Relations between local councillors and executive boards: conceptualisations, explanations and empirical evidence from the Netherlands

This paper nuances the dualism between local councils and local executives and distinguishes distinct patterns of interactions between councillors and executive members based on Anthony King's modes of executive–legislative relations. Several hypotheses explaining council–executive relations were tested using original survey data on Dutch local councillors. The interparty mode (coalition vs opposition) was found to be the most dominant relative to the non-party mode (council vs executive board) and the crossparty mode (policy specialists vs policy specialists). Councillors operate less frequently in the interparty mode when the governing coalition is oversized, and female councillors operate less often in the interparty mode than male councillors. Furthermore, an analysis of councillors shifting between modes suggests that councillors operate in the interparty mode when politically salient issues are at stake, in the non-party mode when the position of the council is at stake, and in the crossparty mode when dealing with technocratic issues.