Till Jürgens

Till Jürgens is a research associate at the Institute of Political Science at the Technical University of Darmstadt. He works on a research project about Local Government Associations (LGAs) in Germany and the United States, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The research project aims to investigate how LGAs in different types of federal systems deal with collective action problems and how efficiently they lobby for local interests toward the federal government and parliament.

In his PhD project, Mr. Jürgens focuses on the internal organization and procedures of LGAs. More specifically, he examines how LGAs are able to develop collective agency. Collective agency is defined as the ability to form and implement own preferences. For gaining collective agency, LGAs need sufficient resources and the autonomy from their members to form a coherent position. Thereby, LGAs face the challenge of diverging interests among their members that may result from characteristics such as size, economic situation, or regional identity. In his research, Mr. Jürgens will examine whether and how LGAs can solve this problem and agree on a common position.

During his time at AGI, Mr. Jürgens will study the organization of LGAs in the United States by conducting interviews with officials from the National League of Cities (NLC), the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), the National Association of Counties (NACo), local government officials, and further relevant stakeholders of the field. The important questions for the interviews are: (1) How important are LGAs for representing the interests of local governments, especially in relation to individual lobbying? (2) How extensively are they equipped with resources for fulfilling their tasks? (3) How do they involve their members in internal decision-making procedures?