Strengthening local governance in Africa: Beyond donor-driven approaches
Strengthening local governance in Africa: Beyond donor-driven approaches is the twelfth paper to be published in ICLD’s Working Paper series. In this paper Göran Hydén is critical of the donor-driven approaches to decentralization that pays little attention to political realities in Africa. He argues that the focus during the last decades has been on prescriptive…
Decentralizing for Development: The developmental potential of local autonomy and the limits of politics driven decentralization reforms
Decentralization does not always guarantee democratic development, so how then can a model of decentralization be designed so that it also creates incitements for democratic institutions? In this paper the author tries to find the missing link between decentralization reforms and good governance. The important contribution in this paper is that one needs to take…
Participatory Budgeting and Local Governance
Participatory budgeting has become a much used tool in the process of creating decentralized states, but what are the possibilities and risks of participatory budgeting from a democratic perspective? In this paper the challenge of creating well-functioning systems for participatory budgeting that combines both efficiency and civic participation is examined by studying local participatory budgeting…
Real Democratization in Cambodia? An Empirical Review of the Potential of a Decentralization Reform
How can a war-torn country rise and in the process create democratic institutions? This paper uses Cambodia as an example and tries to identify some of the key dimensions of the Cambodian decentralization reform. The question in focus, how the process of decentralization and local development is played out in a post-conflict country is thoroughly…
Citizen Engagement, Deliberative Spaces and the Consolidation of a Post-Authoritarian Democracy: The Case of Indonesia
Is there a correlation of strong civil society organizations taking part in a decentralization process and the possibilities that this process will result in a strong deliberative democracy and a well-functioning local government? By presenting different examples of how local CSO:s in post-authoritarian Indonesia engage with the government, the author argues that there has been…
Engaging Civil Society to Promote Democratic Local Governance: Emerging Trends and Policy Implications in Asia
In what way could local CSO:s act in the plausible democratic transformation of a number of Asian Countries? This paper examines in what way civil society affects the decentralization process in Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, the Republic of Korea and the Philippines. By doing so, this publication shed light on the role of CSO:s…
Where is Local Government Going in Latin America? A Comparative Perspective
How can one view the Latin American local government system and ultimately – what can this system tell us about the possible outcomes for democracy in Latin America? In this publication the author departs from two of Max Weber’s ideal types of local government systems – the ‘managerial’ and ‘governmental’ types of government – to…
Choice, Recognition and Democracy Effects of Decentralization
Many democratic decentralization reforms have been carried out in cooperation with CSO:s, the private sector and other non-governmental agents – but how does this affect the accountability and legitimacy of the local government? This paper examines the effects of institutional choices and exemplifies different democratic dimensions in the process of democratic decentralization. Based on experiences…
Sanctions, Benefits, and Rights: Three Faces of Accountability
In what way are citizens able to affect their local public officials and how can their collective need be transformed into government action? 15 years ago a study in Mexico examined 30 randomly selected municipals and the findings were that the ability to demand good performance of local government lagged behind other forms of civil…
Perspectives on Decentralisation
Why do some decentralization reforms fail while others succeed? This is one of the burning questions in the decentralization literature and this publication examines in what contexts different types of decentralization works well and how these types of decentralizations affect society. This research serves therefore as an important contribution to the existing research in the…