Government Decentralization Research Articles

Decentralization in Indonesia: An Evaluation of the Implementation of Laws 22 and 25 of 1999

Indonesia has been undergoing a reform process. It started with the process of rapid decentralization government began in 1999 from a strong centralized system. One of its process is the introduction of decentralization, a process of transfer power from the central government to provinces to sub-provinces. Decentralization became a worldwide phenomenon since over three decade. Countries around the world use decentralization principles with varying degree, mostly by transferring responsibilities of public service delivery to lower levels of government. The decentralization literature promotes the good governance aspects associated with decentralization including local citizen participation, democratic elections and financial and political equity. Decentralization in Indonesia is much more of an administrative decentralization rather than a fiscal decentralization. The central government continues to control a vast share of the revenues required for local governance under true decentralization.Key words: Decentralization, Reform Process, Centralized System, Governance

Development of land relations in the context of government decentralization in Ukraine

It is determined the essence and suitability of de- centralization reform being provided in Ukraine, in particular its impact on the further development of rural areas. The main attention is focused on the issues of land relations as an effective management tool of the newly created united territorial communities. The modern state of functioning and activities of personal peasant households as representatives of small agribusiness on rural areas in Ukraine are presented. The question of appropriateness of local agro-food markets formation for the purpose of agricultural products realization is highlighted. Article deals with possible threats in the process of unification of territorial communities, such as insufficient attention focused on issues of ecological state in those territories, along with their socio-economic development. It is considered the European experience of local government reforms, particularly the peculiarities of the smallest administrative units functioning in the Republic of Poland — gminas. The results of administrative-territorial reform in Ukraine are summed up and it is highlighted information concerning the formation and functioning of united territorial communities in all regions of Ukraine.

The Politics of England

AbstractParty political interest in the so‐called ‘English Question’ has grown in recent years, due to the enmeshing of constitutional issues with a growing political and public affiliation with and expression of English national identity and culture. More recently, attention has shifted to the decentralisation of government within England. The ‘English Question’ is thus defined by two interconnected but distinctive ‘English Questions’. This article will assess whether, in seeking to find answers for these ‘English Questions’, the Conservatives and Labour are establishing a more distinctive ‘politics of England’. It will first consider the extent to which the politicisation of English identity and civic society have stimulated a more nationally framed political culture and party politics, and then assess whether constitutional reforms undertaken in Westminster, especially the introduction of EVEL, and regional devolution initiatives within England might facilitate greater party political engagement with an emergent ‘politics of England’.

Is government decentralization useful in the fight against domestic terrorism? A cross-country analysis

This article examines the link between government decentralization and domestic terrorism in 65 countries over the period 1976–2009. The results show the existence of a U-shaped relationship between fiscal devolution and the number of domestic terror attacks. This implies that fiscal decentralization first contributes to reducing domestic terrorist activity. However, beyond a certain threshold level, the relationship becomes positive, indicating that the transfer of fiscal power to subnational governments increases the incidence of domestic terrorism. Furthermore, our findings also reveal that the number of domestic terror attacks is higher in those countries in which subnational governments are characterized by greater levels of political autonomy. These results are obtained after controlling for a number of factors that could plausibly be correlated with both the incidence of domestic terrorism and government decentralization, such as the level of economic development, country size, the extent of civil liberties and democracy, the degree of trade openness, or geographical features.

Regional Inequality and Decentralized Governance: Canada’s Provinces

Regional scientists commonly concern themselves with topics involving regional inequalities—why they occur and persist, how inequality may be reduced or what exacerbates it, and the impact of policy interventions. Regional nequalities fuel our research and its policy relevance. For most of us, these investigations are in the context of exogenously defined “regions,” with political and administrative boundaries originating in a decentralized government context. The regions that are our units of analysis seldom reflect economic realities, yet their boundaries, once drawn, are very persistent and to a large extent determine the degree to which inequalities may be reduced over time, either through private decisions or through government policy. This paper offers a descriptive illustration of fundamental differences among Canada’s provinces as a potential constraint on the possibility of convergence over time, interregional migration responses, and the impacts of an explicit national government equalization.

Coordination in International and Domestic Sports Events: Examining Stakeholder Network Governance

This paper sought to examine the stakeholder network governance structures of two international and two domestic multisports events focusing on (a) exploring the structural connectedness of these networks and (b) illuminating powerful stakeholders vis-à-vis centrality and the ability to control the network’s flow. An exploratory, comparative case study design was built by means of 58 interviews and 550 archival materials. Findings highlight international sports events are sparsely connected networks with power concentrated in the organizing committee, government, and venue stakeholders, who broker coordination with other stakeholders. In contrast, domestic sport event organizing committees appear more decentralized as coordinating actors: Sport organizations, sponsors, and community-based stakeholders emerged as highly connected, powerful stakeholders. Domestic event governance decentralization highlights a potential imbalance in stakeholder interests through network flow control by multiple actors, while the governments’ centrality in international events demonstrates not only mode-dependent salience but also visibility/reputational risks and jurisdictional responsibilities-based salience.

Decentralization of health systems in low and middle income countries: a systematic review.

A substantial number of low and middle income countries (LMICs) have implemented health sector reforms in the last 40years, and the majority of them have included some degree of decentralization of the health system as part of the wider reform. This review will provide an updated and comprehensive assessment of the effects of decentralization in LMICs. We conducted a systematic review of published and grey literature till May 2015, following standard methods. 54 qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods studies conducted in 26 countries were included in the review. We found positive and negative effects of decentralization of health systems in LMICs. Whereas decentralization of governance, financing and service delivery, have been shown to have positive effects on the system; decentralization of resource management has been challenging in several settings. Overall, lessons learned from LMICs suggest that factors such as adequate mix of technical skills at the local level to perform decentralized tasks, effective decentralization of decision-making to the periphery, and political leadership are key factors for a successful decentralization.

Indonesia’s Decentralization Experiment: Motivations, Successes, and Unintended Consequences

Since 2001, Indonesia has undergone a rapid and extensive programme of decentralization of governance and resources from the centre to local level. This devolution has created a new class of regional political elites and has shifted significant power back to sub-national levels in Indonesia’s centuries’ long history of centre-local tensions. While the political motivations of mitigating centrifugal pressures appear to be vindicated, the anticipated gains in service provision and downstream economic impacts have not uniformly materialized: efficiency gains in some regions have been offset by the widespread emergence of clientalistic practices and fiscal inefficiencies. Recent efforts towards limited administrative and political recentralization underscore the tension that remains between the centre and local governments.

Decentralization in educational governance and its challenges in Korea: Focused on policy conflicts between central and local government in education

Decentralization of educational governance is characterized by the recent education reform in Korea. With the election of progressive superintendents and local council members, educational policy conflicts have often occurred and deepened in the process of decision-making and implementation of policies such as School Violence Prevention, National Assessment of Education Achievement, Autonomous Private High School, and Teacher Appraisal for Professional Development. This paper examined what were key issues related to these conflicts, what caused these conflicts, and how they progressed by analyzing recent legal cases during the last 5 years (2010–2014) between central and local governments. Findings showed that three factors might be associated with policy conflicts in educational governance: Ambiguous authority and responsibility of educational administration, tensions of political and educational ideas and ideologies, and inadequacy of conflict prevention and coordination. Final findings of the study will provide valuable information to enhance cooperation between central and local educational governance.

Virtual Versus Physical Government Decentralization: Effects on Corruption and the Shadow Economy

This paper examines the relative effectiveness of cross‐national virtual decentralization and physical decentralization of government functions on corruption and the shadow economy. Results show that while virtual decentralization reduces both corruption and the shadow economy, physical decentralization reduces only the shadow economy. The e‐government results are robust to alternate measures and specifications, while those of government tiers are not.

Financing Healthcare in Indonesia

Introduction: There have been two major transitions for healthcare in Indonesia: the implementation of government decentralisation and universal health insurance. A universal public health insurance called Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial (BPJS) was launched in January 2014 and aims to cover all Indonesian people.
 Objective: The objective of this paper is to discuss the funding of healthcare in Indonesia through a comparison with other South East Asian countries.
 Methodology: A search for relevant literature was undertaken using electronic databases, Ovid Medline, ProQuest Central, and Scopus from their commencement date until December 2015. The grey literature from the Indonesian government, the WHO’s and World Bank’s website, has been included.
 Results: There were nine articles from Ovid Medline, eight from ProQuest Central, and 12 from Scopus that met the criteria. Seventeen articles were duplicates leaving 12 articles to be reviewed. Nine documents have been identified from grey literature.
 Discussion: Most people in Indonesia sought health services from the private sector and were out-ofpocket financially or did not receive the required care. The private sector delivered 62.1% of health services compared to 37.9% by the government. Despite some inappropriate use of previous health insurance, the BPJS is expected to have improved management and will cover all citizens by the end of 2019.
 Conclusion: Indonesia has undergone a series of changes to health system funding and health insurance. There are lessons that can be learnt from other countries, such as Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, so that Indonesia can improve its health funding.
 Abbreviations: BPJS – Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial.

Dual Decentralization and Fragmented Authoritarianism in Governance: Crowding Out among Social Programmes in China

SummaryIn this paper, we use city‐level datasets of social assistance programmes over 280 cities between year 2003 and 2011 to verify the existence of the crowding out between social assistance programmes and unemployment insurance in China. In other words, the expansion of social assistance programmes is associated with a reduction in the enrolment of unemployment insurance. With verifying the existence of the crowding out, this article argues that the crowding out is a result of an ineffective coordination across government departments. In the process of ‘dual decentralization,’ in which the central government has delegated welfare provision responsibility to local governments, the misalignment of incentive and institutions between central and local governments explains the ineffective coordination. Different from many studies in the literature, this paper presents an adverse consequence of China's bureaucratic incentive system in social policy implementation. Also, while the conceptual framework ‘fragmented authoritarianism’ has highlighted the policy ineffectiveness in the economic policy area, this paper contributes to this literature by illustrating the policy ineffectiveness in the social policy areas. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Legacies of the 2008 Crisis for Global Financial Governance

What are the legacies of the 2008 financial crisis for global financial governance? One answer is that the crisis strengthened the cooperative and multilateral dimensions of international financial relations. A different interpretation is that the crisis unleashed decentralization trends. Important examples can be cited in support of both of these perspectives. After reviewing that evidence, this article highlights ways in which these two distinct legacies are working together to generate a third outcome that may well emerge as the more lasting legacy of the crisis: cooperative decentralization in global financial governance.

Historical Continuum of Land Rights in Uganda

Millions of people around the world face difficulties related to the land where they live, work, grow crops, tend animals and run businesses. Even though they or their families may have lived on the land for many years, it is a serious obstacle that they have no formal relationship to it (UN-Habitat, 2012, Handling land: Innovative tools for land governance and secure tenure, Nairobi, Kenya: United Nations Human Settlements Programme). Competition for land is intensifying because of rapid population growth, unregulated urbanisation, land conflicts, climate change, food, water and energy insecurity among others. Coupled by historical injustices and unlawful evictions, many people particularly in developing countries are becoming landless. Although many countries have completely restructured their legal and regulatory framework related to land and they have tried to harmonise modern statutory law with customary ones, millions of people around the world still have insecure land tenure and property rights (UN-Habitat, 2014, Land tenure security in selected countries. Synthesis Report, Nairobi, Kenya: United Nations Human Settlements Programme). It is now well recognised that secure land and property rights for all are essential to reducing poverty, because they underpin economic development and social inclusion (UN-Habitat, 2008, Secure land rights for all, Nairobi, Kenya: United Nations Human Settlements Programme/Global Land Tool Network). Uganda like many other countries has embarked on massive reforms to improve land tenure security. The development of a computerised land information system, decentralisation of land governance and development of national land policy are included among the many efforts (Ahene, Nsamba-Gayiiya, & Satana, 2013, Land sector strategic plan, 2013–2023, Kampala, Uganda: Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development). Despite tremendous efforts, land tenure insecurity persists in the country. This article provides a review of land ownership and existing initiatives to improve tenure security in Uganda.

Water Governance Decentralisation and River Basin Management Reforms in Hierarchical Systems: Do They Work for Water Treatment Policy in Mexico’s Tlaxcala Atoyac Sub-Basin?

In the last decades, policy reforms, new instruments development, and economic resources investment have taken place in water sanitation in Mexico; however, the intended goals have not been accomplished. The percentage of treated wastewater as intended in the last two federal water plans has not been achieved. The creation of River Basin Commissions and the decentralisation process have also faced challenges. In the case of Tlaxcala, the River Basin Commission exists only on paper and the municipalities do not have the resources to fulfil the water treatment responsibilities transferred to them. This lack of results poses the question whether the context was sufficiently considered when the reforms were enacted. In this research, we will study the Tlaxcala Atoyac sub-basin, where water treatment policy reforms have taken place recently with a more context sensitive approach. We will apply the Governance Assessment Tool in order to find out whether the last reforms are indeed apt for the context. The Governance Assessment Tool includes four qualities, namely extent, coherence, flexibility, and intensity. The assessment allows deeper understanding of the governance context. Data collection involved semi-structured in-depth interviews with stakeholders. The research concludes that the observed combination of qualities creates a governance context that partially supports the implementation of the policy. This has helped to increase the percentage of wastewater treated, but the water quality goals set by the River Classification have not been achieved. With the last reforms, in this hierarchical context, decreasing the participation of municipal government levels has been shown to be instrumental for improving water treatment plants implementation policy, although many challenges remain to be addressed.

Operationalizing risk perception and preparedness behavior research for a multi-hazard context

ABSTRACTIncreasingly, citizens are being asked to take a more active role in disaster risk reduction (DRR), as decentralization of hazard governance has shifted greater responsibility for hazard preparedness actions onto individuals. Simultaneously, the taxonomy of hazards considered for DRR has expanded to include medical and social crises alongside natural hazards. Risk perception research emerged to support decision-makers with understanding how people characterize and evaluate different hazards to anticipate behavioral response and guide risk communication. Since its inception, the risk perception concept has been incorporated into many behavioral theories, which have been applied to examine preparedness for numerous hazard types. Behavioral theories have had moderate success in predicting or explaining preparedness behaviors; however, they are typically applied to a single hazard type and there is a gap in understanding which theories (if any) are suited for examining multiple hazard types simultaneously. This paper first reviews meta-analyses of behavioral theories to better understand performance. Universal lessons learnt are summarized for survey design. Second, theoretically based preparedness studies for floods, earthquakes, epidemics, and terrorism are reviewed to assess the conceptual requirements for a ‘multi-hazard’ preparedness approach. The development of an online preparedness self-assessment and learning platform is discussed.

Where do I report my land dispute? The impact of institutional proliferation on land governance in post-conflict Northern Uganda

ABSTRACTIn Sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda has been hailed for embarking on an intensive decentralization programme. Whereas a lot of literature assumes that decentralization leads to improved service delivery, it is unclear to what extent this is the case in practice, especially when it comes down to decentralized land governance. This paper, which is based on ethnographic research carried out between 2011 and 2013, argues that decentralization of land governance in post-conflict Northern Uganda fails to realize the expected benefits and instead has increased tenure insecurity. Decentralization of land governance gave rise to institutional multiplicity by creating new institutions that add on to the already existing authorities and regulations. Institutional proliferation in land governance that is fuelled by legal pluralism and decentralization results into confusion in land dispute resolution and the failure of institutions to effectively resolve land disputes in post-conflict settings. This exacerbates the dilemma of people who do not know where to go to seek redress to land disputes. While this multiplicity of both statutory and customary institutions creates choices and opportunities for both people and institutions in relation to land governance and in particular land conflict resolution, they are also used by power holders and authorities in political competition at local level, complicating the process of land dispute resolution. The struggle for authority between representatives of the state and of customary land institutions becomes especially problematic because it merges with local and national politics.

Fiscal Decentralization, Budgetary Transparency, and Local Government Size in China

ABSTRACTThis article makes use of panel data for 31 provinces between 1985 and 2010 and specifies a dynamic panel model to investigate the determinants of local government size in China and achieved several conclusions: (1) the fiscal decentralization since TSS reform in 1994 has increased the local government size; (2) budgetary transparency has a U-shape nonlinear effect on local government size; (3) fiscal revenue is the important factor to drive the overexpansion of local government size in China; and (4) local government size has a strong dependence of past path.

Forms of Government Decentralization and Institutional Quality: Evidence from a Large Sample of Nation

This paper studies the effects of various forms of government decentralization on institutional quality across countries. Using corruption and the shadow economy to proxy for institutional quality, as well as three forms of government decentralization (i.e., virtual, physical, and fiscal), the econometric results show virtual decentralization to be the most effective in improving institutional quality. The effects on transition and countries in Asia are also considered.

FISCAL FEDERALISM, DECENTRALIZATION, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: A META‐ANALYSIS

The theoretical literature on fiscal federalism has identified several channels through which government decentralization could affect economic growth. Much of the literature focuses on the efficiency aspects of a decentralized provision of public services, but decentralization may also increase growth by raising the ability of the political system to innovate and carry out reforms. In contrast, some authors argue that decentralization increases corruption and government inefficiency, and thus may diminish growth. Given this theoretical ambiguity, several studies have attempted to identify the effect of decentralization on economic growth empirically over the last two decades. We review and conduct a meta‐analysis of this empirical literature. Based on our analysis, we point out open questions and discuss possible ways to answer them. (JEL H77, O43, C52)