Global, national and subnational change (political, economic, social and demographic) are forcing local governments to search, reactively or proactively, for alternative organizational patterns and management styles. This book explores different approaches toward local government reorientation in selected Western countries as well as the 'reinvention' of local government in Eastern Europe. Eight national case-studies (U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, Norway, Israel, the Czech Republic and Russia) provide the empirical basis. From a theoretical point of view, the book exposes three main critical factors: the range of policy options facing local governments (strategic choice), their organizational capabilities to cope with major environmental shifts (strategic capabilities), and their capacity for organizational learning (including programmed experimentation, innovation and creativity).

List of Tables - Notes on the Contributors - Introduction; N.Ben-Elia - Small is Innovative: Local Government Innovation Strategies in the United States and Other Countries; T.N.Clark - The Learning Local Authority: British Local Authorities in the Post-Thatcherite Era; M.Clarke & J.Stewart - Free Communes, Pilots and Pathfinders: A New Vocabulary of Local Government Reforms in Scandinavian Countries: The Case of Norway; H.Baldersheim & P.Stava - Organizational Reorientation and Learning in Israeli Local Government: The Role of Market-Type Mechanisms; N.Ben-Elia - An Overview of Planning and Political Problems for Canadian Urban Municipalities in the 1990s; J.Lightbody -Rupture and Transformation: Local Government in East-Germany; H.Wollmann - 'Reinventing' Local Government: The Czech Case; O.Vidlakova - Russia: The Reinvention of Local Government?; A.Campbell - Index