formation of a European Constitutional Convention which reported
in 2003 and which led to the proposal for a new constitution for
Europe in 2004. This included a Declaration of Rights, a strengthened
presidency of the Council of Ministers, changes in the numbers of
commissioners for each state and more decision making by a qualified
majority (on a modified basis) in the Council of Ministers.
The defeat of referenda on the proposed constitution in France and
the Netherlands slowed the reform process but it seems likely that
some of the measures proposed in the constitution – including a
strengthening of the presidency and moves to include more policy
areas in weighted majority decision making will be adopted piecemeal.Local government
The institutions of local government often reflect, in large measure,
those of central government. Thus, in well-established Western
liberal democracies such as the United States and the UK, there is a
long tradition of local representation and autonomy. One of the
author’s own town (Poole, in Dorset) has recently celebrated the
750th anniversary of the granting of a charter to its leading townsfolk
by the local Lord of the Manor, establishing rights to hold markets
and regulate its port. In the United States a sturdy tradition of local
government was established even in the colonial era and on this was
built the later development of state and national autonomy and
democracy. The reverse applies in China and the former Soviet Union
where the mechanisms of national one-party pseudo-democracy were
reproduced at local level with large-scale participation masking
central dictation of virtually all local decisions and the previously
imperial bureaucracies held sway.
In some places, however, there may be conflict between national
and local styles of political behaviour, which complicates the estab-
lishment of a viable local government system. To give an extreme
example, the British in colonial Nigeria set up a system of ‘Native
Administration’ designed to lead the way to a modern local govern-
ment system. This was based upon the strategy of modernising and
gradually democratising the administration of local ‘traditional
rulers’. In the north of Nigeria this had the unfortunate effect of
reinforcing the power of some of the more conservative elements in a
rapidly changing society. In parts of the east of the country, so-called164 STATES