Exploration Of American Local Government Autonomy Reform After World War Ⅱ

The local government plays an important role in American public life, they provide most of the public services. However, the Federal Constitution made no mention of the local government. In 1868, the "Dillon’s Rule" confirmed that the local government had no inherent autonomous status, the management authority of the local government came from the State Council, the standards confirmed by the Federal Supreme Court in 1903 and 1923 for two times.After the founding of America, the local government for the first time got autonomous power occurred in 1851 in Iowa, the Iowa state legislature passed a bill giving the city local autonomy. After the reform movement of the end of nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, American most states implemented the local government autonomy in different degree. Many of the cities had been granted autonomy to do anything not banned, by the previous situation they could only do things which get special authorization. But this is only a beginning, the period of great development of local government autonomy was in the second half of the twentieth century. More states made confirmation of local government autonomy from the constitutional level, and the matters that the local autonomous government involved also increased.The local government autonomy can be divided into 4 types, which are the structural autonomy, functional autonomy, financial autonomy and personnel autonomy. After World War II, the 4 types of autonomy have different levels of development. In the aspect of structural autonomy, the most prominent was a large number of states’county governments obtained structural autonomy power, also the city governments showed an unprecedented increase in the number. In the aspect of functional autonomy, the local government against inappropriate service standards more boldly, service agreements between the governments were more common, they were protected by the constitutions or the laws of the states, the local government was more flexible to provide services. In the aspect of fiscal autonomy, local governments achieved great results in limitation of state commands, the pressure on fiscal expenditure of local government alleviated, at the same time, the financial aids from the federal government and state governments were increased, not only such, the ability of local governments to impose non-property taxes had also been improved. In the aspect of personnel autonomy, the behaviors of states’ assembly interference of personnel management of local government were restricted by the state Supreme Courts and state constitutions, and local governments’self-adjustment power of personnel management were increased.Regional differences of America local government autonomy mainly manifested as the " Sun Belt" of the local governments have more autonomous power, it closely linked with the big development of the "Sun Belt" after World War II.Effects of local government autonomy on USA society were very complex, it maintained the American tradition of local autonomy ideas, but also brought many difficulties for the governance of metropolitan area.