'Gemeentegrootte en lokale democratie': Een repliek aan H. van Goor

Replies to H. van Goor's (1999) critical review of the volume, edited by Denters and Geurts, Lokale democratie in Nederland: Burgers en hun gemeentebestuur ([Local Democracy in the Netherlands: Citizens and Their Local Government] 1998), which tests the modernization and the political community model to analyze the ways in which individuals perceive the functioning of their local governments and the effects of these perceptions on political behavior. Van Goor criticized the book severely in three respects: (1) models, analysis, and data- are not pertinent to the theoretical questions, (2) an alternative model of complex local government is ignored, and (3) the data-gathering method is unreliable. It is argued that (A) the analytical apparatus is certainly relevant to the theoretical questions addressed in the book, albeit less interesting for alternative questions formulated by Van Goor, (B) the alternative model is nowhere explicated and appears to consist of aspects that can easily be rephrased in terms of the modernization and the political community model, and (C) the unreliability associated with the data-gathering method used is predictable and can therefore be integrated into the results. 31 References. S. Paul