Political Decentralization Research Articles

Party Systems and Political Centralization and Decentralization

Using a comprehensive, global data set, we provide evidence toward settling a debate in the literature on party systems and national political institutions regarding the relationships between political centralization and nationalization of political party support. We also help explain disparate findings in the literature. Does political centralization or decentralization precede nationalization or regionalization of political party support, or the other way around? We confirm previous findings that centralization is correlated with nationalized party systems. Our analysis shows, however, that on average centralization precedes party system nationalization more often than the other way around. And specifically, we provide novel evidence that it is administrative centralization, and not fiscal centralization, that drives these changes. The findings, based on a variety of statistical specifications and measures, are important because they shed light on the way that institutional changes, including constitutional changes regarding the relationships between central governments and subnational governments, affect party competition.

Democracy and Socio-Economic Crises in Africa: The Nigerian Experience

The democratic transition process, which almost all African States have inevitably swung into since the early 1980s, has made their vulnerability to social and economic crises more intense. The problems that are concomitants of these transitions, which have exacerbated the extant socio-economic problems, have been dramatized by the increased level of poverty, widening income gap, sustained low (negative in many cases) growth rate, etc. in the African states. Democracy in Africa has thus deepened the contradictions in the economy and between the weak and the powerful in both absolute and relative terms. This paper is directed at unraveling these conflicting realities, particularly the implications of the patterns for overall socio-economic development. A study of Nigeria’s experiences at `democratising' permits a clearer appreciation of the nature and trends of democracy in Africa. This is done within the context of the political economy frame work. This paper argues that, democratization in Africa is one which focuses mainly on economic deregulation and liberalization while at the same time denying the need for political decentralization that can give the weak and poor access to the gains of development, and that, the prebendial nature of politics in Africa makes it an exclusive business for the rich thus narrowing the possibility for empowerment of the poor people at the long run. It is our conclusion therefore, that the above contradictions can only be resolved if the right political context for economic democratization is created, because, in Africa, politics, more then anything else constraints economic development. Keywords: Democracy, Democratization, Socio-Economic Crises, Development and Political Economy DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-8-03 Publication date: April 30 th 2021

The deep story of Leave voters affective assemblages: implications for political decentralisation in the UK

How do British Pluralist traditions need to be re-imagined to address the issues at the heart of the Brexit vote? This paper will use qualitative research about why Britain voted for Brexit to examine this question. The paper interrogates the question that we require a more decentred local government at a community level in order for people to feel both represented, and able to participate. Firstly, it will analyse the values, attitudes and beliefs of Leave voters who participated in the study, and situate them in terms of the affective assemblages of symbolic meaning, ideas, beliefs, values and emotion through which they imagined themselves and their community. It will examine the ‘deep story’ (Boler and Davis, in Emotion Space Soc 27:75–85, 2018) through which participants affective responses are situated into inherited historical cultures and traditions, exploring where participants located themselves in relation to others and their particular cultures and traditions. In the final part of the paper, I consider what this means for British pluralist traditions at a local and community level in a post-Brexit polity. I find that the Leave vote signals and symbolises a turn to the traditional Nation State as the political space that can protect and care for individuals who long for control over their worlds. This is potentially at odds with their expressed desire stronger democratic engagement.

Empirical Implications of Decentralization Dimensions and the Role of Political Institutions in the Economic Growth of Pakistan

Decentralization is the fundamental policy variable used to enhance the allocative efficiency through public spending / tax priorities, subject to the local demand. The current study evaluates the impact of the various dimensions of decentralization on the economic growth of Pakistan for the years 1972-2018. Ng-Perron tests and Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin (KPSS) were applied to fix the unit root problem in the time series data. To find the cointegration among decentralization, the role of institutions, and economic growth the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Approach (ARDL) was used. The outcomes suggested that tax decentralization is a growth promoting policy. On the contrary, administrative and political decentralization negatively affect the economic growth. The analysis shows that political freedom also has a growth retarding impact on the economy. The current study is useful regarding the policy implications of the process of decentralization.

Explaining deference: why and when do policymakers think FDI needs tax incentives?

Why do governments compete for investment through tax incentives when there is strong evidence that such packages are inconsequential to the locational decisions of foreign firms? Previous scholarship has attributed pro-business policies such as investment incentives to factors including the structural power of business in an era of international capital mobility, fiscal competition generated through political decentralization or electoral pandering by political leaders. However, there is currently little understanding about how individuals, in their role as decision-makers within government agencies, form beliefs over how to best attract investment. Building on insights from the bureaucratic politics and behavioral economics literatures, we anticipate investment promotion professionals are more likely to view investment incentives as effective attraction tools when they have limited previous experience in the private sector, when they work for investment promotion agencies that are more integrated into the national bureaucracy, and when employee performance is evaluated based on deals closed. We test these expectations with a conjoint survey experiment of investment promotion professionals designed to uncover respondents’ beliefs over the relative importance of different components of the investment environment to firms’ locational decisions, and find substantial support for our expectations.

Urban renewal as policy innovation in China: From growth stimulation to sustainable development

AbstractA major policy innovation in China, urban renewal creates an opportunity to promote sustainable inner‐city development and to foster economic growth in an environmentally and culturally sound way, which demands a close investigation of its context, internal and external dynamics, and policy features. Property‐led redevelopment dominated China's urban renewal since the early 1990s, as a result of the market reform and political decentralization. Recently, it has become important to meet the interests of local communities and the diverse stakeholders in the effort to preserve the urban history and cultural fabric of cities. Contextual factors in urban renewal policy and its innovation are investigated by analyzing a pioneering case in Guangzhou from a longitudinal study approach. The impact of the structural‐instrumental, cultural‐institutional, and environmental perspective on policy innovation with the change of contextual factors that transformed the development ideology and the managerial practice are identified to provide a new angle of studying policy innovation in the urban field.

Challenges Versus Prospects of Political Decentralization on the Practice of Local Participation: The Case of Sodo Town Administration, Wolaita Zone, Ethiopia

The title of this study is the challenges versus prospects of political decentralization on the practice of local participation: the case of Sodo town administration, Wolaita zone, Ethiopia. Its objective is to identify the challenges and prospect of political decentralization on local participation. This study employed both primary and secondary data. In primary data questionnaires and interview were used to collect data and various literatures on political decentralization as well as local participation would be reviewed as secondary data were used. Sample respondent were taken as sample 18 from 45 public workers. Quantitative techniques of the data were analyzed using in percents and table while qualitative techniques of the data were analyzed in word and sentence the collected data from respondents; the major finding of the research assured challenges of political decentralization on local participation increases self-interest, lack of equal distribution, corruption, maladministration. Whereas, the negative impact of political decentralization was creating secession between the villages; disagreement among the employs; lack of the quality of work or unable to work similar function. Political decentralization is important for the improvement and the development of local participation because it give for the community to elect their own representative and to solve the local problem in short time. Political decentralization played greet role to give freedom for local community to participation on their own local political economic and social issue without any discrimination and the official and the people work together to solve their local problem.

FEDERALISM IN BRAZIL AND THE DIVISION OF COMPETENCES

The main objective of this article is to analyze the composition and main characteristics of the Federated State, considering that this is the model adopted by the Federative Republic of Brazil. Among the main characteristics are political decentralization, the lack of the right of secession, the sovereignty of the federal state, among others. About political decentralization and the autonomy of federal entities, it will be dealt with regarding the division of powers in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Constitution of 1988.

Resilience as “Political Decentralization”: An alternate history of the Cypherpunks origins of decentralised technology

The origins of decentralised technologies are often attributed to the Cypherpunks who pursued the development of privacy preserving tools against government surveillance. The Cypherpunk story is often portrayed as a “David versus Goliath” battle between counterculture rebels who wanted to subvert state surveillance with cryptographic tools, and the government who tried and failed to regulate public access to strong cryptography (Levy, 2002). That narrative - of the Cypherpunks versus The State in developing decentralized technology - is somewhat inaccurate. Historical documentation reveals that the idea of decentralization as a means to resilience evolved through non-linear developments by government sponsored, and independent, researchers in relation to policy questions of the day. The real contribution of Cypherpunk ideology is the idea that resilience can be achieved via technology that enables political decentralization, and that this leads to the distribution of control or influence over the systems that govern society for any given community to enable self-governance.

Political decentralization, fiscal centralization, and its consequences in case of Pakistan

The political and fiscal institutions are arguably the most significant factors that determine the way a society operates. Some countries, such as the USA and Canada, have decentralized political a...

Decentralisation, Institutional Characteristics and Public Sector Governance in Tanzania

Public sector governance has been the primary focus of the developing countries to ensure that they realise their developmental goals. In ensuring the public sector governance, decentralisation has been considered as the primary initiative. However, most of the previous empirical studies concentrate on political decentralisation meanwhile excluding administrative decentralisation and mediation effect of contingent factors i.e. technological capacity and institutional culture as institutional characteristics. In view of the aforementioned missing knowledge, the article investigated the influence of administrative decentralisation on public sector governance considering the mediation effect of institutional characteristics adopting Stewardship theory and Contingency theory. The article collected data from Dar es Salaam, Dodoma and Kigoma through self-administered questionnaire and analysed by using Mean scores and Structural Equation Model (SEM). The results revealed that administrative decentralisation had significant positive influence on public sector accountability and transparency. Moreover, technological capacity and institutional culture partially mediated the relationship between administrative decentralisation and, public sector accountability and transparency. In view of such results, among others, the article recommends that there is a need of developing the National Decentralisation Strategy (NADIS) to guide the decentralisation process and ensure its effective implementation for the sake of achieving public sector governance goals.

Health in All Policies: Management Model for the Comprehensive Transformation of the System

he essay explores the components of the approach health in all policies as a management model based on primary health care and its basic principles for health promotion described in the Ottawa Charter and the Adelaide Declaration: citizen participation and community empowerment, intersectorality, personal skills development, timely technologies and governance processes on social determinants of health. In this sense, we propose the transformation of the health system based on the construction of a comprehensive program for the strengthening of the organization through mechanisms of collaboration between the State and the Society, privileging equity and justice in defense of human rights. The document collects lessons learned from practices on the development and strengthening of “Sistemas Locales de Salud” and the Project “Municipios Hacia la Salud” in Venezuela (1989-2000), as well as experiences in other countries. The proposal is presented as a management model for the design, implementation, and governance of redistributive policies with a perspective of multisectoral strategic plan. We conclude that to be effective and efficient, these initiatives need better processes of political and functional decentralization, strong political and executive leadership, inclusive citizen participation, integrality between health and social goals and objectives, consensual planning between society and governments and; continuous accompaniment, monitoring and evaluation.

ПЕРЕРОЗПОДІЛ ЕКОНОМІЧНИХ ПОВНОВАЖЕНЬ В СИСТЕМІ ТЕРИТОРІАЛЬНОЇ ОРГАНІЗАЦІЇ ВЛАДИ В УКРАЇНІ В УМОВАХ ДЕЦЕНТРАЛІЗАЦІЇ

Territorial organization of power in the author’s version is a scientifically sound system of public relations, based on legislation and designed to exercise managerial influence on the development of society, covering the national, regional, district and base levels. The article analyzes the impact of horizontal decentralization of public power and governance, the essence of which is the transfer of financial, economic and power levers from central government to united territorial communities (UTC), on the redistribution of economic levers in the system of organization of power in Ukraine. The key importance of the redistributed economic powers of the UTC, new districts, and large towns of regional importance for political and administrative decentralization has been identified. The performance of new functions of these subjects of power is monitored, proposals on optimization of the system of territorial organization of power are given taking into account the changes that have taken place at the subregional and basic levels of administrative-territorial units of Ukraine. It is conclusions that the implementation of the reform of decentralization of public power and governance will in some way affect the formation of a new model of the pyramid of power. So, the central executive bodies, focusing on defense and security, budgetary, social and control functions, will at the same time try to provide appropriate institutional conditions for public authorities and management at the regional, subregional and basic levels; The power influence of regional state administrations and regional councils on social processes taking place in the regions will be somewhat weakened due to the strengthening of economic powers of districts, cities of regional significance, UTCs, and business structures. The scientific novelty and practical significance of the study lies in substantiating the consequences of redistribution of economic powers on political and administrative levers of influence on social processes of central executive bodies, regional state administrations, regional councils, new districts, large cities of regional significance, UTC. Proposals are made to prevent centrifugal tendencies, the emergence of local “princes”, ethnic enclave socio-spatial formations in certain regions of Ukraine. It is noted that the improvement of the territorial organization of power requires the intensification of scientific research on the reform of the administrative-territorial system at the regional level.

Resilient Future-Making: How Cryptocurrency & Transhumanism Overlap for Immutable, Decentralised, Autonomous Futures

The ultimate resilience is immortality. Blockchain communities have long-standing links with transhumanism through the cryptographers, cypherpunks, and extropians. Now, blockchain communities are actively embracing and funding life extension technologies. This embodiment of self-enhancing technologies through biohacking, cryogenically freezing the deceased, and sovereign ownership of cryptocurrency keys brings new meaning to what it means to have resilient, long-term, socio-technical infrastructure. This phenomenon epitomises the ultimate vision of political decentralisation, autonomy, and resilience in self-governance and self-determination over one’s life, and time.

The decentralisation reform in Ukraine: First accomplishments and future challenges

The article explores the decentralization reform in Ukraine under the presidency of Petro Poroshenko in 2014−2019, evaluating its main results and challenges in the context of territorial consolidation and democratization. The article seeks to explain what made the policy makers choose the priority of increasing the institutional and financial capacity of local government to provide public services in the context of improving Ukraine’s cohesion and resilience to external threats in relation to its territorial unity and sovereignty. The article argues that the logic of decentralization in 2014−2019 has brought Ukraine closer to the EU by implementing the principles of subsidiarity and promoting local democracy in the framework of multilevel governance in a unitary decentralized state. At the same time, the article highlights a number of challenges that decentralization faced in 2014−2019, including the level of institutional coordination within a multi-level governance setting, as well as the limited effectiveness of the incentives to increase local development in Ukraine. In the first stage of the reform in 2014−2019, decentralization led to shifting the balance of power and resources between central and subnational actors and institutions, but did not institutionalize the involvement of the latter into the process of policy making at the central level. According to the logic of the Sequential Theory of Decentralization, the start of the reform from administrative and fiscal decentralization, as well as the postponing of political decentralization, can set the vector of reducing the degree of autonomy of actors and institutions at the sub-state levels on the further stages, especially in the case of limiting the financial capacity of self-government to provide public services. If the reform is successful at its the next stages, it will generate a useful example of a decentralized democracy outside the EU, being more resilient to external and internal challenges due to its strengthened local self-government. Ukraine’s decentralization reform can become an example for post-Soviet countries and some EU member states that seek to strengthen their territorial integrity. Key words: decentralization, territorial consolidation, multi-level governance, Ukraine

Decentralization vs Centralization: Scenarios of Regional Development of Ukraine in the Context of Internal Stability Establishment

The work aims to analyze scenarios for the development of regional policy in Ukraine in conditions of decentralization and centralization trends confrontation in the country. The main problem is the establishment of structural completeness of the decentralization reform in Ukraine, which should involve the implementation of administrative-territorial, budgetary and political decentralization. An important task is also to determine the effectiveness of devolution, delegation, deconcentration, deregulation, and divestment, which are manifestations of the decentralization process and collectively determine the quality of reform. Based on the methodology of system analysis and the concept of “balance of relations,” as well as using a historical and comparative method in investigating the improvement of approaches to leading public policy, and a structural-functional method for analysis of territorial-political system as a decentralized and multi-level, the paper proposes an analysis of the balance of inter-level relations in the country, the effectiveness of reforms, decentralization and trends for further development. The work indicates that since 2014, administrative and territorial optimization and enlargement of communities have become the main result of the decentralization reform. The discussion of political decentralization remains extremely disturbing and is blocked as “separatism,” as well as attempts to resolve the conflict in the Donbas by political means through the adoption of the Steinmeier Formula are demurred as “capitulation.” The economic crisis, which coincided with the pandemic, can aggravate the negative perception of reform, the development of which remains possible within the framework of three development scenarios: “Euro-optimistic,” “inertial” and “blocking.”

Análisis de los avances de las regiones administrativas y de planificación - RAP en el proceso de descentralización de las Entidades Territoriales

La realización del presente artículo es considerar una perspectiva que se ha tenido sobre los avances que se han dado con la conjugación del sistema de regiones administrativas y de planificación -RAP- frente a las necesidades que han surgido durante los últimos años con las Entidades Territoriales, las cuales se ha asumido como en Colombia se ha tratado de interpretar una serie de consideraciones sobre las relaciones dentro del contexto de lo que representa en estos momentos la descentralización, así como también los criterios de la globalización económica y por su puesto los elementos que se han integrado a través de los canales de privatización de los principales activos estatales regionales, los cuales evidentemente han tenido un proceso de transformación junto con la interacción junto a lo que ha repercutido con los criterios de las principales responsabilidades generadas dentro de las diferentes características jerárquicas que posee el Estado. Por lo tanto, es importante observar cómo a partir de la entrada en vigencia de las diferentes políticas que están en desarrollo, es interesante destacar entonces como se han integrado las características representativas frente a la oferta de servicios y el sistema político. Así como también explorar la cierta tensión surgida entre los aspectos de la diversidad de los niveles del Estado en relación a la toma de decisiones de políticas públicas en las diferentes zonas del país: es por esto que el concepto de la descentralización política, y por el otro lado el cuestionamiento fiscal, la derivación de los gastos de los fondos públicos y la integración del cambio que se ha generado con las políticas de desarrollo y la seguridad en Colombia. Finalmente, es importante que Colombia entre en esa figura de cambio y transformación tanto social y política, romper con los paradigmas de lo que es la descentralización de manera específica.

The Evaluation of Regional Head Election: Developing Synergy of Regional Autonomy and Regional Head Election

The reform aims to achieve democracy, prosperity, and justice at the local level. Even though the reform process has been rolling for more than two decades, the goal of reform in realizing local democracy through an ideal regional head election is still far from expectations. This study aims to analyze the causes of the absence of synergy between regional autonomy and regional elections and identify the causes. A qualitative approach is used in the literature review method. The result showed that the root of the problem is not creating a synergy between regional autonomy and regional head elections because the application of the decentralization concept in Indonesia is dominated by the administrative decentralization perspective and the lack of actualizing the political perspective decentralization. The definitions of decentralization and regional autonomy in Acts tend to preserve centralization. Besides, regional autonomy's main objective places more emphasis on the administrative objectives of government and regional development rather than the development of local democracy. The lack of synergy between regional autonomy and regional elections is the gap between expectations and reality and conflicts at the ideological and technical levels. The gap between expectations and reality can be seen from the hope of realizing the acceleration of the democratization process at the local level, but technically, regional autonomy is characterized by an oligarchy of political parties and transactional politics. There are some suggestions for the Ministry of Home Affairs to revise the policy packages for decentralization and regional autonomy, especially in articles regulating the definition and objectives of regional autonomy, as well as revising Acts of Regional Head Election and Acts of Political Parties, particularly regarding the mechanism for nominating regional heads.

Decentralization of public healthcare services in the Province of Sumatera Utara, Indonesia

The research examined the effectiveness of decentralization program on the healthcare sector at the provincial level in the context of political and administrative decentralization. It adopted qualitative approach and employed the technique of in-depth interview, observation on documentation. Informants consist of public servants, practitioners, community and relevant stakeholders. The implementation of decentralization does not work that ideal for some reason: the devolution and the decentralization programs are not conducted simultaneously, mutually support and complimentary; the lack of local apparatus capabilities to understand and carry out the principles and the practices of the programs in the field; the limitation of financial sources and support to conduct the programs.

The Fulfillment of Human Rights in Regional Financial Management in Indonesia

The main challenge of political decentralization in Indonesia today is how local governments are more responsible for the full fulfillment of human rights by maximizing existing resources. For this reason, this paper proposes the use of Human Right Budgeting (HRB) for the management of financial resources in the regions in order to fulfill these rights by means of the obligation to maximize resources, the obligation of minimum allocation and the obligation of progressive realization in managing regional budgets to fulfill human rights. For this reason, the study answers several problems. First, how human rights are fulfilled in regional budgets in Indonesia, and whether local budgets have met the HRB principles, as well as what steps local governments should take in Indonesia to fulfill economic, social and cultural rights in full. In this paper, the author limits human rights only to economic, social and cultural rights, especially the right to education, the right to health, the right to food, the right to housing. To answer the above, the authors chose 6 areas as research objects, namely Bangka Belitung Islands Province, South Kalimantan Province, West Java Provinces, Malang City, Denpasar City and Palu City. There are several things that are important in this research which result in the lack of and even uncertainty regarding the full fulfillment of human rights in the regions. And finally, it is necessary to improve regulations at the national and regional levels in the effort to fulfill human rights. Keywords : Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Human Right Budgeting (HRB), Regional finance, Indonesia. DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/104-02 Publication date: December 31 st 2020