Leadership at the subnational level: Mayoral and executive models

Over the last decades and across the globe, subnational government has undergone significant reform. In many of these structural changes to the systems of local, urban and metropolitan governance, the roles of leaders and positions of leadership were at the core of the reform. One of the most prominent aims has been to give expression to a new ideal type of local political leadership and to increase the legitimacy and accountability of subnational government. The further proliferation of the directly elected mayor model is but one expression of this trend. However, the academic literature continues to struggle to capture the complexity and changing nature of subnational leadership. In response, the aim of this chapter is to analyze and discuss the changes in mayoral and executive leadership against the background of the available typologies for mayoral and executive models. In addition, the authors develop an agenda for further research