated by the administration (government). On the contrary, the institutions of local self-governance make policies and also get them implemented. People working in local governance are appointed by the government while the people working in local self-governance are elected by the people. This makes it clear that local self-governance is closer to democracy. Local governance does not enjoy any kind of autonomy while local self-governance is completely autonomous. There is corruption and red-tapism in local governance while this does not happen in local self-governance.