Die Entstehung der Gemeindeselbstverwaltung in Österreich 1848-1850
Origins of Municipal Self-Government in Austria 1848-1850

Summary/Abstract: Following the revolutionary events of 1848, the local administration of the Habsburg Empire experienced a massive change. A prominent demand of the early constitutionalist movement was to strengthen and expand the administrative autonomy. To analyse the development of municipal autonomy and democracy is the goal of this paper. The new constitutions and constitutional drafts in the years 1848 and 1849, together with the provisional municipality statute of 1849, were the first legislative regulations of municipalities, based on the principle of autonomous competences. They were to be equally applied in all Hereditary Lands of the empire. First and foremost, the development of the so-called „free rural municipalities“, the lowest administrative unit in Austria´s organisation of public authorities, is in the focus of research.

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