When a councillor in New Zealand’s Carterton District was elected on a platform of fiscal responsibility, she could not have expected to be barred from participating in budget deliberations.
Yet that is exactly what happened when council bureaucrats deemed her campaign promises a “conflict of interest” that disqualified her from key financial decisions.
Her supposed conflict? She had campaigned on fiscal responsibility!
Even after intervention from Local Government New Zealand, she remained partially excluded, missing crucial votes – including one that revealed rates would increase by 17.5% rather than the 15.09% originally proposed.
This might seem like a minor story from a small town in New Zealand. But it illuminates something far more significant: the growing dominance of unelected bureaucracies over elected officials at every level of government and across the democratic world.
The pattern is remarkably consistent. Whether in federal systems like Australia or heavily centralised administrations like the United Kingdom’s, permanent bureaucracies have steadily accumulated power at the expense of elected representatives.
At the national level, ministers often find themselves unable to implement promised reforms against departmental resistance. At the state or regional level, bureaucrats shape policies with minimal democratic oversight. And at the local level, councils increasingly function as administrators of centrally-determined rules rather than representatives of their communities.
This creeping bureaucratisation creates what Sam Freedman terms a “democratic void” in his penetrating new book Failed State: Why nothing works and how to fix it (2024). A former colleague of mine at the London think tank Policy Exchange, Freedman draws on his extensive experience as both a Whitehall policy adviser and policy researcher to examine how unelected officials have come to dominate decision-making across all levels of government.
Citizens sense, often correctly, that their votes matter less than the preferences of permanent bureaucracies. The resulting cynicism manifests in declining voter turnout, growing populism and a broader crisis of democratic legitimacy.
The consequences of this bureaucratic dominance extend far beyond individual cases of overreach. When unelected officials effectively control policymaking and implementation, it fundamentally alters the relationship between citizens and their government.
Take planning and development. Across Australia, New Zealand and Britain, local councils face most of the political and infrastructure costs of new development while the resulting tax revenues flow to state and federal governments. Is it any wonder they often resist growth? When bureaucrats in distant capitals control planning decisions affecting local communities, should we be surprised that citizens feel disconnected from the process?
This disconnect manifests most visibly in housing policy. While politicians campaign on promises to tackle housing affordability, bureaucratic inertia and misaligned incentives frustrate meaningful reform. The results are visible in soaring house prices across the English-speaking world.
The problem is not confined to local government. At the national level, ministers increasingly find themselves trapped in a system they nominally head but struggle to control. Policy implementation becomes an endless negotiation with permanent bureaucracies that outlast successive governments.
This bureaucratic dominance is self-reinforcing. Career civil servants develop expertise in managing complex regulatory systems, which they often helped create. They build networks across departments and agencies that can outlast multiple electoral cycles. Their institutional memory becomes a source of power, as elected officials must rely on their knowledge to navigate governmental machinery.
When reforms are then proposed, bureaucracies can deploy multiple tools to resist change: procedural delays, technical objections, implementation challenges and the ever-present concern about ‘unintended consequences’. The result is a system that increasingly serves its own interests rather than those of the communities it should represent.
Yet this crisis also presents an opportunity for democratic renewal. Around the world, a new model of governance is emerging that could help rescue democracy by bringing power closer to the people it serves. This model, which we might call the new localism, offers a practical path to democratic revival.
Switzerland has always demonstrated how genuine democratic control at the local level creates better governance and higher citizen engagement. Swiss cantons and municipalities run most public services, from education to policing and raise their own taxes. The result is not chaos but enviable efficiency, with citizens exercising real choice over local policies and tax rates.
Perhaps more surprisingly, France – long considered the archetype of centralised administration – has been quietly devolving power to local governments since the 1980s. French municipalities and departments have gained genuine autonomy, accompanied by resources to exercise it. Local government spending has nearly quadrupled in real terms since 1982 as a result of a substantive transfer of responsibilities from Paris to local communities.
Germany’s federal tradition offers additional insights, not least for local governance. In the 1990s, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia found ways to strengthen local democracy further by transforming its mayoral system. The reforms merged the roles of mayor and chief executive, creating clearer lines of accountability while maintaining the country’s strong tradition of local autonomy. Despite initial resistance, these changes passed with cross-party support and now enjoy broad backing for their effectiveness.
These examples matter because they demonstrate that centralisation is not inevitable. It is a choice – and increasingly, a poor one. In an age of complexity and rapid change, the idea that all wisdom resides in national capitals seems particularly outdated. Communities face diverse challenges requiring local knowledge and flexible responses, not one-size-fits-all solutions imposed from above.
Moreover, these international experiences reveal something crucial about democratic renewal: it works best from the ground up. When citizens have real power over local affairs, they engage more deeply with democratic processes. They learn the arts of self-government - negotiation, compromise, practical problem-solving – that democracy requires.
For Australia and other Westminster democracies, the implications are both challenging and promising. While Anglosphere countries pride themselves on their democratic traditions, they have allowed creeping centralisation to hollow out local democracy. In Australia, councils control just 6% of public spending, compared to an OECD average of around 30%. Even unitary states like France - hardly a paragon of decentralisation - give their local governments far more authority and resources.
This weakness of local government creates real costs. Housing affordability, a critical issue in Australia’s major cities, illustrates the problem. Councils face most of the political and infrastructure costs of new development, while the resulting tax revenues flow to state and federal governments. Little wonder then that local authorities often resist development, even as housing shortages worsen.
Infrastructure provides another telling example. Local knowledge is crucial for identifying and prioritising infrastructure needs, yet councils lack the resources and authority to address them effectively. Instead, we rely on state bureaucracies to make decisions about local facilities and services, often with limited understanding of community needs and preferences.
The result is a democratic deficit that undermines accountability at all levels. When problems arise, state and federal politicians blame councils for poor execution, while councils point to insufficient resources and authority. Citizens, caught in the middle, become increasingly cynical about democratic governance itself.
The path to reform should be clear, but it is also politically challenging. First, we must reconceptualise local government not as a mere administrative arm of the states but as a genuine tier of democratic governance. This means giving councils real authority over local affairs, accompanied by the resources to exercise it effectively.
Second, we need to align incentives with responsibilities. This could involve for example sharing GST revenues from new development with councils, creating a direct financial stake in local growth. It might also mean giving councils access to a broader range of revenue sources, as many other developed countries do.
This is not merely about making local government work better though that would be valuable in itself. It is about rescuing democracy from the technocratic centralisation that threatens its vitality across the developed world. When we reduce democracy to periodic elections for distant parliaments, we should not be surprised when citizens become disconnected and cynical.
Technology now makes genuine local democracy more feasible than ever. Digital tools can enhance transparency, facilitate participation and reduce administrative costs. Yet instead of using these capabilities to empower local communities, we have largely deployed them to strengthen central control.
Local democracy matters because it is where citizens can most directly shape the decisions that affect their daily lives. It is where abstract political principles meet practical reality, where trade-offs become tangible, and where communities learn the essential arts of democratic deliberation and compromise.
For Australia, this suggests looking beyond technical debates about council amalgamations or funding arrangements. The fundamental question is whether local government should function as a genuine democratic institution or remain primarily an administrative arm of the states.
The evidence from continental Europe indicates that meaningful local autonomy, supported by aligned financial incentives and clear accountability, can improve both democratic engagement and administrative effectiveness. Their experience also shows that such reforms require careful attention to institutional design and implementation.
Strengthening local democracy offers one practical path to addressing bureaucratic capture. Not because local government is perfect – it isn’t – but because it provides the essential foundation for democratic citizenship. In rescuing local democracy, we may find we are rescuing democracy itself.
To read the full article on the Quadrant website, click here.