provinces, and it is unclear how far-reaching the subsequent reform of
prefectoral power has been. In Italy the nationally-appointed prefects still
retain great discretion over decisions by the communes. In Britain the powers
and responsibilities of local government have become especially controversial
since the 1970s because of Conservative governments’desire to keep an overall
control of public expenditure at all levels. The Conservative government of
Edward Heath introduced major reforms of the local government system in
the period 1972–74, and the governments of Margaret Thatcher made further
amendments, in particular by abolishing the Greater London Council and six
other metropolitan authorities, and by imposing ever tighter controls on how
much money local authorities may spend, or indeed raise. This development
culminated in the short-lived attempt to impose a wholly new structure of
local government financing, the community charge (or ‘poll tax’).
In many countries local government has been seen as both a training-ground
for politicians with national ambitions, and as an arena in which ordinary
citizens can have a more real involvement in politics than is possible at the
national level. Some theorists, such as John StuartMill, were convinced that
experience in local government was essential for developing a real political
competence in the population, and thus crucially underscored democracy.
Locke
John Locke (1632–1704) may be one of the most famous political theorists in
the Anglo-American world not so much because of the quality of his thought,
as for his impact on world events, since many of his ideas were taken as models
by the founding fathers of the US Constitution. Like his great rival Thomas
Hobbes, though slightly later, he was writing against the background of the
English Civil War, and his own political connections were vital to the
development of his political theory. Hobbes and Locke used much the same
theoretical methodology: the discussion of a hypotheticalstate of natureand
the idea of asocial contractor compact to get out of this state intocivil
society. He was very much in thenatural lawtradition but, unlike Hobbes,
his perception of natural law was much more orthodox. The main aim in his
theories, set out in theFirst and Second Treatises on Civil Government, was to
draw a blueprint for a political system in which the government would be
severely limited in its role, and subject to control and even abolition by the
citizenry were it to exceed the tight bounds he put on it. As withRousseau
later, he argued thatsovereigntylay with the people, not with a monarch, and
that governments had their authority only because the citizens consented to
their rule to achieve specific benefits. Only the need for a greater protection of
certain natural rights could be a good reason for consenting to leave the total
Locke