The Search for Legitimate Leadership in Local Governments: The Case of the Metropolitan City of Milan

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-686-4_58How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Metropolitan Governance; Local Government; Milano; Città Metropolitana di Milano; Legitimate Leadership

Abstract

The Metropolitan City of Milan (Città Metropolitana di Milano) represents a significant regional governance structure encompassing 133 municipalities. Since its establishment in 2015, the integration of local and metropolitan governance has sparked considerable debate, primarily due to the reform law that automatically designates the Mayor of Milan as the Mayor of the entire Metropolitan City. This paper critically examines the current governance model of the Metropolitan City of Milan, focusing on the formation of the leadership institution and questioning the effectiveness and suitability of appointing the Mayor of Milan as the Metropolitan Mayor from a political leadership perspective. A qualitative analysis has been employed in this study, drawing from relevant literature, particularly primary sources related to the reform. Face-to-face interviews with stakeholders involved in Milan’s metropolitan governance also form the core of this research.

The current findings can be summarized at a fundamental level as follows: Appointing the Mayor of Milan directly as the head of the The Metropolitan City of Milan (Città Metropolitana di Milano) potentially undermines the balance of power and representation across the entire metropolitan area. This centralization risks neglecting the interests of smaller municipalities, creating a metropolitan area focused predominantly on the urban center of Milan. A metropolitan leader who is not elected by the collective will of all council members or directly by the voters across the entire metropolitan area may struggle to balance the different needs of the constituent municipalities, leading to the overshadowing of rural interests by central urban concerns. In conclusion, the practice of appointing the Mayor of Milan as the Metropolitan Mayor lacks a sustainable and fair foundation in terms of democratic representation and legitimate leadership. There is a growing need for a leadership institution that is legitimately accepted by the entire metropolitan area. The practice of directly appointing the Mayor of Milan as the Metropolitan Mayor should be abandoned in favor of a leadership structure either elected by the council members or directly by the citizens of the entire metropolitan area.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Mustafa Demirkol
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/04/28
TI  - The Search for Legitimate Leadership in Local Governments: The Case of the Metropolitan City of Milan
BT  - Proceeding of the 10th International Conference on Lifelong Education and Leadership for ALL (ICLEL 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 829
EP  - 841
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-686-4_58
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-686-4_58
ID  - Demirkol2025
ER  -