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This book explores sub-municipal units´ (SMU) role in decision making, decentralized institutional innovation, social innovation and, in rural areas, service delivery. Focusing on fourteen European countries, the book examines the impact of political cultures, administrative traditions and local government systems on the functioning of the SMUs. An under-explored topic in the literature, this book provides a comprehensive, comparative European, thematically broad, descriptive book on sub-municipal governance.

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1: Introduction: Decentralization Beyond the Municipal Tier; Nikos Hlepas, Norbert Kersting, Sabine Kuhlmann, Pawel Swianiewicz and Filipe Teles.- 2: Reaching out to sub-municipal decentralization: an ongoing challenge in Belgium; Ellen Wayenberg and Trui Steen.- 3: The "Little Town-Halls" in The Czech Republic: An Unexploited Potential of Functional Decentralization; Jakub Lysek.- 4: Decentralisation, Democratisation and Delivery: English Sub-Municipal Devolution; Colin Copus.- 5: Sub-Municipal Units in Germany: Municipal and Metropolitan Districts; Norbert Kersting and Sabine Kuhlmann.- 6: Between identity politics and the politics of scale: Sub-municipal Governance in Greece; Nikos Hlepas.- 7: Sub-municipal arrangements in Norway: District system in Oslo; Jan Erling Klausen.- 8: New Experiments of Maintenance of Old Traditions? Dual System of Sub-Municipal Units in Poland; Pawel Swianiewicz.- 9: Deeply rooted but still striving for a role: the Portuguese Freguesias under reform; Antonio F. Tavares and Filipe Teles.- 10: Sub-municipal units in Slovenia: Experiences from the past and policy advice for the future; Irena Baclija Brajnik and Roman Lavtar.- 11: Rural and Urban Sub-Municipal Governance in Spain. The contrasting worlds of Lilliput and Brobdingnag; Carmen Navarro and Esther Pano.- 12: Conclusions; Nikos Hlepas, Pawel Swianiewicz and Norbert Kersting.

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Nikolaos-Komninos Hlepas is Professor at the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
Norbert Kersting is Chair for Comparative Politics, Local and Regional Governance at the Department of Political Science, University of Muenster, Germany.
Sabine Kuhlmann is Professor of Political Science, Administration and Organization at the University of Potsdam, Germany.
Pawel Swianiewicz is Professor of Economics and Head of the Department of Local Development and Policy at the Faculty of Geography and Regional Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland.
Filipe Teles is Assistant Professor and member of the Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policy at the University of Aveiro, Portugal.

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