In chapters 7 and 8 we examine the role of the elected local leadership in France and Britain. Local councillors are situated, in both countries, at the point where the various local political forces interact. Councillors play both in democratic theory and, as we shall see, in local political practice a number of different parts.

In the first instance the local council is the body which ‘receives’ the political demands which are generated in the locality by individuals and groups. Councillors are the targets at which much participatory activity is directed. This may be a matter of an individual contacting the councillor in order to obtain some objective such as assistance with a housing problem or with a building permit. Or it may be a group which seeks to engage the support of the councillor for some project which is for the benefit of the collectivity as a whole or of a particular section of local society. Examples would be campaigns for improvements to the local environment or for the provision of a community centre or place of worship for an ethnic or religious minority.

These are instances of the councillors as recipients of relatively spontaneous demands. Councillors, however, also have more active parts to play in the local political process. They do not merely respond even to these spontaneous demands. They have to act as ‘brokers’ seeking to reconcile demands which may be in direct conflict with one another, for example if the demand for a religious community centre faces objections from local residents, or more indirectly through competition between projects for financial resources.