Assessing Mayors' and Council Members' Perceptions on Improving Community Involvement and Municipal Performance: The Case of Palestinian Local

Abstract

Enhancing community involvement and municipal performance are among the major issues, which are now under debate in the majority of the developed as well as emerging countries. To do so, various mechanisms may be employed such as using regional indicators, citizens’ evaluations, state-based performance indicators, and benchmarking and community participation indicators. Based on questionnaire responses sent to a sample of mayors and council members in Palestinian municipalities, this study tries to fathom a better understanding of the local politicians’ perceptions on how community participation in the performance and efficiency of local governments could be enhanced. The study finds that council members prefer to limit their involvement to participating in municipality committees, rather than extending their responsibilities or to having permanent offices in the municipality headquarters. Both council members and mayors of the Palestinian local governments favor indirect communications with citizens, as they consider the idea of enhancing community participation in municipality affairs as potentially reducing their powers. Although they disagree in their preferences with regards to some other practices, both groups show a reluctance to adopt IT innovations to enhance the efficiency and transparency of local government activities