The Duty And Role Of The First Citizen:a Study On The Institution Of The Lord Mayor In The United Kingdom

The role of the Lord mayor has lasted for over eight hundred years, which has played an important role in the United Kingdom autonomous history. Since the Middle Ages after reformation to the 19th century, the definition of the role, selection mechanism, positioning and other functions of the United Kingdom Lord mayor had been influenced by the history.With the development of the history of the United Kingdom Lord mayor, modern urban governance and the trend of diversification has been influenced. Using case induction analysis and other methods, we can enumerate daily political activities,refine the fulfillment situation and plexus roles of Lord mayor of the United Kingdom in urban governance. First of all, in modern world,in order to promote the international communication, incentive demonstration and dissemination of culture, the Lord mayor has played roles as "city image spokesman". Moreover, in order to encourage the autonomy of urban citizen, protect human rights and the rule of law, the Lord mayor has been seen a man who devoted himself to developing democracy and the rule of law. At the same time, the Lord mayor has made contribution to the society by the role of "philanthropist", "public teacher", and "communicator", which promote the activities of charitable organizations, charitable operation and exchange ideas with the citizens about the construction of the city. At last, the roles of "business coordinator" and "merchants Secretary" has led the Lord mayor to coordinate multiple subjects of city economic interests and gather high-quality resources to promote the city construction. With respect to three aspects of the Lord mayor, the urban governance, public welfare and economic development can not only be distinguished from each other but also be closely related to each other, and be complemented to strengthen the role of Lord mayor as the city "first citizen" in urban governance on behalf of the city image. By analyzing the Lord mayor as the "first citizen" a city and on behalf of the city, which benefited to inspire the enthusiasm of the citizens to care public affairs actively,promoted urban governance multi-interactions, improved the comprehensive urban soft power, and brought a lot of inspirations for urban governance development.