Self-government theories
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SELF-GOVERNMENT THEORIES – attempts to answer questions regarding the essence of self-government, like: what is self-government, what constitutes its essence, how the relations between self-government bodies as local authority bodies and → government administration bodies are being shaped, what is the specificity of self-government, what is its scope of competence. Another problem is the question of determining the origin of self-government. The dispute related to it led to the formation of three theoretical schools: naturalistic, national and political theory of territorial self-government. These are not uniform concepts since their representatives, some of which may be attributed to various currents, disputed them on many occasions. One can also find in the literature opinions indicating the existence of the so-called naturalistic-national theory. Although some treat it as identical to national theory, some researchers treat it as a synthesis of the naturalistic and national theories. In the beginning, the dispute about the essence of self-government took place mostly among legal scientists. With time, researchers from other disciplines started to voice their opinions: sociology, economy or political science, which helped to include in the discussion on self-government concepts like localism, theory of rational and public choice and the concept of double state [ M. Jęczarek ].
Literature: A. Bosiacki, Od naturalizmu do etatyzmu: doktryny samorządu terytorialnego Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej 1918–1939 [From naturalism to statism: the doctrines of local government of the Second Republic of Poland, 1918-1939], Warszawa 2006 ■ G. Stoker, Teoria samorządu i polityki lokalnej [Theory of self-government and local politics], [in:] Wartości podstawowe samorządu terytorialnego i demokracji lokalnej [The basic values of local government and local democracy], ed. P. Swianiewicz, Warszawa 1997 ■ S. Wójcik, Samorząd terytorialny w Polsce w XX wieku: myśl samorządowa, historia i współczesność [Local government in Poland in the 20th century: local-government thought, history and modern times], Lublin 2007.