Three rationales for municipal councils : the case of the Faroe Islands

Abstract

In the Faroe Islands, the national government has met obstacles in its goal to reduce the total number of state municipalities to seven or nine. The municipal amalgamation process has thus far reduced the total number of municipal regions from 48 in 2001 to 29. As a result, many traditional councils remain alongside new constituencies based on larger aggregations of citizens. Though it is a micro nation with only 52,000 inhabitants, the Faroese experience is similar to that of larger countries when it comes to tensions between different conceptions of the municipality’s purpose. Thus, three models to describe these municipal council rationales will be proposed and considered: Is a municipality first and foremost a community with which people identify (the social ties community model), a local arena for finding political solutions within community space (the local space municipality model), or is their main purpose to serve as administrative entities that implement local and national goals (the municipal administration model)? These ideal models structure the analyses of municipal councils in the Faroes from 1992-2016, based on electoral and survey data.

Í hesi grein verður víst á ymiskan hugburð til, hvat endamálið er við kommunum. Tríggir myndlar eru mentir: 1) Kommunan sum staðbundin sosialur felagsskapur, 2) Kommunustýrini sum vígvøllur at finna politiskar loysnir fyri sítt øki, og 3) Kommunan sum fyrisitingarlig eind at seta í verk politikk, sum landsmyndugleikar ella kommunustýri hava samtykt. Kanningar eru gjørdar í føroyskum kommunum 1992-2016, og fyri at lýsa meginhugburðin í teimum ymisku kommununum um landið, mugu allir tríggir myndlar takast í brúk. Myndlarnir umboða ymiska fatan um fólkaræði. Færri kommunur merkir minni umboðan frá øllum teimum 51 kommununum, sum hava verið, og sum tey, ið búgva har, framvegis eru medvitin um. Hetta man vera ein orsøk til mótstøðu móti ætlanum hjá landsmyndugleikum at minka um talið á kommunum.