The Transition of Local Self Government in Slovakia
| Author | Ludmila Malikova |
| Published date | 01 September 1996 |
| Date | 01 September 1996 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/014473949601600205 |
| Published By | Sage Publications, Inc. |
Teaching Public Administration, Autumn 1996,
Vol.
XVI,
No.2,
pp59-63
THE
TRANSITION OF LOCAL SELF GOVERNMENT
IN
SLOVAKIA
LUDMILA
MALIKOV
A
Comenius University, Bratislava
Slovakia became an independent and unitary state in 1993. Its system
of
local government consists of2853 units at the level
of
the Municipality.
There is, as yet, no self government at regional (or meso) level.
Before 1989, local government was an extension
of
the centralised state
and was subordinate to the wishes
of
the Communist Party
of
Slovakia.
Although local officials were, in theory, responsible to the National
Committees, elections to the Committees were essentially a formality
because these were accountable to the party. There was, as Bennett has
noted,
'an
overcentraIisation
of
power, a unidirectional vertical
orientation
of
decision making and a long term suppression
of
many
activities' (1993, p 267). The reforms that took place after 1989 drew a
distinction between the functions
of
central and local government and
redistributed the functions
of
the former national committees into two
sets
of
units at the local level: state administration offices for central
government functions and local self administration offices for local
government functions. Such a transformation
of
power has been an
enormous task, involving the change
of
previously totalitarian structures
into democratic, participative and pluralistic units
of
government. The
new local government structure was established in 1990 and the flrst free
elections for local authorities took place in November that year.
However, although much has already been done, transformation will be a
long process. As Bennett notes
'.
. . the legacy
of
forty years
of
communist rule has not been easy to remove. These countries will labour
for a long time in a state
of
"transition" -abandoning their immediate
past and not yet quite reaching a fully developed present' (1993, p 31).
59
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