Devolution Policy Research Articles

Decentralisation and devolution in Nicaragua’s North Atlantic autonomous region: Natural resources and indigenous peoples’ rights

<span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;" lang="EN-GB">A number of governments, particularly in Latin America, have begun to recognise the rights of indigenous peoples and traditional communities to the lands on which they live. Recognition has often taken the form of constitutional provisions or laws that grant use rights in perpetuity or provide land titles. These provisions usually establish rights for multiple communities over a large territory, at a scale that may be ideal for promoting broader, ecosystem management approaches. At the same time, however, indigenous communities often do not have existing territorial governance structures at these scales. Nicaragua’s North Atlantic Autonomous Region provides a rich setting in which to study issues of multilevel natural resource governance. In addition to the devolution policies that have created official indigenous territories, the central government has decentralised important powers over natural resources to the regional autonomous authority, while municipal authorities still exist but have been marginalised. At the same time, however, the community scale is the one at which local people have traditionally managed resources. This paper examines these issues in light of efforts to establish democratic governance institutions at the territory level and argues that communities continue to lose out under multilevel governance regimes without concerted efforts to level the playing field. The findings are based on several years of research in the region, emerging research on newly titled territories and a six month training and dialogue with territory leaders, organised by a consortium of international and local NGOs.</span>

Devolution and human resources in primary healthcare in rural Mali

Devolution, as other types of decentralization (e.g. deconcentration, delegation, privatization), profoundly changes governance relations in the health system. Devolution is meant to affect performance of the health system by transferring responsibilities and authority to locally elected governments. The key question of this article is: what does devolution mean for human resources for health in Mali?This article assesses the key advantages and dilemmas associated with devolution such as responsiveness to local needs, downward accountability and health worker retention. Challenges of politics and capacities are also addressed in relation to human resources for health at the local level. Examples are derived from experiences in Mali with a capacity development programme and from case studies of other countries. It is not research findings that are presented, but highlights of key issues at stake aimed at inspiring the debate in Mali and elsewhere.A first lesson from the discussion suggests that in the context of human resources for health, decentralization of authority and resources is not the main issue. The challenge is to develop or strengthen accountability of those who decide and act, whether they are local politicians, bureaucrats or community representatives. If decentralization policies do not address public accountability, they will not fundamentally change human resource management, quality and equity of staffing. A second lesson is that successful devolution requires innovations in capacity development of all actors involved and in designing effective incentive measures. A final key conclusion is that the topic of devolution policy and its effects on human resources for health, and vice versa, merit more attention. A better understanding may lead to more appropriate policy designs and better preparation for the actors involved in countries that are embarking on decentralization, as is the case in Mali.

An inquiry into collective action and sustainable participatory watershed management: evidence from Southern India

Policies of devolution have been widely adopted in both developing and developed countries. This study investigates how the devolutionary policies ensure collective action in watershed management. It examines the factors that affect collective participation in watershed management and how collective action changes once the state withdraws and hands control over management to village panchayats (local governments) and other groups. The analysis of factors that influence ongoing maintenance of watershed structures indicates that collective action emerges when user groups are small and homogenous and communities are dependent on a large number of wells. Further, greater success is likely where user groups have more knowledge and control over funds available for maintenance activities after the state withdraws.

Devolution's Policy Impact on Non-emergency Medical Transportation in State Children's Health Insurance Programs

Proponents of devolution often maintain that the transfer of power and authority of programs enables local officials to craft policy solutions that better align with the needs of their constituents. This article provides one of the first empirical evaluations of this assumption as it relates to non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). NEMT programs meet a critical need in the areas in which they serve, directly targeting this single key access barrier to care. Yet states have great latitude in making such services available. The authors utilize data from 32 states to provide a preliminary assessment of devolution's consequences and policy impact on transportation-related access to care. Their findings provide mixed evidence on devolution's impact on policy outcomes. Proponents of devolution can find solace in the fact that several states have gone beyond federally mandated minimum requirements to offer innovative programs to remove transportation barriers to care. Detractors of devolution will find continued pause on several key issues, as a number of states do not offer NEMT to their SCHIP populations while cutting services and leaving over $7 billion in federal matching funding unspent.

Inching toward Incrementalism: Federalism, Devolution, and Health Policy in the United States and the United Kingdom

In the United States, the recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 envisions a significant increase in federal oversight over the nation's health care system. At the same time, however, the legislation requires the states to play key roles in every aspect of the reform agenda (such as expanding Medicaid programs, creating insurance exchanges, and working with providers on delivery system reforms). The complicated intergovernmental partnerships that govern the nation's fragmented and decentralized system are likely to continue, albeit with greater federal oversight and control. But what about intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom? What impact did the formal devolution of power in 1999 to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have on health policy in those nations, and in the United Kingdom more generally? Has devolution begun a political process in which health policy in the United Kingdom will, over time, become increasingly decentralized and fragmented, or will this "state of unions" retain its long-standing reputation as perhaps the most centralized of the European nations? In this article, we explore the federalist and intergovernmental implications of recent reforms in the United States and the United Kingdom, and we put forward the argument that political fragmentation (long-standing in the United States and just emerging in the United Kingdom) produces new intergovernmental partnerships that, in turn, produce incremental growth in overall government involvement in the health care arena. This is the impact of what can be called catalytic federalism.

Decentralization and devolution in Italian cultural policies: how micro-practices should inspire macro-policies

As Italy has always lacked national guidelines for contemporary arts, recent devolution policies have mainly centred on existing cultural heritage, leaving aside contemporary artistic production. Local and regional authorities, however, spontaneously launched initiatives to encourage contemporary creativity, putting in place a sort of de facto devolution. Only the recently created Youth Ministry has drafted the first national guidelines to promote contemporary arts. This begs a question as how these new national priorities will relate to projects which already exist at the local level. By offering an insight into the political, administrative and management challenges of this sort of de facto devolution by relying on the Giovani Artisti dell'Emilia-Romagna – GA/ER (Young Artists of Emilia-Romagna) case study, this paper suggests that the Ministry of Youth should build on existing initiatives and encourage a responsible management of existing local projects.

Why linguistic territorialism in the UK does not justify differential minority language rights

Despite the declarations of international documents on minority language rights, provision is patchy for supporting minority languages in the UK, where since the 1980s governments have deliberately or unwittingly greatly raised the profile and comparative standing of English. The partial exception to this trend has been the treatment of indigenous/regional minority languages, stimulated by policies of devolution intended to revive or create a sense of national identity, and to redress perceived historic linguistic injustices. In a multicultural state or region these apparently reasonable goals appear to conflict with current views of citizenship that argue for inclusiveness and equal treatment for all under the law. In particular, the question arises why indigenous minority languages should receive official support and funding that is denied to speakers of minority ethnic languages. In this article, I examine various justifications offered for this, including higher population levels, the geographical concentration of indigenous speakers, the long historical ties between regional language and culture, and the notion of promotional rights. I attempt to show each argument lacks force and ignores the fact of natural language change. I argue for an approach to indigenous languages that weights support and funding according to a range of factors including the number of minority speakers, their perceived need and the benefits that would flow from funding. Support from the local community and private sources could also be encouraged.

Devolution and institutional culture: path-dependency and the Welsh assembly

In an attempt to identify and assess institutional culture in the Welsh Assembly (WA), this article analyses agency and path-dependency in relation to Assembly Member (AM) perspectives, devolution policy and historical documentation. As primary agents, AMs were posed a number of questions regarding the initial rationales for an Assembly and whether the new institution reflected the cultural tendencies of its incoming membership. In order to identify and understand relationships between agency and path-dependency, this article identifies a distinction between the WA and individual actors. Distinctions between organisational and individual levels identify how different institutions fit together and illustrate relationships between path-dependency and agency. These relationships allow theoretical and empirical insights into cultural difference between the emerging WA and pre-devolution Welsh political institutions.

Social Policy Devolution: A Historical Review of Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States (1834–1999)

This paper explores the recurring themes of devolution and social policy across time and nation in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Devolution is defined as the transfer of responsibility from national governments to state and local levels. Using a historical framework, the central/local tensions that characterize devolution and social policy in these countries are noted from 1834 to the late 1990s. This chronology shows that despite their geographical, ideological, and cultural differences, all of these countries have shifted responsibility for social provision back and forth between central and local governments in similar ways throughout the three eras delineated in this analysis. Clearly, devolution characterizes the current social policy climate in these three countries and across many Western democracies. Recent trends in the environment such as privatization, mandatory collaboration, community capacity building, and service integration are identified, and process questions are presented as a guide for practitioners who seek to explore the current devolution reality.

Future scenarios as a tool for collaboration in forest communities

Forest devolution is meant to provide communities with greater decision-making power over the use and future of tropical forests. However, devolution policies have not always had the intended e ect; in some cases they have caused or furthered the disenfranchisement of the poor, the creation of open access con- ditions, resource conflict and forest degradation. These problems are likely to arise when forest communities are at a disadvantage when interacting with other local players and are unprepared for their new opportunities and responsibilities due to their physical remoteness, cultural isolation, low literacy rates or lack of experience in formal planning and negotiation. This paper discusses how a participatory method to facilitate thinking about the future - called future scenarios - can help change the way forest communities and local governments interact. The paper reviews a growing body of literature on future scenarios and shares first-hand experiences with future scenarios in forest communities in the northern Bolivian Amazon and the central provinces of Vietnam. It finds that under the right conditions, the use of future scenarios allows forest communities to collaborate more e ectively with local government, better assume responsibilities when given control over forests under devolution schemes and self-organize to benefit from the opportunities that communal control over forests o ers. Future scenarios help communities think about dependency, vulnerabilities and ways to prepare for the future; the methods develop organizational capacity and encourage internal democratic pro- cesses and planning. Community leaders become more vocal and assertive in meetings with local government, and marginalized groups within communities, such as women or the poorest segments, make their voices heard. However, the methods are less e ective when facilitation skills are not available or where government or other interests are threatened by local constituents. Future scenarios are not without their pitfalls and do not work in all situations, but given the appropriate context they can create break-through moments that improve collaboration between communities and local o cials.

The Conservative Party’s Devolution Dilemma

In the year of the tercentenary of the union between England and Scotland, the claim is made by the Conservative party that only it ‘can make devolution work’. However, this article examines such a claim and also the prospects that a policy of ‘English votes for English laws’ will merely add to the dilemma facing the Conservative party; namely, that a party of ‘positive unionism’ cannot be a party of legislative devolution. The concomitant constitutional anomalies associated with devolution policy have merely been displaced rather than removed but the Conservative party has not yet developed credible polices that will address what has now become known as the ‘English Question’.

Devolution and Welfare Policy Choices of Local Governments;Evaluating the Effect of the TANF Devolution on the State Policy Choices in the U.S.

Devolution and Welfare Policy Choices of Local Governments;Evaluating the Effect of the TANF Devolution on the State Policy Choices in the U.S.

Bridging The Convergence-Divergence Policy Diffusion Divide, Mid-Range Theorizing, and Devolving Food Aid in Mexico and The Dominican Republic

Scholarship on policy diffusion in Latin America tends to emphasize pressure for policy convergence, often associated with globalization and multilateral lending institutions (MLIs), or pressure for policy divergence, often linked to domestic political institutions. These studies capture crucial forces at work shaping the region’s democratic and neoliberal economic transitions. However, attention to convergence or divergence pressure, rather than mid-range theory that frames how the two combine at different stages in the diffusion process, obscures findings from empirical case studies. This research tries to explain why Mexico successfully devolved food aid resources away from its national capital to rural areas, while the Dominican Republic tried and failed. If both countries were under similar convergence pressures, as suggested in the convergence literature, and were undergoing a similar domestic transition in their political structures, as suggested in the divergence literature, why the different outcomes? Convergence pressure put devolving food aid on the reform agenda in both countries, and, subsequently, domestic pressure, in particular changing national party systems, shaped the eventual organization, implementation and variation of devolution policies that followed. Thus, bridging the convergence-divergence divide becomes necessary to understand these case studies.

The Blair Years – A Northern Irish Perspective1

This paper looks at New Labour’s devolution policies form the vintage point of the Northern Irish experiment. It explores the multiple consequences of the new constitutional framework set down by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, from the logical redefinition of British-Irish relations to the less self-evident potential redefinition of cross-border relations in Ireland itself. The paper also looks back on the history of devolution to Northern Ireland with a view to bringing out the crucial contribution of the Blair administration. Finally it provides an insider’s view into the operations of the Northern Irish Executive and through comparative analysis highlights the specificities of devolution Northern Irish style.

How Devolution Upsets Distributive Justice

AbstractPhilippe Van Parijs suggests that in culturally divided societies health care systems (and perhaps other welfare services) should be divided along regional lines. He argues that since members of homogenous societies have relatively similar needs and tastes, it is easier for them to agree on a rather comprehensive distributive scheme. This proposed reform of health care, Van Parijs argues, would be consistent with distributive justice rather than undermine it. Against Van Parijs, the paper demonstrates that this policy of devolution upsets distributive justice. Devolution does so by shifting the pattern of distribution (across communities) from distribution according to need, to distribution of equal shares. The paper also argues that devolution is likely to weaken solidarity across the polity as a whole, which further undermines the attainment of distributive justice. The paper concludes that far from catering to culturally driven differences in medical preferences, distributive justice (in fact) permits disregard of such differences, and warrants enforcing a unitary pattern of consumption of medical goods (and other welfare services) across the citizenry, thus retaining a unified health care (and correspondingly, welfare) system.

Fuzzy Property Relations in the Vietnamese Uplands: Ethnography of Forest Access and Control

The Vietnamese government implemented the forest devolution policy in the 1990s, aiming to provide local households with individual rights to forest land and forest resources. This paper studies effects of the policy on local dynamic use of forest land and forest resources in northern Vietnam. It explores particularly the fuzzy property relations on forest land after the implementation of the policy. The findings show that, despite the emphasis on abstract rules in forest devolution policy, actual property relationships are highly fuzzy and very much contested among local people and between them and various local state agencies. On the ground, different actors maintain different claims to the same resources, and their claims are all equally legitimate. The outcomes of forest devolution policy are shaped not merely by the policy itself, but also by other factors such as villagers’ notions of rural landscapes and local power relations. Fuzziness actually creates opportunities for a local elite who have access to political power to channel most of the benefit derived from forest land and forest resources to themselves. Unless all actors agree to sit down and discuss balancing their interests and also their power over the forest, contestation among them will never be resolved.

Forest governance and institutional structure: an ignored dimension of community based forest management in the Philippines

This paper identifies strategic weaknesses in the devolution policy process in forest management and analyses the reasons behind them. Further, it establishes the relationship of devolution policy outcomes with governance and institutional structures. The field research was undertaken in the Philippines, taking six cases of community based forest management (CBFM) sites in the province of Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino and employing a qualitative technique for data collection and interpretation. The study demonstrates that the devolution policy process has two major interrelated strategic weaknesses: one is inadequate policy articulation and the other is a set of differences between policy and the complex reality of implementation. Drawing upon this analysis of strategic weaknesses in the devolution policy process in the Philippines the paper argues that the level of success of policy outcomes is dependent on the interrelation between the levels of devolution with clear policy articulation on the one hand and quality of governance and institutional structures on the other.

The environmental consequences of decentralizing the decision to decentralize

Abstract Environmental statutes that initiate devolution frequently contain provisions that allow tiers of government to control the final assignment of policymaking authority. These provisions may allow one tier of government to propose a re-assignment of authority and may give other tiers of government the power to veto the proposed transfer of authority. Using data from the devolution of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in California, we empirically model a dual-selection process in which a lower tier government (i.e. a city) may assume policymaking authority from an upper tier government (i.e. a county), but only if the upper tier entity chooses not to veto the petition. Using simulation methods, we compare the consequences of this policy with those of two alternative devolution policies. Each devolution policy results in the setting of different levels of public goods across tiers of government. Each policy also produces markedly different levels of compliance with state environmental standards.

Do the Poor Benefit from Devolution Policies? Evidence from Malawi's Forest Co-Management Program

<i>Do local people, especially vulnerable households, benefit from devolution of forest management? We apply the propensity-score matching and decomposition techniques on household data from Chimaliro and Liwonde forest reserves under the pilot forest co-management program in Malawi. After controlling for selection bias, we find that while the program raises forest income for participants in Chimaliro, it reduces revenue for participants in Liwonde. Interestingly, results indicate that the program raises forest income for female and low-income participants, although male and richer participants capture more benefits due to discrimination and endowment differences accounting for 100% and 60% of the inter-group income disparity, respectively.</i> (JEL Q23, O13)

Forecasting and Evaluating the Consequences of Electoral Change: Scotland and Wales

Elections to devolved institutions in Scotland and Wales are held using the Additional Member System. This was adopted to help Labour secure support for their devolution policy from the Liberal Democrats. However, the system was crafted to give Labour a partisan benefit. The additional seats are allocated regionally, there is a low ratio of list to constituency seats and a high de facto threshold. The system's advocates hoped it would promote female representation and facilitate more nuanced electoral choice. Only some expectations have been fulfilled. Labour has won a higher proportion of seats than votes. Some voters have split their votes to vote for the constituency candidate they like most. But the list element did not enhance female representation, voters did not necessarily express a coalition preference, while in Scotland smaller parties have broken through the de facto threshold. Meanwhile, significant tensions have emerged between constituency and list representatives.