Beyond size: Overcoming fragmentation by inter-municipal associations in Spain? The case of Catalonia1
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852317727339 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Symposium Articles |
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Beyond size: Overcoming
fragmentation by inter-
municipal associations
in Spain? The case
of Catalonia
1
Esther Pano Puey
Fundacio
´Carles Pi i Sunyer, Spain, and University of
Barcelona, Spain
Jaume Magre Ferran
Fundacio
´Carles Pi i Sunyer, Spain, and University of
Barcelona, Spain
Carla Puiggro
`s Mussons
Fundacio
´Carles Pi i Sunyer, Spain
Abstract
The Spanish local system is characterised by strong fragmentation and a large number
of local territorial entities. One of the possible ways of compensating for this small size
is through associations of municipalities, which may empower their members to pro-
vide better services and may increase their ability to solve problems. However, the size
of the municipalities may not be the only important factor. Indeed, other dimensions of
size, such as the number of members or the size of the institution as an indicator of the
degree of institutionalisation, can be taken into account. In this article, we explore the
inter-municipal associations in an area of Spain (Catalonia) in order to identify and
analyse the key factors and explanatory variables, and to explore different dimensions
of the concept of size.
Corresponding author:
Esther Pano Puey, Fundacio
´Carles Pi i Sunyer,Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes 491, 08015 Barcelona, Spain.
Email: epano@ub.edu
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2018, Vol. 84(4) 639–658
!The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0020852317727339
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Points for practitioners
The size of the organisation is an important aspect of inter-municipal associations and it
can be influenced by the number of municipalities and the area of cooperation. Upper-
level-driven reforms may have a direct impact on the creation of these kinds of entities.
Keywords
inter-municipal cooperation, local government, local public services, municipalities,
rescaling
Introduction
Although the European tendency has been to reduce the number of local admin-
istration entities, Spain has avoided these measures, even moving in the opposite
direction (Burguen
˜o, 2004; Burguen
˜o and Lasso de la Vega, 2002). Currently,
Spain and Catalonia both embody extremely fragmented and unevenly distributed
municipal topographies. In 2015, Spain comprised 8119 municipalities. The major-
ity of Spanish and Catalan municipalities are very small. Towns of less than 2500
inhabitants represent 75.3% of the total number of Spanish municipalities (see
Table 1). However, most Spaniards (almost 70%) reside in towns of over 20,000
inhabitants.
Table 2 shows the same data for Catalonia, where the situation is very similar:
the majority of municipalities are small but the bulk of the population lives in
larger towns or cities. In fact, data in both tables show an inverse relationship
between the number of municipalities and the aggregate population.
This situation has often triggered a debate about amalgamation measures. Such
institutional reform is often justified by reducing the discussion about municipal
size to the essential element of economic pressure on the provision of public
services (Citroni et al., 2013; Dollery et al., 2016; Haveri and Airaksinen, 2007;
Reid, 2016). However, the implementation of policies to consolidate smaller com-
munities has never succeeded and the number of municipalities has experienced a
slow but steady increase through the years.
In this context, inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) emerges as an attractive
option through which to ensure the delivery of municipal public services, especially
in the case of smaller municipalities (Hertzog, 2010; Kopric, 2012; Teles and
Kettunen, 2016). From the economic point of view, the literature shows that coop-
eration tools could produce effective and efficient systems for the provision of
municipal public services (Bel and Warner, 2015; Bel et al., 2013b; Warner,
2006). In this article, we intend to analyse the main features of inter-municipal
associations in Catalonia, drawing on information gathered during fieldwork in
Catalan municipalities.
640 International Review of Administrative Sciences 84(4)
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