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Is political decentralization a panacea for poor governance and stagnating economic development? The 1990s saw a surge of interest in the idea that decentralization would promote democracy and economic efficiency. This early optimism was tempered in the 2000s by a new generation of research and program evaluations that challenged earlier assumptions. This body of research from the past two decades provides an opportunity to review what we have learned about decentralized governance and how these lessons may inform future programming.
The USAID-supported summary research volume Decentralized Governance and Accountability: Academic Research and the Future of Donor Programming, compiled and edited by Jonathan Rodden and Erik Wibbels, examines recent research on decentralization and its potential contributions to governance programming.
This month’s DRG Learning Digest explores three noteworthy topics from this research:
- What do we know about the causes and consequences of government unit proliferation?
- Do local elections promote better local governance?
- What are the links between decentralization, social heterogeneity, and conflict?
Also, don’t forget to check out the DRG Evidence and Learning Team resources! See the text box at the end for more information.
What Do We Know About the Causes and Consequences of Government Unit Proliferation?
Over the past three decades, the world has experienced a proliferation of regional and local governance units. This so-called “administrative unit proliferation” or “government fragmentation” is the process of redrawing administrative boundaries to create new units. It typically involves splitting administrative units rather than consolidation. For example, the number of districts in Kenya increased from 47 in 1990 to 70 in 2010; similarly, in Ghana, the number of districts grew from 65 in 1988 to 216 by 2012. The causes of administrative unit proliferation can be broadly categorized as either top-down or bottom-up. Top-down (supply-side) explanations emphasize the political payoffs to national-level elites and leaders for changing jurisdictional boundaries. Top-down reforms are typically driven by leaders’ desire for political gain, and boundary reform is a tool for electoral control or for weakening local or regional opposition. For example, research in Indonesia and Nigeria documents the use of this “divide and rule” strategy of splitting existing government units in contexts of opposition to central government rule.
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Numerous developing countries have substantially increased their number of subnational administrative units in recent years, graphs from data presented by Guy Grossman and Janet Lewis.
Bottom-up (demand-side) explanations of administrative unit proliferation, in contrast, emphasize the influence of grassroots activism, often by ethnic minorities. Research in Indonesia highlights a bottom-up explanation for district proliferation, driven by ethnic minorities’ efforts to create new local governing units to attain institutional representation. As the Indonesian examples illustrate, both top-down and bottom-up mechanisms can be at work in government unit proliferation, although there are, as yet, no cross-country comparative studies of the causes of government unit proliferation, and no general comparative theory of administrative unit proliferation.
When turning from the causes to the consequences of administrative unit proliferation, findings are mixed. While some country-specific studies document a deterioration in the quality of service provision, rigorous multi-country comparative research using African data demonstrates positive yet diminishing effects of fragmentation on public service provision. This research finds that an increase in the number of regional governments redistributes fiscal and administrative resources to underserved regions and encourages cross-jurisdictional competition. However, extreme government fragmentation limits efficiency gains by reducing administrative capacity and economies of scale as well as enabling elite capture. When examining other outcomes such as corruption, violence and separatism, etc., the literature is also mixed.
Findings from the disparate literature on the consequences of government unit proliferation indicate the potential both to improve and degrade the provision of public goods and service, which is an important area for continued research and policy dialogue.
Do Local Elections Promote Better Local Governance?
Early proponents of political decentralization emphasized local elections as a means to promote accountability. Initially, however, claims of the superiority of local elections—versus the appointment of local officials by higher-level authorities—rested largely on untested assumptions. Considerable evidence now exists on both the advantages and the pitfalls of local elections as a mechanism for selecting local officials. Relative to appointments, local elections tend to generate better outcomes in contexts with extensive political competition, a vibrant media market, low levels of social and economic inequality, and strong national political parties that compete locally. For example, research using cross-national data from 75 developing and transition countries found that decentralized countries perform better under elections, rather than appointment systems, but only in the presence of strong political parties. However, under some narrow conditions—namely when the central government’s survival depends on local output, citizens are uninformed, political competition is low, and a strong and cohesive party can induce competition for government positions through promotions and retention—appointment systems may be preferable.
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Voting in the 2014 legislative election in Aceh, Indonesia. Photo: IFES
There are also situations in which local elections fail to live up to their potential. The benefits of decentralized elections are often threatened by clientelistic practices—or the targeting of public resources to citizens in exchange for their votes. Clientelism, and the patterns of targeted redistribution that result, entail significant welfare costs to societies. In contexts where clientelism is pervasive, local elections can produce short-term benefits at the expense of broad policy considerations. This has important consequences for social welfare, transparency, and accountability.
How can clientelism be reduced? Election monitoring can help by limiting the extent to which parties can compromise the secrecy of the vote. Additionally, meritocratic appointment and promotion procedures, as well as forceful and transparent central oversight of key public resources, can limit officials’ ability to misuse public resources in patronage politics. Research in Benin and the Philippines suggests that local policy deliberation involving citizens—town hall meetings—and two-way communication can also help overcome clientelism by spurring candidates to commit to specific post-election policy agendas.
Practitioners and academics alike should pay attention to the key details of electoral and party institutions’ structures. While key features of elections—such as partisan versus nonpartisan, at-large versus districts, and the presence of term limits—have been well researched in developed democracies, there is a lack of evidence from decentralized settings in the developing world. Program designers should also consider how the hierarchical organization of political parties shapes incentives for local officials to be responsive to citizens versus clientelistic machines.
What Are the Links Between Decentralization, Social Heterogeneity, and Conflict?
What is the impact of decentralization in societies with significant ethnic, religious, or other social cleavages? How might decentralization be a part of the solution in the aftermath of conflict? The success of decentralization, and much of the donor programming associated with it, crucially depends on the ethnic geography, the salience of ethnicity, and the ways parties and political institutions shape the incentives of elites.
Citizens in line during the Kenyan elections of March 4, 2013, in which the Kenyan people voted to decentralize the Kenyan government. Photo: Dan Spealman, Aga Khan Foundation.
The presence of geographically segregated social groups is often part of the justification for decentralization. In areas with local ethnic homogeneity, decentralization could lead to more horizontal cooperation, or as illustrated by research in Kenya, in contexts with ethnic segregation in heterogeneous regions, it can potentially inflame cross-community conflict. In other words, decentralization can have different impacts under different circumstances. Attention should be given to the extent of local ethnic homogeneity and heterogeneity when considering the implications of programming.
Although the research on decentralization specifically in post-conflict settings is still quite nascent, results on the impacts of decentralization are mixed. In research in Colombia, for example, decentralization coincided with increased violence. In other contexts, decentralization can improve service delivery, increase aggregate welfare, and mitigate conflict. Research from southern and eastern Africa and Sierra Leone illustrates two positive cases of post-conflict decentralization movements.
A graphic from the Colombia research paper cited above shows an increase in violent activity during a period of accelerated decentralization.
Careful consideration should be given to the role of foreign aid in post-conflict environments, as this aid is often distributed at the local level. The evidence reviewed and analyzed in USAID’s Decentralized Governance and Accountability: Academic Research and the Future of Donor Programming suggests that aid is most successful where conflict results in a negotiated settlement, all parties in the conflict have a stake in decentralization, the means exist to build able and locally accountable sub-national governments, and donors can bring the interests of the central government, local governments, and traditional authorities into agreement.
Further Assistance
You can learn more about decentralization and other resources found in this Learning Digest by contacting the DRG Bureau’s Governance Team at ddi.drg_gov@usaid.gov.
Recent DRG Learning Events
Social and Behavior Change (SBC) Community of Practice: Decolonization – Following May’s robust discussion of decolonization and development work, on June 22nd the SBC Community of Practice welcomed back Dr. Natasha Bharj, together with Dr. Tania Eulalia Martinez Cruz of the Free University of Brussels (Université Libre Bruxelles) to further explore decolonization from theoretical and practical perspectives. Dr. Bharj presented three main approaches to decolonization of development work, and Dr. Martinez Cruz presented case studies from her development work with Indigenous communities to identify some of the complex ways in which colonial assumptions limit the success of our programs and expanded on how applying SBC principles and localization practices can aid in decolonization.
Evidence and Learning Talk Series: What is the Evidence on Government Responsiveness in Developing Countries? – When and how do governments deliver public goods and services in response to citizen preferences? On June 28th, the DRG Bureau hosted Guy Grossman (University of Pennsylvania) and Tara Slough (New York University) to discuss their findings on this very question. As their recent review study shows, examining interactions in pairings of three key types of actors—politicians, bureaucrats, and citizens—provides rich theoretical and empirical terrain for developing our understanding of responsiveness and accountability in low- and middle-income countries. Their review concludes that interventions to improve government accountability can maximize effectiveness by considering interactions between all three types of actors.
Use Our Resources!
Welcome to the DRG Learning Digest, a newsletter to keep you informed of the latest learning, evaluation, and research in the Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) sector. Views expressed in the external (non-USAID) publications linked in this Digest do not necessarily represent the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.
Don't forget to check out our DRG Learning Menu of Services! (Link only accessible to USAID personnel.) The Menu provides information on the learning products and services the Evidence and Learning Team offers to help you fulfill your DRG learning needs. We want to help you adopt learning approaches that emphasize best fit and quality.
The Evidence and Learning Team is also excited to share our DRG Learning, Evidence, and Analysis Platform (LEAP) with you. This Platform contains an inventory of programmatic approaches, evidence gap maps, the DRG Learning Harvest, and inventories of indicators and country data portraits - all of which can be very useful in DRG activity design, implementation, evaluation, and adaptation. Some of these resources are still being built, so check back frequently to see what has been newly added.
The DRG Learning Harvest on LEAP is a searchable database of DRG learning products, including summaries of key findings and recommendations, drop-down menus to easily find documents related to a particular country or program area, and links to the full reports on the DEC.
Our friends at the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute are also seeking to expand their research partnership with USAID on the complex nature of democracy by inviting research questions from you for V-Dem to work on. If there's a DRG technical question you've been wondering about, please email the Evidence and Learning Team at ddi.drg.elmaillist@usaid.gov.
We welcome your feedback on this newsletter and on our efforts to promote the accessibility, dissemination, and utilization of DRG evidence and research. Please visit the DRG Center's website for additional information or contact us at ddi.drg.elmaillist@usaid.gov.
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