Renaming municipalities: territorial identities and community participation between mayors and the central state

The (re)naming of municipalities reshapes the municipal map, impacts territorial identities, and provides a perspective on central state–local government–community relations. We examine decentralisation, commodification and community participation in the context of renaming municipalities in Israel by exploring Israel's Government Names Committee–a professional committee responsible for place naming decisions that prioritises nation-building considerations–followed by a study of eight recent renamings. Our study demonstrates that municipal renaming serves as a lens for identifying centralisation–decentralisation processes, mainly revealing limited decentralisation attuned to local preferences; this is being counteracted by growing populism, associated with an erosion of professionals’ power. Commodification–replacing geographically-historically unique names with generic branding–is not necessarily associated with neo-liberalisation. Locally initiated referendums, hailed as a breakthrough in participatory local democracy, are a mixed bag; manipulative yet more than ‘hollowed out’ participation, largely thanks to the obligatory top-down approval of renamings.