Search results

This article explores the determinants of political decentralization in 29 OECD parliamentary democracies. I examine how the decision to enact political decentralization is mediated by the partisan composition of parliamentary governments. Specifically, I hypothesize that four features impact the ability and motive to institute political decentralization: government ideology, policy decentralization platforms, power and stability, and the presence of ethnoregionalist parties in the national legislature and as government members. Empirical results reveal that ideology and policy platforms play little role in the decision to enact political reform. However, there is strong evidence that powerful and stable governments and the rise of ethnoregionalist parties in national politics substantially increase the probability of political decentralization. Government composition plays a significant role in institutional change and should be considered in future models on the determinants of decentralization. Adapted from the source document.

Since 1932, when Justice Louis Brandeis remarked that in a federal system states can serve as laboratories of democracy, political decentralization has been thought to stimulate policy experimentation. We reexamine the political economy behind this belief, using a simple model of voting in centralized and decentralized democracies. We find that the electoral logic suggests the opposite conclusion: centralization usually leads to too much policy experimentation, compared to the social optimum, while decentralization leads to too little. Three effects of centralization an informational externality, a risk-seeking effect, and a risk-conserving effect account for the different outcomes. Adapted from the source document.

In this dissertation, I ask why certain types of parties would agree to support creating or empowering sub-national governments. In particular, I focus on nationalized parties -- those that gain support from throughout a country. Political decentralization can negatively impact nationalized parties in at least two ways. First, it reduces the amount of power a party can enjoy should it win control of the national-level government. Second, previous studies show that political decentralization can increase party denationalization, meaning regional parties gain more support, even during national-level elections. I argue that nationalized parties may support decentralization when doing so reduces the ideological conflicts over national-level policy among voters whose support they seek. By altering political institutions, a party may be able to accommodate differing policy preferences in different parts of the country, or limit the damage to the party's electoral fortunes such differences could create.I primarily focus on the case of Scottish devolution in the United Kingdom, tracing the evolution of the British Labour Party's attitudes towards the issue. I argue that devolution became an integral part of the New Labour platform because it allowed the party to moderateits economic policies to cater to English preferences without losing Scottish votes to the Scottish National Party. I then develop a formal model representing the challenges a nationalized party faces when trying to win votes in more than one region of a country. I show that a party may be able to win votes using a combination of policy and political decentralization when it would be unable to do so using a single national-level policy alone. Furthermore, I hypothesize that a nationalized party should be more likely to support political decentralization when the preferences of voters in different regions diverge from each other. After applying this model to the United Kingdom, I explore some if its implications using the cases of decentralization in Spain and Belgium.

"Resource Wealth and Political Decentralization in Latin America" published on by Oxford University Press.

The Spanish Constitution of 1978 introduced a dramatic change into the political organization by decentralizing the existing State into seventeen regional governments with a broad range of authority. This transformation involved a 'services transfer process' from the central government and a simultaneous evaluation of the financial resources needed by the regional governments. The paper contains an analysis of the main features of this process, focusing on the various problems that have arisen in the estimation of the cost of the services transferred. Finally, some recommendations are offered for the future multilevel public financial system, which are in accordance with the present Spanish regulations on this subject.

Early advocates of decentralization lauded it as a strategy for strengthening democratic institutions, but later scholarship has emphasized decentralization's negative consequences, especially for political parties. This article argues that the impact of political decentralization on established parties is shaped by the context in which the reforms occur, with poor economic performance and limited programmatic differentiation making parties more vulnerable to the challenges posed by decentralization. The article explores how decentralization under such circumstances has contributed to party decay in Latin America, where declining support for established parties has been significant, in some places undermining democratic stability and governability. The article employs cross-national time-series analysis and case studies. The quantitative evidence indicates that political decentralization weakens existing parties in contexts of poor economic conditions and little ideological differentiation in the party system. Case studies elaborate the processes through which decentralizing reforms together with economic conditions and party linkages affect party systems.

In this paper we apply both cross-section and panel analysis to the relationship between fiscal and political decentralization and government quality. We find that fiscal decentralization improves government quality but not if it is accompanied by political decentralization. The negative impact of political decentralization on the relationship between fiscal decentralization and government quality persists when controlling for the degree of democratic maturity across countries.

1. Introduction; 2. The political process; 3. Administrative efficiency; 4. Competition among governments; 5. Fiscal policy and redistribution; 6. Fiscal coordination and incentives; 7. Citizens and government; 8. Checks, balances, and freedom; 9. Acquiring and using knowledge; 10. Ethnic conflict and secession; 11. Data to the rescue?; 12. Conclusion: rethinking decentralization.

Early advocates of decentralization lauded it as a strategy for strengthening democratic institutions, but later scholarship has emphasized decentralization's negative consequences, especially for political parties. This article argues that the impact of political decentralization on established parties is shaped by the context in which the reforms occur, with poor economic performance and limited programmatic differentiation making parties more vulnerable to the challenges posed by decentralization. The article explores how decentralization under such circumstances has contributed to party decay in Latin America, where declining support for established parties has been significant, in some places undermining democratic stability and governability. The article employs cross-national time-series analysis and case studies. The quantitative evidence indicates that political decentralization weakens existing parties in contexts of poor economic conditions and little ideological differentiation in the party system. Case studies elaborate the processes through which decentralizing reforms together with economic conditions and party linkages affect party systems. Resumen Estudios tempranos sobre la descentralización celebran el efecto positivo de dichos procesos sobre las instituciones democráticas. En contraste, estudios más recientes enfatizan las consecuencias negativas de la descentralización, especialmente para los partidos políticos. Este artículo argumenta que el impacto de procesos de descentralización sobre los partidos políticos depende del contexto en que dichas reformas ocurren. Específicamente, contextos de pobre desempeño económico y falta de diferenciación programática hacen a los partidos más vulnerables a los desafíos planteados por la descentralización. El artículo explora como, en dichas circunstancias, la descentralización ha contribuido al deterioro de los partidos políticos latinoamericanos, en algunos casos debilitando la estabilidad democrática y gobernabilidad. El artículo incluye un análisis estadístico y de casos. El primero muestra como la descentralización debilita los partidos existentes en contextos de pobre desempeño económico y falta de diferenciación ideológica en el sistema de partidos. El segundo ilumina los procesos mediante los cuales las reformas de descentralización, junto con condiciones económicas y mecanismos de vinculación partidaria, afectan al sistema de partidos políticos.