Jean-Paul Faguet

• Princeton, Harvard, LSE
• Professor (Full) at London School of Economics and Political Science

Decentralization research has become more quantitative and formal over the past two decades. But as technical rigor has increased, the focus of research has narrowed to decentralization’s effects on particular policy variables, leaving aside larger, more nuanced and complex questions of crucial importance to policymakers contemplating reform. This...

I examine decentralization through the lens of the local dynamics it unleashed in the much-noted case of Bolivia and the less-noted case of Bangladesh. I argue that the national effects of decentralization are largely the sum of its local-level effects. Hence to understand decentralization we must first understand how local government works. This i...

Bolivia decentralized in an effort to deepen democracy, improve public services, and make government more accountable. Unlike many countries, Bolivia succeeded. Over the past generation, public investment shifted dramatically toward primary services and resource distribution became far more equitable, partly due to the creation of new local governm...

The most important theoretical argument concerning decentralization is that it can improve governance by making government more accountable and responsive to the governed. Improving governance is also central to the motivations of real-world reformers, who bear risks and costs in the interest of devolution. But the literature has mostly focused ins...

If the United States is intent on building an empire through military might to spread its values around the world, this political scientist believes it is bound to fail. Using institutional economics as a framework for analysis, he argues that democracies cannot be readily built unless there is a rich mosaic of social interaction already intact. No...

For developing countries, decentralising power from central government to local authorities holds the promise of deepening democracy, empowering citizens, improving public services and boosting economic growth. But the evidence on when and how decentralisation can bring these benefits has been mixed. Under the wrong conditions, decentralised power...

For developing countries, decentralising power from central government to local authorities holds the promise of deepening democracy, empowering citizens, improving public services and boosting economic growth. But the evidence on when and how decentralisation can bring these benefits has been mixed. Under the wrong conditions, decentralised power...

For developing countries, decentralising power from central government to local authorities holds the promise of deepening democracy, empowering citizens, improving public services and boosting economic growth. But the evidence on when and how decentralisation can bring these benefits has been mixed. Under the wrong conditions, decentralised power...

We analyze recent developments in Bolivia’s politics through the lens of political cleavage theory, in particular cleavage displacement. Bolivia’s current party system is characterized by a stable and dominant MAS at one end of the spectrum, and at the other a fractious, unstable collection of parties, movements, and other vehicles that have failed...

Institutional reforms are structural changes in the rules and norms of authority, with effects that are long-term and unpredictable on government, politics, and society. But leaders may undertake them to solve unrelated, discrete, short-term political problems. Understanding the latter is key to understanding the characteristics of many real reform...

We explore the effects of decentralization on education and health in Ethiopia using an original database covering all of the country’s regions and woredas (local governments). Ethiopia is a remarkable case in which war, famine and chaos in the 1970s–80s were followed by federalization, decentralization, rapid growth, and dramatic improvements in h...

We explore the effects of decentralization on education and health in Ethiopia using an original database covering all of the country’s regions and woredas (local governments). Ethiopia is a remarkable case in which war, famine and chaos in the 1970s-80s were followed by federalization, decentralization, rapid growth and dramatic improvements in hu...

For 50 years, Bolivia’s political party system was a surprisingly robust component of an otherwise fragile democracy, withstanding coups, hyperinflation, guerrilla insurgencies, and economic chaos. Why did it suddenly collapse around 2002? I propose a theoretical lens combining cleavage theory with Schattschneider’s concept of competitive dimension...

Across the West, political-party systems are disintegrating from the bottom up, as economic and social changes cause them to loose their moorings in the major cleavages that defined politics throughout the twentieth century. The experience of Bolivia, where an underinstitutionalized politics disintegrated earlier and faster, may offer analytical hi...

The rise of outsider, populist, and nativist politicians across the West is no coincidence. It is symptomatic of political party systems disintegrating from the bottom up, as structural changes in the economy and society unmoor them from the major social cleavages that defined political contestation throughout the twentieth century. We can open an...

This symposium Regional Authority and the Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance engages two recent books on regional governance. The first sets out a measure of regional authority for 81 countries in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific between 1950 and 2010. The second theorizes how regional governance is shaped by functiona...

Hooghe, Liesbet and Gary Marks. 2016. Community, Scale, and Regional Governance: A Post-Functionalist Theory of Governance (Volume 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Volume 2 of Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks’ ambitious series is a slim and elegant book. This is especially so in comparison to Volume 1, a book chunkily rich in methodology and data...

Donors increasingly fund interventions to counteract inequality in developing countries, where they fear it can foment instability and undermine nation-building efforts. To succeed, aid relies on the principle of upward accountability to donors. But federalism shifts the accountability of subnational officials downward to regional and local voters....

Bolivia se descentralizó en un esfuerzo de profundizar la democracia, mejorar los servicios públicos y hacer que el gobierno fuera más responsable. A diferencia de muchos otros países, Bolivia tuvo éxito. En la última generación, la inversión pública se desplazó de manera dramática hacia los servicios primarios y la distribución de recursos se volv...

I examine decentralization through the lens of the local dynamics it unleashed in Bangladesh. I argue that the national effects of decentralization are largely the sum of its local-level effects. Hence to understand decentralization we must first understand how local government works. This implies analysing not only decentralization, but also democ...

Mohammed, North, and Ashton find that decentralization in Fiji shifted health-sector workloads from tertiary hospitals to peripheral health centres, but with little transfer of administrative authority from the centre. Decision-making in five functional areas analysed remains highly centralized. They surmise that the benefits of decentralization in...

Es un honor y un gusto para mí poder comentar este libro, ya que se trata de una obra intelectual importante en la historia del Estado boliviano, sobre todo en lo que concierne a la relación de éste con el ciudadano común. No sólo eso: es un libro que marca un hito en la literatura mundial sobre descentralización y democracia. Sonará grande, pero n...

We review empirical evidence on the ability of decentralization to enhance preference matching and technical efficiency in the provision of health and education in developing countries. Many influential surveys have found that the empirical evidence of decentralization's effects on service delivery is weak, incomplete, and often contradictory. Our...

Well-designed decentralization can deepen democracy and strengthen the state in five key ways. Decentralizing below the level of social cleavages should undermine secessionism by peeling away moderates from radical leaders. The " fragmentation of authority " critique is mistaken; decentralization transforms the state from a simpler, brittler comman...

Decentralization research has become more quantitative and formal over the past two decades. But as technical rigor has increased, the focus of research has narrowed to decentralization's effects on particular policy variables, leaving aside larger, more nuanced and complex questions of crucial importance to policymakers contemplating reform. This...

Why would any president, having spent a career achieving the pinnacle of power, willingly hand it away to others he cannot control? This is the black hole at the heart of the decentralization debate that has never been satisfyingly answered. We attempt to answer this question for the radical case of Bolivia through an extended interview with the ma...

We examine how decentralization affects four key aspects of state strength: (i) Authority over territory and conflict prevention, (ii) Policy autonomy and the ability to uphold the law, (iii) Responsive, accountable service provision, and (iv) Social learning. We provide specific reform paths that should lead to strengthening in each. Decentralizin...

This chapter assesses rural local self-government (Panchayat Raj) in India. It provides an overview of the competing visions and philosophies on (local) democracy between leading figures like Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar, as well as the narrow interests of power-holders that have led to conflicting approaches to the development of Panchayat Raj insti...

The paper analyzes the effects of land reform on social development –poverty and land distribution- at the local level. Land reform in Colombia, understood as the allocation of public land to peasant, has granted 23 million hectares which comprises around 20% of Colombian territory and about 40% of usable productive land. Theoretically, the net imp...

We examine how decentralization affects four key aspects of state strength: (i) Authority over territory and conflict prevention, (ii) Policy autonomy and the ability to uphold the law, (iii) Responsive, accountable service provision, and (iv) Social learning. We provide specific reform paths that should lead to strengthening in each. Decentralizin...

Ethiopia, like most developing countries, has opted to deliver services such as basic education, primary health care, agricultural extension advice, water, and rural roads through a highly decentralized system. That choice is based on several decades of theoretical analysis examining how a decentralized government might respond better to diverse lo...

Decentralization is meant to improve public services, but relatively few studies examine this question empirically. We explore the effects of decentralization on education, health and agriculture outcomes in Ethiopia using an original database covering all of the country's woredas (i.e. local governments), which will itself eventually be an importa...

The most important theoretical argument concerning decentralization is that it can make government more accountable and responsive to the governed. Improving governance is also a central justification of real-world reformers. But the literature has mostly focused on policy-relevant outcomes, such as education and health services, public investment,...

The most important theoretical argument concerning decentralization is that it can make government more accountable and responsive to the governed. Improving governance is also a central justification of real-world reformers. But the literature has mostly focused on policy-relevant outcomes, such as education and health services, public investment,...

Bolivia is one of the most radical and sincere of decentralization reformers. It recently implemented new reforms granting autonomy to departmental, regional, municipal, and indigenous and rural governments. What effects might these have on public investment patterns, government responsiveness, intergovernmental fiscal relations, the sustainability...

Industrial policy hovers in the intellectual space between market failure and government failure. Can subnational competition overcome government failure and make industrial policy more effective? The empirical evidence is limited and inconclusive. This paper analyzes the first and second-order effects of federalist reforms, and then distinguishes...

We review empirical evidence on the ability of decentralization to enhance preference matching and technical efficiency in the provision of health and education in developing countries. Many influential surveys have found that the empirical evidence of decentralization's effects on service delivery is weak, incomplete and often contradictory. Our o...

This dissertation comprises a close analysis of decentralization in Bolivia, employing a methodology that marries qualitative and quantitative techniques. It first examines the effects of decentralization on public-sector investment and the provision of public services in Bolivia using a unique database that includes measures of municipalities’ soc...

This paper examines whether decentralization increases the responsiveness of public investment to local needs using a unique database from Bolivia. Empirical tests show that investment patterns in human capital and social services changed significantly after decentralization. These changes are strongly and positively related to objective indicators...

Decentralization is meant to improve access to public services, but relatively few studies examine this question empirically. We explore the effects of decentralization on access to health and education in Colombia using an original database covering over 95% of Colombian municipalities. We show that decentralization improved enrollment rates in pu...

¿Cuál es la relación entre las distintas oleadas de democratización y la histórica tensión entre centralización y descentralización del Estado en Bolivia? ¿Cómo ha condicionado esta interacción la construcción del Estado y su relación con la idea de nación? Son las preguntas guía del debate que da origen al trabajo que hoy ponemos a consideración d...

Social funds are well-suited for working with decentralized government to deliver local services and strengthen local institutions. This manual sets out the implications of decentralization for the design of social funds both as institutions and as bundles of processes for project selection and implementation. It also discusses how social funds can...

Bolivia’s 1994 Popular Participation reforms devolved political powers and resources to hundreds of municipal governments throughout the land. The country is currently implementing a further round of reforms that would grant a degree of autonomy to departmental, regional, municipal, and indigenous and rural governments. What effects might this have...

This paper examines decentralization through the lens of the local dynamics it unleashed in the much-noted case of Bolivia. It argues that the national effects of decentralization are largely the sum of its local-level effects. Hence to understand decentralization we must first understand how local government works. The paper explores the deep econ...

A central claim in favor of decentralization is that it will improve access to public services, but few studies examine this question empirically. This paper, the policy-oriented companion to Faguet and Sánchez (2009), explores the effects of decentralization on the uses and spatial distribution of public investment, and on access to health and edu...

We examine whether local governance can improve social development empirically, using good and bad cases of public health outcomes in Bangladesh. We explore the institutional underpinnings of service provision, digging down beneath the "rules of the game" to analyze the beliefs, understandings, and dispositions that drive social behavior. Changes i...

A central claim in favor of decentralization is that it will improve access to public services, but few studies examine this question empirically. This paper explores the effects of decentralization on access to health and education in Colombia. We benefit from an original database that includes over 95% of Colombian municipalities. Our results sho...

This chapter uses econometric models of public investment to investigate the institutional and political determinants of central vs. local government decision-making. I use a remarkable database from Bolivia’s recent, radical decentralization program. I find that local government policy decisions are progressive both economically and in terms of ne...

This paper examines decentralisation in Bolivia and Colombia to explore its effects on the uses and spatial distribution of public investment, as well as government responsiveness to local needs. In both countries, investment shifted from infrastructure to social services and human capital formation. Resources were rebalanced in favour of poorer di...

Hundreds of studies have failed to establish the effects of decentralisation on a number of important policy goals. This paper examines the cases of Bolivia and Colombia to explore decentralisation’s effects on government responsiveness and poverty-orientation. I first summarize economic data on the effects of decentralisation in each. In Bolivia,...

We study the theoretical and empirical links between fiscal policy and spatial inequality, with a non-exclusive focus on Latin American countries. We outline the two main dimensions of fiscal policy vis-à-vis economic inequality, and show how these can be used to analyze specific policy measures. We examine why fiscal policies so often fail to have...

The effects of decentralization on public sector outputs is much debated but little agreed upon. This paper compares the remarkable case of Bolivia with the more complex case of Colombia to explore decentralization's effects on public education outcomes. In Colombia, decentralization of education finance improved enrollment rates in public schools....

Decentralization is commonly advocated as a means to improve primary services and hence accelerate social development. Although solid theoretical arguments support this position, the empirical evidence by and large does not. This paper examines whether local governance can improve public service delivery, and hence social development, empirically w...

Bangladesh in on track to achieve most of the MDGs goals, even the difficult ones like infant and maternal mortality provided that the quality and institutional mechanisms of service delivery to the poor are improved. This report provides an account of Bangladesh's MDG success but also highlights the importance of service delivery.

Most of the 60þ developing countries that have established social funds (SFs) are decentralising their governments as well. But the question of how to tailor SFs—originally a highly centralised model—for a decentralising context has received relatively little attention in the literature. We first examine evidence on the ability of SFs to adapt to a...

Over the past three decades the developing world has seen increasing devolution of political and economic power to local governments. Decentralization is considered an important element of participatory democracy and, along with privatization and deregulation, represents a substantial reduction in the authority of national governments over economic...

The effects of decentralization on public sector outputs is much debated but little agreed upon. This paper compares the remarkable case of Bolivia with the more complex case of Colombia to explore decentralization's effects on public education outcomes. In Colombia, decentralization of education finance improved enrollment rates in public schools....

I examine decentralization through the lens of the local dynamics that it unleashes. The national effects of decentralization are simply the sum of its local-level effects. Hence to understand decentralization we must first understand how local government works. This paper proposes a theory of local government as the confluence of two quasi-markets...

The effects of decentralization on a number of important policy goals is much debated but little agreed upon. This paper examines the cases of Bolivia and Colombia to explore decentralization's effects on government responsiveness and poverty-orientation. In Bolivia, decentralization made government more responsive by re-directing public investment...

We examine the case of decentralization in Colombia in order to explore its effects on poverty indicators, and on public sector responsiveness to real local demands. We first summarize economic data on the effects of decentralization. Colombian municipalities increased investment significantly as decentralization deepened, while running costs fell....

Examinamos el caso de la descentralización en Colombia para explorar sus efectos sobre la responsabilidad del sector público a la demanda local, y a indicadores de pobreza. Comenzamos resumiendo datos sobre los efectos económicos de la descentralización. Los municipios colombianos aumentaron sus inversiones considerablemente en cuanto la descentral...

With strong conceptual arguments in its favor, decentralization is a popular and growing policy trend across the world. And yet dozens of empirical studies have failed to find convincing evidence that past reforms have worked. This begs two questions: 1)Why does decentralization produce indifferent results? and 2) Why is there so much centralizatio...

Hundreds of studies have failed to establish the effects of decentralization on a number of important policy goals. This paper examines the remarkable case of Bolivia to explore decentralization's effects on government responsiveness and poverty-orientation. I first summarize econometric results on the effects of decentralization nationally, and th...

Decentralization or the devolution of power and resources from upper level to lower level governments has become one of the hot topics of our time. It is squarely in the forefront of the development debate throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia. And under the guises of subsidiarity, devolution and federalism it is also at the center of public po...

The recent, much remarked upon decentralization in Bolivia produced four important changes in the nation’s public finances: (1) a sharp fall in the geographic concentration of investment; (2) a sea-change in the uses of investment away from infrastructure towards the social sectors; (3) a significant increase in government responsiveness to local n...

The new era of American empire commenced with decisive military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the aftermath of war has proved surprisingly difficult and violent. Explanations of America’s failure to win the peace have largely overlooked the inherent difficulty of planting democracy in so inhospitable a social environment as Iraq’s. This pa...

This paper uses econometric models of public investment to investigate the institutional and political determinants of central vs. local government decision-making. I use a remarkable database from Bolivia's recent, radical decentralization program. I find that local government policy decisions are progressive both economically and in terms of need...

This dissertation comprises a close analysis of decentralization in Bolivia, employing a methodology that marries qualitative and quantitative techniques. It first examines the effects of decentralization on public-sector investment and the provision of public services in Bolivia using a unique database that includes measures of municipalities’ soc...

In this paper, we analyze the effect of gender quotas on women's involvement in political activity by using a rich data set providing information on all Italian local administrators who were elected from 1985 to 2007. Gender quotas were introduced by law in Italy in 1993 and were in force until 1995. Because of the short period covered by the refor...

This paper examines whether decentralization increases the responsiveness of public investment to local needs using a unique database from Bolivia. Empirical tests show that investment patterns in human capital and social services changed significantly after decentralization. These changes are strongly and positively related to objective indicators...

This paper reviews some of the more important rationales for decentralization today, examines their theoretical underpinnings, and then goes on to describe the elements of a new theory of decentralization which might take us far in our understanding of its effectiveness and implications. Lastly and most importantly, we review a large amount of new...

This chapter presents an overview of empirical evidence on the successes and failures of aid programs with the aim of recommending a future role for multilateral aid agencies. We examine the impact of aid programs that have come into operation since the first Bretton Woods meetings, including long term grants and concessional assistance, major infr...

The decentralization debate is both broad and often frustratingly imprecise. Arguments for and against decentralization frequently assume the character of sweeping, cross-disciplinary claims about the effects of administrative measures on the quality and efficiency of both government and social interaction. Partly as a result of this, the economic...

The new era of US empire commenced with decisive military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the aftermath of war has proved surprisingly difficult and violent. Explanations of the US's failure to win the peace have largely overlooked the inherent difficulty of planting democracy in so inhospitable a social environment as Iraq's. This paper exa...