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Impact of decentralization reforms in Pakistan on service delivery—an empirical analysis
Abstract
By bringing decision making closer to people, decentralization is expected to improve governance and service delivery outcomes. Yet, the empirical evidence on the impact of decentralization on macroeconomic performance and public sector size presents a mixed picture. However, the findings of cross-country studies in the literature are sensitive to the way decentralization is defined, and how its extent and impact are measured. This article avoids the unwanted effects of incomparability and aggregation in cross-country analysis. We use a unique panel data set from 183 villages in Pakistan to analyze the impact of decentralization reforms implemented in 2001 on the provision of services—street paving, construction of water canals, sanitation sewer lines, and school facilities. Our results show that the magnitude of provision of all services increased significantly following decentralization reforms. We further show that the four services are impacted differently and service delivery improvement is not uniform, but not in ways that conform to the hypotheses of patronage theory. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
... The quantitative assessment of the post-decentralization period provided that decentralization changes enforced in 2001 have enhanced service delivery by the local government (Aslam & Yilmaz, 2011). In addition, an empirical assessment of eight selected districts of Punjab province of Pakistan investigated that fiscal decentralization improves education and health service delivery while decentralized policies become ineffective after regime change in 2008 (Nisa & Khalil, 2018). ...
... In the case of Pakistan, the assessment of the devolution reforms was very important during the devolution period, but only a few authors could be able to provide only theoretical discussion. World Bank and IMF conducted a detailed assessment of these reforms through projects (Watson & Khan, 2007;Sherdil & Rana, 2008) and primary data survey-based study (Aslam & Yilmaz, 2011), and both studies have shown a positive impact on public service delivery in Pakistan. Thus, the past literature on the evaluation of fiscal decentralization and the delivery of public service in the case of Pakistan is very limited. ...
... On the other hand, the system GMM results of the same model for developed districts provide that fiscal decentralization improves school enrolment significantly because the coefficient value of fiscal decentralization (FD) is significant at 5%, revealing a 1% increase in the share of district government expenditures may be responsible for the increase in primary school enrolment by 23% (Aslam & Yilmaz, 2011;Nisa & Khalil, 2018). The coefficients of public expenditures on education (XED) and per capita education expenditures (PXED) are significant at a 10% level, which explains that a 1% increase in public expenditures is responsible for an improvement in primary school enrolment by 7%, while per capita increase in public education expenditures may improve primary school enrolment by 18%. ...
Countries around the globe are devolving fiscal, administrative, and political powers to sub-national governments. Generally, the federal transfer system places constraints on local government’s ability to plan and to administer the efficient provision of basic public services. The Devolution Plan in Pakistan was formed on August 14, 2000, which strongly recommended the transfer of power and authority to the lower tiers with the objective of better provision of public services. In addition, the Local Government Ordinance transferred the political, administrative, and fiscal powers to the district and tehsil level in Pakistan. Following 2008, with the shift in the political hierarchy, the higher tiers regained their authority. This study aims to examine the impact of fiscal decentralization in the improvement of public services in 34 developed and developing districts of the Punjab Province, Pakistan, during a 13-year period, from 2003 to 2015. The first differenced GMM and system GMM techniques are applied for the estimation of study data. The comparative analysis of this study finds that fiscal decentralization improves education in developed districts while in developing districts, there is no evidence of improvement. In addition, there is evidence of improvement in health outcomes, in the case of both developed and developing districts of Punjab. Decentralized reforms presented under Local Govt. Ordinance 2001 was only effective during the Pervez Musharraf regime, but after the end of this regime, in 2008 this policy became ineffective, because of recentralization. The transfer of power and authority is suggested to the local governments with a special focus on developing districts of Punjab, Pakistan.
... This rising population trend makes the resources scarce, unequal distribution of resources, low health expenditures, and public mismanagement in public institutions due to public services delivery pressures [18,7,19]. A significant breakthrough in health quality access and management occurred in 2010 when health delivery and management powers were delegated from the central government to Pakistan's provincial government [20,21]. However, later during COVID-19, this amendment also created conflicts between the Federal and Provisional governments. ...
... Good leadership and direction enhance public institutions' quality and service delivery [37]. For the quality public services in Pakistan, expert-level policy-making and institutional restructuring guidelines make a substantial contribution in this regard [13,21,1,6,38,10]. Krieger and Meierrieks [39] and Raja et al. [40] examine that misallocation of health and education expenditures affects public institutions' quality and makes its access difficult for the poor or low-income general public who have a limited livelihood. ...
... Being a struggling economy, a quality and accessible healthcare system contributes to Pakistan's well-being and human development. Pakistan has been struggling for 73 years socially, economically, and politically [21]. Low human development is one of the significant determinants of low scoring of Pakistan on the international platform. ...
Quality of Healthcare and accessibility is one of the vital Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For achieving this goal, the United Nations focuses on state capacity development and associated determinants in emerging and developing countries. By focusing on this objective, this study evaluates and examines the liaison of state capacity, socio-economic conditions, private health expenditures, and demographic pressure to the quality of health and its accessibility in Pakistan from 1990 to 2019. This study investigates the policy implications and their consequences on Pakistan's health conditions during the last three decades. Moreover, during COVID-19, pandemic health governs policies in the year 2020 have also been considered by using the Health Containment Index and analyzed policy implication on combating COVID-19. By applied Ordinary Least Square and Fixed Effect estimations, results show that Pakistan's health conditions have been showing sluggish improvement in the last three decades. Prudent policy-making and adequate health spending have a strong significant impact on health quality and accessibility, while institutional corruption and demographic pressure have adversely affected Pakistan's health outcomes. This proposed study analyzed that policy enforcement has been fragile in Pakistan from 1990 to 2010. Furthermore, this study concludes that from the year 2010 to date with the 18th constitutional amendment to administration and public policies have fractionally improved Pakistan's health conditions. However, Pakistan still lacks the International standards and minimum criteria of health measures a far behind Sustainable Development. The present study concludes that a sound and effective policy enforcement by enhancing resource capacity, quality of institutional practices, and controlling socio-economic conditions will promote SDG of health quality in Pakistan.
... Decentralization was significantly expanded in the context of reforms in the spirit of New Public Management (NPM) (Alonso et al. 2015;Smoke 2015a, b). Smoke (2015a, b) notes that decentralization is viewed as a universal tool of reform, particularly in emerging economies such as Vietnam (Vu et al. 2014;Malesky et al. 2014), China (Mok and Wu 2013), Pakistan (Aslam andYilmaz 2011), India (Singh 2008), Uganda (Deininger and Mpuga 2005), and Tanzania (Hulst et al. 2015). Reforms in the "one size fits all" spirit were criticized in the now classic article by Prud'homme (1995), followed by criticism from De Vries (2000). ...
... These studies, however, are a frequent target of criticism due to the data and methods used. Aslam and Yilmaz (2011) suggested that empirical explorations of the impact of decentralization on macroeconomic variables and the size of the public sector are mixed, as most of the conclusions are very sensitive to how decentralization has been defined and how it is measured. ...
... Considering the direction of research referred to as empirical studies on national data, a significant part of the literature focuses on developing countries, such as the efficiency of public service provision in China (Mok and Wu 2013;Wu and Wang 2013), transport, health and repair of communications in Vietnam (Malesky et al. 2014), quality of basic education in Bali (Faozanudin 2014), services in Pakistan (Aslam and Yilmaz 2011;Singh 2008), the quality of primary education in Argentina (Galiani et al. 2008), accountability in Uganda (Deininger and Mpuga, 2005), and the role of the private sector in securing regional needs in India (Firman and Fahmi 2017). ...
In this chapter we discuss how to improve the efficiency of decentralization reforms. There is potential in the area of politicians’ and civil servants’ accountability and also in the effective implementation of ideas dealing with efficient management of public administration. We also must deal with information asymmetry and rational inattention.
... Subsequently, the study estimates the effect of fiscal devolution on the functional distribution of public expenditures using a balanced panel dataset encompassing provincial units in Pakistan. Few studies have focused on understanding the nature of devolution in Pakistan (Ain et al., 2023;Aslam & Yilmaz, 2011;Khan, 2021 The remaining sections of the paper are organized as follows: ...
... gorized three main categories. FollowingAhmed (2016); Aritenang (2020);Aslam andDe Siano andD'uva (2017), the study identified irrigation expenditures that includes expenditure on irrigation especially on (canal irrigation; irrigation dams; equipment & machinery workshops: irrigation R&D; tube wells and drainage), rural development includes unified rural development programmes, rural works programmes and transport and communications includes a more inclusive approach to upgrading and constructing of the importance of road maintenance, road access in rural areas and intravillage infrastructure investment in affordable and quality and infrastructure which influence the living standard of the local public in broad and marginalized and poor in specific. ...
Rural infrastructure development is crucial for achieving sustainable development. It enhances quality of life, improves connectivity, promotes economic growth, and supports food security. Whereas rural infrastructure development is influenced by fiscal decentralization, which enables local administrations to prioritize investments and allocate resources based on local needs and priorities. Given this background, this empirical study investigates the impact of devolution reform policy on rural infrastructure development in Pakistan, employing the Stackelberg model. The findings exhibit a positive relationship between subnational government spending through decentralization and the accessibility to transport and communication services, rural development, and development of irrigation infrastructure. The theoretical model proposes that decentralized information permits efficient decision‐making, with local authorities better equipped to deliver public services aligned with local preferences. Increased public utilization of services is expected as a result of decentralization. The combination of empirical analysis and theoretical foundations suggests that the 2001 decentralization policy enhances the accountability of subnational governments. By providing them with more informed and essential benefits for resource allocation according to voter priorities, this policy ultimately increases the efficiency of public expenditures in achieving sustainable development.
... The study done by Aslam and Yilmaz (2011) concluded that the financial environment and international trade is must have to continue for the industrialized nations. Authors further stated that there is a need to ensure that, to deal with the international community, professional ranks are mostly used for the negotiation access and concessions. ...
... Mostly from the civil societies, especially the rich, are exempt from taxes. In addition, most taxes are generated through indirect taxes that are regressive (Aslam & Yilmaz, 2011). However, over-reliance on trade taxes has led to smuggling in detriment of local production, many of tax rates, exemptions and disregard for local, provincial and federal taxes, and tax evasion and production frustration. ...
Over exploitation of lakes, rivers and aquifers will caused jeopardize these ecosystem
services and have dire consequences for the reliability and sustainability of water supplies
in some of the countries. The issue of the transboundary water projects always cause
tension between two countries when the project cause harm to the people of living to the
effected country. Iraqi water resources for example has faced unprecedented stress and
impact to environmental destruction caused by water projects carried out by Turkey and
Iran on Ilisu and Daryan Dams’. These projects gave impact to Tigris, Euphrates and
Shatt Al-Arab rivers in Iraq and violated Iraqi people the right to access equitable share
of water. Thus, the objective of this paper is to analysis the legal responsibility of Turkey
and Iran on their water projects and the impacts toward Iraqi water resources accordance
to International laws perspective. The discussions of this paper adopt critical content
analysis by using descriptive method. The paper found that the current development of
water projects by Turkey and Iran have caused water shortage of Iraq water recourses.
The water projects carried out by Turkey and Iran also violated the principle right to
access equitable share of water in accordance to international customary law,
transboundary water treaties and other related international principles.
Keywords: Transboundary water, Ilisu and Darin dams, Tigris and Euphrates rivers,
international law.
... Need of Industrialization The study done by Aslam and Yilmaz(2011) concluded that the financial environment and international trade is must have to continue for the industrialized nations. Authors further stated that there is a need to ensure that, to deal with the international community, professional ranks are mostly used for the negotiation access and concessions. ...
... Mostly from the civil societies, especially the rich, are exempt from taxes. In addition, most taxes are generated through indirect taxes that are regressive (Aslam & Yilmaz, 2011). However, over-reliance on trade taxes has led to smuggling in detriment of local production, many of tax rates, exemptions and disregard for local, provincial and federal taxes, and tax evasion and production frustration (Adnan & Fatima, 2018). ...
Pakistan is suffering from administrative problems since long time and there are many challenges being face in the public institutions. Keeping in view the administrative issues and prevalent bad governance, Pakistan needs to rationalise its administrative structure.There are various aspects of this, including restructuring the whole administrative system which is currently based generally on the federal-provincial-district divisions; introducing extensive and across the board civil-services reforms; revisitingexisting policies and plugging policy gaps.This study has employed analytical and descriptive research methodology to analyze the administrativechallenges and problems in Pakistan by using the two main secondary sources; research articles and books.The main objective of this study was to highlighted the administrative problems and challenges which are being faced inPakistan. Inshort,toachieveeconomicgrowthandtoimprovethequalityoflifeofthepeople,Pakistan and its constituent provinces must bring about a radical change in the way in which they are governed and managed, particularly with reference to macroeconomic management, proper policy making, political stability, public administration, good governance, and adequacy of institutional capacity.However, some solutions and recommendations are provided to overcome these administrative problems and challenges.
... Decentralization of Governance has become the pillar of reforms aimed at promoting development across many nations. The rationale behind decentralization is pegged on the argument for political economy where it has been directly linked to better service delivery (Aslam & Yilmaz, 2011). Over the last decades, middle income and developing economies have adopted devolution with the objectives such as: better delivery of public services; enhancing accountability and governance, strengthening economic development and enhancing peace and stability in economies (Smoke, 2015). ...
... Y is the dependent variable (Implementation of ECDE by county governments) EM-2018-900 X is the set of four independent variables, i.e. X 1 -Staff capacity X 2 -Management of ECDE X 3 -Availability of physical facilities X 4 -ECDE policies 2,3,4) are the parameters linked with the corresponding independent variable to be estimated (partial regression coefficients) β 0 is the intercept Σ is the error variability (error term). ...
The purpose of this study was to assess the determinants of successful implementation of Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) by County Governments in Kenya from the implementing partners’ perspective. This study was guided by the following specific objectives: to determine the influence of the capacities of the County Government staff on the implementation of early childhood development education by County Governments in Kenya, to determine the how management of early childhood development education affects its implementation by County Governments in Kenya, to assess how availability of physical facilities affect the implementation of early childhood development education by County Governments in Kenya and to examine how policies affect the implementation of early childhood development education by County Governments in Kenya. Decentralization theory and organization learning theory were used to explain the relationship between the study variables. Descriptive research design was used in the study. The population for the study was implementing partners working with County Governments in Kenya to support ECDE. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the respondents to participate in the study. A total of 100 respondents were targeted from the 10 organizations studied out of which 70 participated giving a response rate of 70%. Questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. Both qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques were used to analyze the data. The study found that the implementation of ECDE by County governments in Kenya was generally successful from the implementing partners’ perspective and indicated by 56.8%. It is also worth noting that beside the general success, there were myriads of challenges facing the implementation of the program by county governments. Findings from regression analysis showed that the coefficient of determination indicated that 63.5% of the variations on the implementation of ECDE by county governments can be explained by staff capacity, management of ECDE, availability of physical facilities and ECDE policies. The remaining 36.5% can be explained by other variables not included in the study. R square and adjusted R is above average an implication that an above average variation can be explained by the model. The study recommended that county governments should allocate more funds for the renovation and construction of more ECDE centres, allocate adequate funds for the implementation of ECDE and that they should organize consistent in-service training for ECDE teachers and at the same time employ more ECDE staff to cater for the large number of children in ECDE centres..
... Appeared differently in relation to the Local Government Ordinance 2001 the seats for females were lessened from 33% to someplace in the scope of 10% and 20% at many stages, which hurdles the depiction of females at local degree. (Aslam, G. & Yilmaz, S., 2011) Agreeing with the individuals at the gathering, the extended impedance of the association under PLGA 2013. One more issue was the shortfall of clear articulation at the basic level which achieved reliable chaos and the moving of liabilities. ...
The local government system has been considered the most prominent in terms
of the provision of service, economic growth, increase in people’s participation, focus on people’s choices and recommend policies for local individuals. In many countries, the performance of local government at the lowest level satisfies people, but
decentralization in Pakistan needs to improve and made more responsible
administration. This research aims to analyze the local government system in Punjab
with a comparison of the Local Government Ordinance 2001, Punjab Local Government
Act 2013, and Punjab Local Government Act 2019. The main objective of this study is to
intimate a discussion on capabilities and deficiencies to set up a better execution of
further acts/laws in Pakistan. For this purpose, take a look at the local government
system in Punjab and compare it by examining what changes will be made by
introducing PLGA 2019 after LGO 2001 and PLGA 2013. This article is descriptive and
analytical in nature. The secondary source is used for the collection of data. The findings
suggest that many changes are made, when comparing PLGA 2019 with LGO 2001 and
PLGA 2013, government introduce another level, The Village Panchayat, and
Neighborhood Council to take the government doorstep to the people, dissolve District
Council and reestablish the Tehsil Council. Moreover, it allows more autonomy and
authority to the elected members as compared to previous acts.
... Public sector institutions must be (re)designed such that a small subset of bodies have the full responsibility and authority to deliver and maintain new services without undue interference (Bahl 1999). Ideally, these should be at the local level so that the aspirations and concerns of communities affected by and benefiting from public transport are adequately incorporated into transport planning (Aslam and Yilmaz 2011). Streamlining institutional structures enabling efficient transport planning and delivery is particularly important in cities venturing into mass transit for the first time. ...
The case of Lahore’s Bus Rapid Transit and Mass Transit investments in this Chapter documents a series of challenges: overlapping roles and responsibilities across a multitude of uncoordinated authorities; proactive opposition to urban developments by civil society groups and opposition political parties; and large-scale untargeted subsidies resulting in unsustainable operational losses. Projects like Lahore Rapid Mass Transit System (LRMTS) involve many conflicting decisions, competing stakeholders, equally appealing alternatives, and booming budgets. Such projects require careful analysis. Multiple lenses—from urban policy, transport policy, and public policy process to public administration theory and public finance—can be employed to analyze these projects. For any such project to be successfully designed and implemented, all stakeholders would have to set aside political and cognitive biases and other narrow interests, prioritize organizational values, and place atop public interest. Finally, any similar project in the region would demand careful mitigation planning, judicious financing schemes, strong historical heritage protection, transparency, and, lastly, a robust in-house capacity to ensure the maintenance of the infrastructure.
... Decentralization can have positive and negative effects. On the positive side, the process enables the organization's services to improve (Hambleton, 1988;Aslam and Yilmaz, 2011), partly by increasing the accountability of the sub-units (Ayee, 1996). A study found that increased accountability encourages lower-level employees to cooperate closely (Mohamed and Appalanaidu, 1998;Escriv a-Moreno et al., 2008) and get more involved in the decisionmaking (Bardhan and Mookherjee, 2006). ...
Purpose
This study aims to explore how the use of mobile instant messaging (MIM) in an organization has led to the decentralization of authority.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve this aim, a study was conducted on a case site that had used MIM extensively to manage an event.
Findings
This study found that communication technology such as MIM can shift more authority to the lower-level committees through the processes of formation, delegation, control and dissolution.
Originality/value
The role of information systems and technology in affecting a decentralization process has been largely understudied. Additionally, the effect of communication technologies such as MIM on a decentralization process has been largely ignored. Therefore, this study theorizes the role of MIM in managing an event and how the technology has decentralized more authority from the top management to the lower-level committees.
... The fact that local governments in Pakistan do deliver on decentralization's promise of improved service delivery was demonstrated for previous local government systems. Aslam and Yilmaz (2011) analyzed four sets of services (street paving, construction of water canals, construction of sanitation sewer lines, and support for education service delivery) in 183 villages across Pakistan following the Local Government Ordinances of 2001. They confirmed "that decentralization has positively impacted the magnitude of all services provided to the villages on average" (p.167). ...
... However, decentralization has been a challenge since its implementation, mainly due to the lack of a national health policy and weak provincial health sector strategies. 22 The existing literature on IDPs in Pakistan focuses primarily on assessment of their public health needs, including the provision of food and shelter, as well as essential healthcare, 23 mental health, 24 mother and child health, 25,26 and water and sanitation services. 27 Management of the increasing number of IDPs has remained a challenge, particularly for conflict-riddled countries, 28 including Pakistan. ...
Population displacement has been embedded in Pakistan's history since its inception in 1947. The displacement of more than 3 million people from the tribal areas of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan and their settlement in recipient areas have posed challenges to governance, service delivery, financial management, and integration of internally displaced persons (IDPs) into existing devolved district health systems. Evidence is lacking on the management of devolved health systems to respond to the public health needs of IDPs. The authors adapted qualitative methods to explore challenges faced by managers of health departments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in responding to the public health needs of IDPs and to explore policy recommendations for a devolved health system. Study findings revealed that the lack of a skilled workforce, lack of political will, financial limitations, and poor intersectoral collaboration had an impact on the humanitarian crisis response in the province. These findings suggest a dire need for overarching binding international laws and local national policies for complete protection of IDPs, particularly in regard to their health, shelter, and social security.
... Especially since the announcement of the transformational devolution plan in 2000 for the precision of the federal and provincial government's rules of responsibilities (Ahmad & Akif, 2007). It further empirically analyzed that this plan or reform significantly impacted the institutional quality for public services outcomes, resulting from coordination among federal and provincial governments (Agranoff, 2011;Aslam & Yilmaz, 2011). It further explored that devolution or delegation of political power will help construct a strong constitution of Pakistan and develop a robust regional bonding among provinces (Myerson, 2014). ...
COVID-19 is wreaking havoc all around the globe, and Pakistan bears no exception.
This study explores Pakistan's response toward controlling COVID-19 Pandemic from
the day the 1st case was reported, February 26, 2020, in Pakistan until August
31, 2020. It explores the administrative conflicts among federal and provincial gov�ernments and political behaviors of political parties toward the COVID-19 pandemic
by referring Government Response Index. By applying the ARDL model approach,
results show that since the administrative harmony had been implemented in
Pakistan in July 2020, its positive impact on combating the COVID-19 situation in
Pakistan and substantial improvement in recovered cases and a downward trend new
confirmed and fatal cases has observed in Pakistan. The findings demonstrate that
administrative efforts scattered due to internal conflicts from February to mid-July
2020 have ended, and collective aggressive policy enforcement has been mitigating
the adverse impact of COVID-19 in Pakistan since July to date. However, sustainable
measures and prudent policy implications are needed to combat the ongoing COVID�19 pandemic and future calamities.
KEYWORDS: administrative conflicts, ADRL, COVID-19 pandemic, government of Pakistan, government
response index, policy implementation
... However, decentralization has been a challenge since its implementation, mainly due to the lack of a national health policy and weak provincial health sector strategies. 22 The existing literature on IDPs in Pakistan focuses primarily on assessment of their public health needs, including the provision of food and shelter, as well as essential healthcare, 23 mental health, 24 mother and child health, 25,26 and water and sanitation services. 27 Management of the increasing number of IDPs has remained a challenge, particularly for conflict-riddled countries, 28 including Pakistan. ...
Population displacement has been embedded in Pakistan's history since its inception in 1947. The displacement of more than 3 million people from the tribal areas of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan and their settlement in recipient areas have posed challenges to governance, service delivery, financial management, and integration of internally displaced persons (IDPs) into existing devolved district health systems. Evidence is lacking on the management of devolved health systems to respond to the public health needs of IDPs. The authors adapted qualitative methods to explore challenges faced by managers of health departments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in responding to the public health needs of IDPs and to explore policy recommendations for a devolved health system. Study findings revealed that the lack of a skilled workforce, lack of political will, financial limitations, and poor intersectoral collaboration had an impact on the humanitarian crisis response in the province. These findings suggest a dire need for overarching binding international laws and local national policies for complete protection of IDPs, particularly in regard to their health, shelter, and social security.
... Taken together, Freinkman and Plenakanov propose that their results are consistent with a technical efficiency argument arising from accountability and local official incentives, rather than the allocative efficiency of increased inputs into the education production process. Aslam and Yilmaz (2011) are similarly positive about decentralization, and support their arguments with analysis conducted on a unique dataset collected from 183 randomly selected Pakistani villages in 5 purposively chosen districts. Pakistan embarked on an ambitious decentralization program in 2001, which left local governments responsible for basic service delivery, although many scholars note that devolution over fiscal and personnel management was limited. ...
... Similarly, with a particular reference to the case of Pakistan which constitutes the foci of this article, discrepancies among scholars prevail with respect to the effects of decentralization on service delivery. For instance, some studies evince substantial improvements in government responsiveness, and hence, the provision of basic services such as education, health care, street paving, roads, water supply, and sanitation and rural electrification (Ahmed & Lodhi, 2016;Aslam & Yilmaz, 2011;Hasnain, 2010), while others (Ansari et al., 2011;I. A. Khan & Ghalib, 2012;Salman, 2009) transpire that little if any improvement has taken place in terms of service delivery. ...
While the relationship between decentralization and service delivery is underpinned by a set of normative theoretical assumptions, yet not only does the empirical evidence concerning this so-called relationship to date remains inconclusive at best but our understanding of the causes of ineffectiveness of decentralization initiatives with respect to service delivery is also striking. This article attempts to contribute to the debates concerning the relationship between decentralization and service delivery through an analysis of decentralization measures undertaken by the Government of Pakistan during the early 21st Century with the announced aims of improving the efficiency and responsiveness of government as well as the delivery of public services. Notwithstanding a decade of decentralized service delivery, wellbeing outcomes across districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province demonstrated remarkable discrepancy such that while some districts witnessed considerable amelioration in their respective composite indices, others experienced a marked deterioration, thus calling into question the normative assumptions that undergird the relationship between decentralization and service delivery. This article seeks to explain this outcome through a comparative case study of two localities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province viz districts “Swabi” and “Lower Dir,” both of which had witnessed marked deterioration and amelioration in wellbeing outcomes, respectively, in the ex-post of implementation of the Devolution Plan. Data for the study were collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The results demonstrate that political dynamics such as the nature of relationship between district governments and the provincial government, extent of political polarization prevalent within or among different levels of the local government system, and the role of bureaucracy turn out to be important factors that ostensibly account for the deterioration of wellbeing outcomes in Swabi district over the course of a decade of implementation of the local government system. The findings suggest that political factors have overshadowed technical considerations in terms of explaining the discrepant outcomes of decentralized service delivery across the two localities.
... C.Andersen & Mortensen, 2009) e welfare(McBeath & Meezan, 2009). Ancora, diversi articoli parlano dei servizi pubblici in generale(Andrews & Boyne, 2012;Aulich, 2011;Head, 2015;Van Ryzin, 2011) e dei progetti misti che coinvolgono diversi servizi pubblici(Aslam & Yilmaz, 2011;Mostafa et al., 2015;Opstrup & Villadsen, 2015). E' possibile osservare come i servizi e il supporto per le persone bisognose rappresentino argomenti predominanti in molti articoli, anche alla luce del fatto che i servizi alla persona sono questioni critiche nello scenario attuale in più paesi. ...
The paper aims at understanding the state-of-the-art on the performance measurement models in the public sector. Thus, the article highlights the existing studies in the international scenario, critical-ly analyzing the main topics, and drafting the future research lines. A structured literature review has been employed to analyze the papers published in the most famous journals of public management and administration. The results underline a framework summarizing the existing literature in the international scenario. In particular, findings highlight a call to encompass transparency, responsibility, sustainability, and public value in the measurement system, also taking into consideration new types of public organizations, such as the hybrid ones. While some sectors are well investigated, there is the need to deepen the knowledge of certain fields further. In the long run, scholars and practitioners should generate and rethink new integrated performance evaluation models that can cope with the changes occurring in the public sector. Findings provide a shared vi-sion of current research lines, supporting scholars in their future work on new streams.
... He pointed out that decentralization has had a negative impact on middle-income countries when it has a positive effect on childhood immunization in low-income countries. Aslam and Yilmaz (2011) stated that the results of Pakistan's decentralization and service delivery reveal that the reforms of the decentralization process by the government have significantly increased through the provision of all services. Lewis (2016, pp. ...
In recent years, the responsibility of service delivery has strategically shifted from the central government to the most localised public sectors. Decentralization implies that a sub-national level government can choose between different measures and adapt service delivery to local circumstances or the characteristics of individual service recipients. Various governments around the world have started decentralization based on the principle of self-governance. It has many successes and has become a method of choice for people to get closer to goods and services. In addition, most governments have decided to use decentralization to empower the local population for political, economic, social, management, administration, and technology. As a result, local people can participate in the planning and management of development processes and decision-making. The specific objective of this paper is to discuss the relationship between decentralization and service delivery and is primarily based on literature review. Many governments have recognized the use of decentralization models based on their economic, political, cultural, and geographical factors, and decentralization could be understood as a process of expanding the role of sub-national governments. Every central government has to perform nationally-recognized functions. But sub-national level governments need to provide services and make decisions that are specific to their own affairs. Therefore, the decentralized structure plays a huge role in the administration and development of a country.
... Complex emergencies including armed conflicts and disasters (both natural and man-made) have always resulted in humanitarian crises throughout the world (Bile et al., 2011). The immediate and long term effects of all disasters are particularly high on the communities who suffered from these emergencies (Aslam & Yilmaz, 2011). The minimum Sphere standards (Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response) also emphasize the need to focus on food, shelter, environmental health (water & sanitation) and provision of basic Outside camp 45% ...
Since 2009, an estimated 3 million people were displaced in Pakistan of which 10% took refuge in "camps". To ascertain their health needs and care-seeking behavior an exploratory cross-sectional survey was undertaken from November 2017 to April 2018 in Jalozai camp by interviewing 318 household heads and 318 married females using systematic and convenient sampling techniques respectively. Study findings revealed that 91% of the IDPs received some assistance for shelter, food, water, sanitation and basic health services while 37% of respondents had difficulties in fulfilling their family food demands, 38% had poor access to water. The prevalence of communicable and non-communicable diseases in the camp was 29% and 23% respectively. Demand for basic public health needs and health services was high and required active and coordinated interventions by both the public and private sectors. The study recommends a national health framework for IDPs.
... Good governance Aslam and Yilmaz (2011) concluded that the reforms as a result of decentralization with reference to the 18 th amendment were supposed to bring efficiency and good governance in the country but the evidence or results do not completely comply the claims. ...
Governance context is the holistic arena of perspectives where an entity
operates. These perspectives not only influence the operations of the
government but also affect the policy making and development
initiatives. This conceptual paper discusses and maps the wider historical
governance structure and culture of Pakistan’s public sector while using
higher education as a case in point. The understanding of context helps in
explaining the issues and challenges associated with policy development
and implementation. Higher education is an important part of the
government and plays a vital role towards the achievement of national
goals in the era of knowledge economy driven socio-economic
development, therefore, carefully crafted policies must be developed and
implemented keeping in view the international best practices and
domestic needs and resources. As Andrews (2008) points out the fact that
policies and plans may not “replicate” rightly in various contexts, as the
environment, challenges vary from culture to culture and if such an
attempt is made, reforms “end up resembling proverbs that fit poorly in
the wrong context and contradict one another” (Andrews, 2008, p.380).
The paper discusses the establishment of Higher Education Commission
(HEC), followed by devolution after making the amendment in the
Constitution of Pakistan. Prior to the discussion of the developments in
this sector, the script on the basis of literature and documentary analysis
sheds light on the idea of evolution of broader governance systems in
Pakistan, since its inception in 1947. The initial governance structure of
Pakistan can be seen as having its traces in the British colonial era.
However, over the years, governance systems in Pakistan evolved and
the international best practices or trends that coincided the era of
development administration, management and governance were also
reflected in the governance system of the country in various sectors of
the government (Jadoon et al. 2012).These classifications developed by
Turner et al. (2015) very appropriately help in understanding the context
in which different parts of the government operated. The paper argues
that though following the international best practices is a good idea but to
reap benefits of good governance, indigenized and local solutions are
required (Jabeen (2006) and these could be understood only once the governance and historical context is known vividly. The paper elaborates
that, a total 8 national five year plans (Jahangir, 2008) and 9 education
policies (Khan, 2011) have been made since 1947 that in some way had
implications for the higher education system. It discusses transition of the
first higher education regulatory body i.e. University Grants Commission
(UGC) to the present structure of HEC and more recently the Provincial
Higher Education Commissions (PHECs). The paper concludes that the
reform journey of higher education in Pakistan has not been a smooth
ride, several challenges have been faced by various governments over
time and hence the reforms and policies cannot be analyzed in isolation.
The paper attempts to help researchers in understanding the broader
context and historical perspective in which the governance system of
Pakistan emerged and the system of higher education developed
accordingly.
... Following [Faguet (2004), Faguet and Sanchez (2008), Aslam and Yilmaz (2011)] we identified nine sub-sectors -the education and health are represented by two indicators -of public sector, which could impact the living standard of local commu- nities in general, and the poor and marginalised social groups in particular. (These sectoral variables are described in Appendix Table A). ...
This paper aims at investigating the impact of decentralization on social services delivery in Pakistan. In 2001 a large-scale Devolution Reforms policy was launched aiming to devolve substantial fiscal and administrative powers to local governments from the provincial governments after restructuring and revamping the administrative, political and fiscal landscape of the local government system. The paper uses a panel dataset from 1975 to 2008 from four provinces of Pakistan in order to detect the efficacy of local governments in providing the essential social and economic services to common people particularly to the poor. The empirical results suggest that after the decentralization, expenditures on social and economic services have increased manifold. Therefore, it indicates that the decentralization in the shape of widespread devolution reform despite its loopholes was an essential structural reform with positive impact on sectors and subsectors that believed to be pro-poor.
... This study contributes to the literature on the implementation and impact of privatisation and decentralisation reforms in LMICs that have seen increasing collaboration between CSOs and local governments to increase access to W&S services (Soublière & Cloutier, 2015) from two perspectives. First, although the salutary impact of decentralisation reforms on increasing access to services is widely acknowledged, the actual processes of CS involvement, the nature and principles of their collaboration and the role of context in influencing changes, remains poorly understood (Aslam & Yilmaz, 2011;Smoke, 2015a). This article aims to fill these gaps in the knowledge by examining case studies of state-CS collaborations in the Northern region of Ghana, where such partnerships have proliferated and, thus, offers a good setting for exploring the benefits such collaborations can bring. ...
State-civil society (CS) partnerships are increasingly common in the water and sanitation (W&S) sector of many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) as a means of expanding service coverage for poor and marginalised communities. However, there has been limited research regarding the drivers, nature, successes and challenges of such partnerships. Findings from in-depth qualitative interviews of 24 participants from 16 different CS-state partnerships in the Northern region of Ghana highlight: 1) the value to both civil society organisations (CSOs) and local governments in increasing access to safe drinking W&S facilities for poor communities through pooling of resources, knowledge and expertise; 2) the distinctive role of CSOs including, reducing service inequities and facilitation of a more effective participation of poor and marginalised people in service delivery decisions; 3) three different forms of partnerships that can be harnessed for effective service delivery, comprising of project, network and strategic collaborations and 4) significant challenges, including funding, programming, legitimacy and sustainability issues that need to be overcome to enhance the success and contributions of these partnerships. The article suggests need for longitudinal and quantitative studies to assess the sustainability and impact of these partnerships on intended beneficiaries.
... Following Faguet (2004), Faguet and Sanchez (2008) and Aslam and Yilmaz (2011) we identified nine sub-sectors of public sector which could impact the living standard of local communities in general and the poor and marginalised social groups in particular. (These sectoral variables are described in Appendix A). ...
A key argument made by several economists with respect to decentralisation reform is that it can reduce poverty. This assertion is based on the view that it leads to improvements in public sector services delivery. The efficient provision of public goods by the local governments may occur because of their ability to take into account local determinants while providing services, such as health and education [Oates (1972)]. It may also be due to competition, as local governments encourage the provision of efficient public services to, and lower tax burdens on the lower strata of society [Brennan and Buchanan (1980)].
... 9 On the financing side, the percentage share of metropolitan municipalities' transfers is increased to 6 from 5. 10 3 It also contributes to case study literature on the balance between local accountability and discretion. Other case studies analysing the impact of accountability and discretion linkages to broader local governance outcomes include Kerala, India (Venugopal and Yilmaz, 2009), Ghana (Yilmaz, 2009), Philippines (Venugopal and Yilmaz, 2013), Burkina Faso (Mahieu and Yilmaz, 2010), Tanzania , Ethiopia (Yilmaz and Venugopal, 2011), Pakistan (Aslam and Yilmaz, 2011), Turkey (Yilmaz and Guner 2013), and Sierra Leone (Edwards, Yilmaz and Boex, 2015). 4 The 2004 Metropolitan Municipality Law no.5216 updated the Metropolitan Municipality Law of 1984. ...
... Even when new institutions are designed through participatory means, "there are large gaps between the planning and actual outcomes of interventions" (Fischer et al., 2007, p. 126). Empirical evidence from Asia, Africa, and Latin America illustrates that decentralization outcomes are mixed when it comes to service delivery improvement or democratic deepening (Asthana, 2008;Aslam and Yilmaz, 2011;Dauda, 2006;Heller et al., 2007;Montambeault, 2008;Smoke, 2015;Wilder and Romero Lankao, 2006;Wunsch, 2013). Fung and Wright (2003) assert that the democratization potential of participatory institutions depends on the extent to which they can create a space to challenge and offset wealthy and educated groups that may dominate decentralized decision-making. ...
Decentralization is an extensively discussed topic within academic and institutional circles worldwide. While a common argument for decentralization is that it fosters democratic deepening, counterarguments cautiously point to unequal access to resources and distribution of power as factors that inhibit democratization. This study contributes to the literature on the relationship between decentralization and democratization through a comparative study of Water User Associations in two provinces of Turkey and shows in line with the literature that resource and power inequalities hamper the link between decentralization and democratization. However, as this article shows, civic engagement can generate “countervailing power” that can overcome the negative impact of such inequalities. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
... Despite the resistance from within the provincial bureaucracies and the powerful so-called District Management Group (DMG) of senior administrators (see Rais, 2008), there is evidence that the reform did improved service delivery (see e.g. Aslam and Yilmaz, 2011 Cheema et al. (2006) for the situation in Pakistan. 65 There is a considerable debate how non-partisan election systems weaken political competition and vertical coordination: elected local representatives might not have the political linkages and networks with party-based provincial and national governments, while political parties at higher levels cannot 'enhance their reputation by sponsoring better local governance' (Cheema et al., 2015: 71). ...
Attaining the benefits of (especially fiscal) decentralization in government remains an enduring challenge, in part because the re-arrangement of public functions across levels of government has often been carried out poorly. This book aims to provide a firmer conceptual basis for the re-arrangement of public functions across levels of government. In doing so, it offers practical advice for policy makers from developing and emerging countries and development cooperation practitioners engaged in such activity. Combining a theoretical approach for inter-governmental functional assignment with an in-depth analysis of real-life country cases where functional assignment (FA) has been supported in the context of international development cooperation, it underscores the common technical and political challenges of FA, and also demonstrates the need to expect and support country made and context-specific solutions to FA processes and results. Examples are drawn from a number of developing/transition countries from the Asia-Pacific region, Africa and the OECD, which outline and suggest advisory approaches, tools, principles and good practices and approaches. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students, policy-makers and practitioners in public policy, decentralization, local governance studies, public administration and development administration/studies. © 2017 Gabriele Ferrazzi and Rainer Rohdewohld. All rights reserved.
... On the other hand, they are also subjected to criticism in the literature, precisely because of the definitions of decentralization used and the data (see e.g. Aslam and Yilmaz, 2011). ...
This paper analyzes and discusses the impact of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of museums run by municipalities. It tests the hypothesis that municipalities with higher levels of income self-sufficiency can more efficiently manage museums than municipalities with lower levels of financial self-sufficiency. For our analysis, we used financial data for the years 2015 to analyze the efficiency of museums using data envelopment analysis (DEA). To test the hypothesis about the impact of financial self-sufficiency, we use regression analysis. The results obtained did not confirmed the hypothesis.
... Several qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted on the effectiveness of the Musharraf system which overall showed mixed results. Aslam and Yilmaz (2011) in their quantitative study of183 Pakistani villages found the evidence for a significant increase in provision of all services as a result of the implementation of LGO 2001. Similarly, the study of Hasnain (2008) shows an increase in accessibility of citizens to policy makers but a heavy tilt in LG priorities towards physical infrastructure like roads and rural electrification. ...
A review of the system immediately flags a number of strong points, e.g., the party-based
elections, the increase in LG tenure to 5 years and the absence of some grounds included in
previous legislation based on which higher authorities could dissolve LGs or fire elected
officials. However, there are a number of areas where further political, administrative and
financial devolution is necessary to achieve both the technocratic and political economy goals
mentioned above. While the introduction of LGs for the first time under elected governments
means that there is some state restructuring in the sense that the visible control of the military
on these LGs is absent, power has merely shifted to the industrial, landed and professional
Local Governance in the Federal Capital
... The local council also had the discretion to establish standing committees for monitoring of the executive's activities. The monitoring committee had an authority to suggest remedial courses of action to the local government, including the local executive (District Mayor) (Aslam and Yilmaz 2011). The functional assignment to the local government (administrative decentralization), was perhaps the main feature of the local governance systems emerging under the LGO with those existing prior to them V . ...
This paper presents the case of Pakistan, which is also broadly illustrative of the issues concerning federalism and subnational empowerment in developing countries characterized by unconsolidated political systems and enhanced constitutionalism. In the course of the analysis, this paper examines the dynamics and determinants of federalist/subnational politics in Pakistan, the formal constitutional and ordinance frameworks stipulated in support of federalism and subnational governance. The analysis shall be focused on the Local Governments Ordinance of 2001 and the 18
... Taken together, they propose that their results are consistent with a technical efficiency argument arising from accountability and local official incentives, rather than allocative efficiency of increased inputs into the education production process. Aslam and Yilmaz (2011) are similarly positive about decentralization, and support their arguments with analysis conducted on a unique dataset collected from 183 randomly selected villages in 5 purposively chosen districts in Pakistan. Pakistan embarked on an ambitious decentralization program in 2001, which left local governments responsible for basic service delivery, although many scholars note that devolution over fiscal and personnel management was limited. ...
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 own unweighted reading
of the literature concurs. However, when we organize quantitative evidence first by substantive theme, and then—crucially—by
empirical quality and the credibility of its identification strategy, clear patterns emerge. Higher-quality evidence indicates
that decentralization increases technical efficiency across a variety of public services, from student test scores to infant
mortality rates. Decentralization also improves preference matching in education, and can do so in health under certain conditions,
although there is less evidence for both. We discuss individual studies in some detail. Weighting by quality is especially
important when quantitative evidence informs policy-making. Firmer conclusions will require an increased focus on research
design, and a deeper examination into the prerequisites and mechanisms of successful reforms.
... Even when new institutions are designed through participatory means, "there are large gaps between the planning and actual outcomes of interventions" (Fischer et al., 2007, p. 126). Empirical evidence from Asia, Africa, and Latin America illustrates that decentralization outcomes are mixed when it comes to service delivery improvement or democratic deepening (Asthana, 2008;Aslam and Yilmaz, 2011;Dauda, 2006;Heller et al., 2007;Montambeault, 2008;Smoke, 2015;Wilder and Romero Lankao, 2006;Wunsch, 2013). Fung and Wright (2003) assert that the democratization potential of participatory institutions depends on the extent to which they can create a space to challenge and offset wealthy and educated groups that may dominate decentralized decision-making. ...
This thesis examines whether and under what conditions the recent decentralization of irrigation management in Turkey can deepen democracy through a comparative study of irrigation management decentralization in two provinces in Turkey: Urfa and Aydin. In Turkey, the state agency, which planned, built, and managed all major irrigation schemes, transferred the duty of water management, fee collection and maintenance to Water User Associations (WUAs) starting in 1993. The democratic processes established by WUAs in Urfa were plagued by allegations of bribery, corruption, embezzlement and service delivery failures; whereas Aydin WUAs have proven to be the very definition of successful decentralization in irrigation management. The hypothesis is that inequalities in access to resources, unequal power structures, low-levels of education and inexperience with civic activism lead to weaker links between decentralization and democratic deepening. Moreover, these same factors increase the likelihood that decentralized organizations will fail to satisfy their users in the provision of efficient and effective services. Hence, I hypothesize that the same factors are responsible for hampering the performance of decentralized institutions. I argue that divergent outcomes in decentralized irrigation management are a result of diverging social, economic and political contextual variables. The study shows that if there are significant inequalities in access to resources and power, decentralization does not promote democratic deepening and does not improve the performance of service delivery. This is especially true if the actors do not have a past of civic activism. Cette thèse considère si la décentralisation récente de la gestion de l'irrigation en Turquie peut approfondir les processus démocratiques, et sous quelles conditions, au moyen d'une étude comparative sur la décentralisation de la gestion de l'irrigation dans deux provinces turques : Urfa et Aydin. En Turquie, dès 1993, l'organisme de l'État qui avait planifié, construit et géré l'ensemble des plans d'irrigations a transféré les tâches reliées à l'aménagement des ressources en eau, la collecte des frais et l'entretien aux associations des usagers de l'eau (AUE). Les processus démocratiques établis par les AUE se plaignaient d'allégations de trafic d'influence, de corruption, de détournement et de retards de livraison de service tandis que les AUE d'Aydin ne manifestaient que du succès en gestion d'irrigation décentralisée. L'hypothèse propose que l'accès inéquitable aux ressources, l'inégalité des dynamiques de pouvoir, les faibles taux de scolarité et le manque d'expérience en activisme communautaire contribuent à l'affaiblissement des liens entre la décentralisation et l'approfondissement des processus démocratiques. Or, ces mêmes facteurs réduisent les probabilités que les services de ces organismes décentralisés seront fournis aux utilisateurs de manière efficace. Ainsi, je propose que ces facteurs mêmes contribuent à la pauvre performance des organismes décentralisés. Mon argument démontre que les résultats divergents relatifs aux structures décentralisées de gestion d'irrigation sont liés aux variables sociales, économiques et politiques du contexte. L'étude démontre que les inéquations d'accès aux ressources et au pouvoir nuisent au potentiel de la décentralisation à approfondir les processus démocratiques ou à améliorer la performance de la livraison des services. Ceci se manifeste encore plus fortement si les acteurs souffrent d'un manque d'expérience en activisme communautaire.
... " Consequently, Zhou (2009) concludes that decentralization played an important role in improving security and service delivery in the post-conflict period. 5 The same framework has been used to assess decentralization in Kerala, India (Venugopal and Yilmaz, 2009), Tanzania (Venugopal and Yilmaz, 2010), Burkina Faso (Mahieu and Yilmaz, 2010), Ethiopia (Yilmaz and Venugopal, 2010), Philippines (Yilmaz and Venugopal, 2011), Ghana (Yilmaz, 2009), Pakistan (Aslam and Yilmaz, 2011), and Turkey (Yilmaz and Guner 2013). ...
Sierra Leone has made progress in recovering from a decade-long civil war, in part due to decentralization. As a post-conflict stabilization strategy, decentralization has been effective in satisfying the desire for more equitable political representation, and three rounds of peaceful elections have strengthened democratic norms. However, more needs to be performed to strengthen local governments in order to address regional horizontal inequity. Solely political decentralization is not sufficient in addressing regional differences in pro-poor service delivery, which was a key driver of conflict. It requires broader commitment to establish a functioning local government system, including central government subscription to the tenets of administrative and fiscal decentralization. Though Sierra Leone has remained stable in terms of political violence, recent data show that the nation has not made great strides in addressing weak and inequitable social service delivery. This paper argues that this stagnation is a product of the incomplete nature of the post-conflict stabilization strategy of decentralization and that correcting this failure will require strong commitment from the central government to implementing the full measure of the existing legal framework for decentralization. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A large number of countries are transferring financial, administrative, and political powers to the local governments. In Pakistan, devolution reforms were launched through the Local Government Ordinance in 2001. This research investigates whether the higher autonomy of district governments could improve education outcomes in their respective districts or not. The Generalized Methods of Moments is employed for a panel of 34 districts of Punjab province, Pakistan, during 2003-2015. The results reveal that fiscal decentralization improves education outcomes in Punjab province of Pakistan. The enrolment in primary school is a measure of education outcome and improved in the districts of Punjab. In addition, the decentralization process during Pervez Musharraf's regime could not change the structure of the economy as a whole. Therefore, decentralization of the education sector in all provinces is suggested to reinforce the benefits of fiscal decentralization.
In the last few decades, many Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) engaged in processes of decentralization in which responsibilities of the national government are transferred to local government units (LGUs). Yet, it is still unclear under what circumstances LGUs in recently decentralized CEEC can deliver high‐quality public services. We put forward the argument that political, administrative, and financial factors related to characteristics of the LGU, and their implementation structure can explain the quality of public services, understood here as the compliance with standards set at central government level. We deduce a set of hypotheses which we test with the example of the public service of preschool education in Albania using generalized linear mixed‐effects models. We find that albeit fiscal factors are important, the relation between money and high‐quality public services is more complex than previously assumed. We find that private donations can undermine central government standards, and that requirements not involving financial costs are more likely implemented. Further, political, and administrative factors, although previously often neglected, play an important role. We find that outsourcing certain functions leads to higher service quality, and that urban areas provide higher quality services indicating that political actors need to focus on rural areas.
Decentralization is an important and commonplace type of reform, yet our understanding of its effects remains limited. This paper documents the effects of the 2009–10 wave of district creation in Uganda, which increased the country’s districts by 42 percent, using rich data on subdistrict units to assess the effects of district creation on a broad range of post-decentralization outcomes in a difference-in-differences framework. The effects of decentralization are concentrated in newly split off—rather than split from—districts, and are heterogeneous across outcome types. Newly split-off districts have more per capita frontline workers, but appear to have worse quality infrastructure and lower economic development. The study also presents suggestive evidence that administrative capacity decreases for newly formed districts post-split. These findings demonstrate the importance of considering a broad range of outcomes when thinking about decentralization.
The present research investigates the impact of fiscal decentralization on services tax buoyancy in province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa covering time series data from 2001 to 2021. Chow Break Point test for detecting structural break was applied and found structural break in the year 2014 which coincided with the year of devolution. The break in the data was taken care by Binary Dummy variable as an intervention and interaction terms in the model. The results of segmented intervention model illustrated that the estimated tax buoyancy have positive and more than unitary effects during post-tax devolution period. While, the services tax was non-buoyant, at the time FBR was collecting the said tax. However, despite having buoyant tax, KPRA due to complexities in post devolved tax system have missed its revenue targets and was unable to explore services sector up to optimum potential. Based on the findings, the study recommends broadening of tax base, documentation to bring more taxpayers in the tax net and enhancement in tax administration to achieve revenue targets and explore un-tax services tax in the province.
This article contributes to the limited empirical literature on the impact of decentralization on psychological wellbeing by investigating the hypothesis which signifies that shifts toward more fiscal decentralization in health services would be accompanied by improvements in health outcomes. Formulating a conventional public finance model applied to health care, this hypothesis is tested on a panel data of the Pakistan's provinces during the period 1990 to 2015. The empirical underpinning of the article suggested that the economic reforms of 2001 in Pakistan's healthcare sector, through fiscal decentralization, have imposed a substantial and positive influence on the effectiveness of the public policy in improving the healthcare outcomes over the examined period.
This study primarily intends to analyse the state of CC’s implementation in the service
delivery system of the Urban-Local Government, especially the City Corporations within
Bangladesh. The City Corporations introduced the CC to offer quality of better services to the citizens by achieving an efficient, effective and accountable service delivery system. However, this study reveals that none of the City Corporations that were studied has made any thoughtful attempts to introduce and integrate the CC into their service delivery system. Rather, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), namely SONAK and NAGORIK FORUM in Rajshahi and Khulna, respectively, deserve appreciation for their effort to introduce the CC in both the City Corporations. As a result of the pressure created by CSOs on the City Corporations, they introduced the CC by copying and pasting from the draft developed by CSOs. While doing so, they did not sensitise their officials about the pros and cons of the CC.
Although KCC has further developed its CC based on the recommendations of the Civil Service Change Management Programme, RCC is still following the same developed by SONAK more than a decade back. Although it has been evident that since the implementation of the CC refers to just hanging off its display board at different points of cities, none of the City Corporations that were studied played any role in implementing the CC concerning the preparation and hanging of the charter; rather, as far as implementation is concerned, the credit goes to CSOs. However, while assessing the status of implementation of the CC in delivering services of the City Corporation, especially health services, it has been evident that implementation of the CC as a whole has not been successful in the service delivery system of the City Corporation. Of the health services, the City Corporations’ performance in delivering EPI and certificate
services are remarkably noticeable, but no role of the CC regarding these services has been found. This study found nobody who has received these services following the procedures stated in the CC. Notably, before introducing the CC, these services have been offered successfully, and have grown in-depth and have continued to this day.
Moreover, no role of the CC has also been found in the delivery of other services of the Health Department. However, this study reveals several problems that have made the CC’s implementation in the City Corporations’ delivery of health services difficult. Those
problems are lack of awareness about the CC among both the citizens and service providers, lack of willingness among citizens to follow the CC, lack of enthusiasm among the service providers about the CC, lack of publicity, lack of knowledge among citizens about their entitlements, lack of monitoring, lack of orientation of staffs with the CC, the mindset of service provider, lack of visit to service delivering points/centres and lack of linkage among departments/offices.
The primary goal of this study is to analyses public trust in the Gujrat district's local government, which was constituted under the Punjab Local Government Act-2013. This Act established a local government system in which elected representatives were given "political, administrative, and fiscal responsibility and authority in order to promote good governance, effective service delivery, and transparent decision-making through institutionalized participation of the people at the local level" (Punjab Local Government Act 2013). This article assesses how satisfied Gujrat's people are with the governance, political participation, and fiscal management given by the local government system in order to assess the resultant public trust in local government. For this study, a survey of public opinion was undertaken in the district of Gujrat. Based on their responses to the most of questions asked concerning the performance of the local government system in relation to governance, political participation, and fiscal management, people demonstrated a higher level of trust in local government. The statistical analysis validates all hypotheses and the conceptual model, and demonstrates a direct significant relationship between fiscal management and trust in local government, between governance and trust in local government, and between political participation and trust in local government. The paper argue that local government is vital for strengthening participatory democracy in Pakistan. It is anticipated that in the long run, it would lead to the consolidation of democracy, the emergence of more capable leadership, and the growth of more responsive political parties.
Collaboration across sectors at the local level is seen as beneficial to both non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local governments. Cited benefits are framed by institutional, resource dependence, and transaction cost perspectives and are often examined in a western, developed nation context. This article uses a novel sample of local governments and NGOs in Lebanon to examine whether constructs derived from these dominant theoretical frameworks explain cross-sector collaborative tendencies in the context of a developing country. We conclude that measures related to resource dependence can provide some explanatory power for collaboration behavior, but a better explanation of local government–NGO collaboration in developing countries will require reaching beyond commonly used constructs from existing dominant theories; future research toward that end is a worthwhile endeavor.
This chapter is dedicated to the introduction into theory of decentralization. We reviewed past and current theories of decentralization from the classical theories of Oates and Tiebout to the current approaches of the second generation of fiscal federalism and provide a summary of the main results. We linked decentralization with the issue of local government efficiency, which describes how well an organization uses resources in producing services, and effectiveness, the degree to which a system achieves its program and policy objectives. We introduced the main determinants of local government efficiency namely information asymmetry, rational ignorance and rational abstention, bureaucratic behavior, competition among municipalities, fiscal illusion, intergovernmental grants and transfers, municipality size, and the environmental and institutional environment.
Decentralization reforms, implemented to improve efficiency and service provision, pose a challenge for federal governments that would like to ensure that federal resources are used appropriately by local governments. To overcome this challenge, some federal governments have implemented costly oversight programs aimed at improving municipal governance. For instance, in 2003, the Brazilian federal government introduced a randomized auditing program with the goal of improving municipal performance by exposing episodes of corruption and mismanagement. Yet, we know little about whether these types of programs actually lead to improvements in local outcomes, especially in terms of service delivery. We argue that audits provide opportunities for learning that should improve performance outcomes. To test this argument, we examine municipal performance in over 5,000 Brazilian municipalities from 2001 to 2012. We utilize the random assignment of audits and estimate difference‐in‐differences regressions. We find that audited municipalities experience greater improvements in performance overall compared to unaudited municipalities, though the effect size is modest. We also find evidence that the auditing program indirectly improves municipal performance. These results indicate that top‐down oversight programs, such as the Brazilian one, are useful not only for improving transparency and accountability, but also for the provision of public services as well.
The effective provision of public services is integral to a functioning democracy as it connects the public to the government and grants it legitimacy. Public services are ones that are provided by the federal and local governments and paid for with constituent taxes. Public services provided by the state are education, health, water/sanitation, environmental measures, security, policing, labor and legal guidelines and so on. Whether the structure of the government is centralized or decentralized is an important factor which impacts the provision of services. Decentralized governments are state or local governments which receive monetary and institutional resources from the federal government. Previous research has shown that decentralized services are more effectively delivered than centralized services. My study examines the impact of decentralization on the provision of two services, health and education, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from 2008-2018. There are two parts to the study. First, I will use process tracing to portray the historical context of decentralization in conjunction with sociopolitical factors of the region of KP. The second part observes the impact of decentralization on the health and education services. In this inductive study, I expect to find a positive impact of decentralization on the provision of services.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to perform an analysis of the current literature providing a deep contribution to understanding the paradigm shift from output to outcome measures in the public sector. Thus, the main aim is to provide relevant insights of both theoretical and empirical studies, offering a critique of the schemes and the research methods used and underlining future research opportunities for the compelling (or underestimated) contents and new emerging trends.
Design/methodology/approach
Articles published in main public management and administration journals, as internationally recognized, are analyzed using a structured literature review methodology. The paper investigates selected contributions published in Association of Business Schools (ABS) (Chartered Association of Business Schools – UK] Grade 4, 3 and 2 journals specializing in the field of “Public Sector Management,” dealing with the topic of performance measurement, from output to outcome.
Findings
Findings are described defying a framework that deepens emerging elements of current literature such as main countries analyzed, main research topics highlighted, research methods applied (qualitative versus quantitative; case studies, interviews, comparative studies etc.), different definitions of “output” and “outcome,” top keywords and their connections.
Originality/value
The paper’s findings aim to offer insights and a current “shared vision” into the state of the art and possible future research avenues on the topic of output and outcome measures in the public sector fostering the development of further studies especially in the direction of sustainability.
The main objective of this research is to give a viable devolution plan for Pakistan, after studying the three main decentralization plans.. One was in 1959 under General Ayub Khan through the Basic Democracies Order 1959, while the other was in 1979 under General Zia ul Haq through the Local Government Ordinance (LGO) 1979. The devolution plan of the new millennium was also initiated by a military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, in 2001 under the Local Government Ordinance (LGO) 2001. This new devolution plans also takes notice of the 18 th Amendment in the constitution of Pakistan and scenario that was developed after it. After analysis the previous local bodies plan, literature and the 18 th Amendment, a devolution plan is recommended that could be beneficial for political economy.
Across the globe, governments continue to seek ways to enhance the provision of public services. Shifts toward decentralization to empower local governments have also been met by an increased engagement of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in service delivery. As a result, there are more venues for interaction between these two sets of actors at the local level. Existing literature is nascent when it comes to examining the relationships between NGOs and local government in the developing world. In this article, we identify and discuss five features that can condition these relationships: origin of the relationships, boundaries of the relationships, policy authority, structural arrangements, and the local context. These five features are interconnected and should help researchers structure subsequent scholarly studies of NGO-local government interactions as well as guide practitioners working in development.
Are decentralization reforms in dictatorial regimes mere window dressing or can they deliver longevity for dictators? Many scholars in political science have argued that seemingly democratic institutions established in dictatorships play a crucial role in increasing the survival potential of the authoritarian regime by providing a channel to the dictator to co-opt members of the opposition, identify their bases of support and recruit effective coalition members. While most of the existing analysis has focused on national elections and political parties, we use primary data and social network methodology to analyze the 2001 decentralization reforms established during General Musharraf’s military regime in Pakistan. We show that seemingly democratically empowering decentralized governance structures can also be used to distribute rents to political supporters through ostensibly legitimate channels. Therefore, this paper adds to the literature on institutions in dictatorships on two fronts in addition to providing crucial information about the political landscape in a strategically important country.
This study uses five waves of the Indonesian Demographic Health Surveys to analyse decentralisation and geographical inequality in health services delivery. Accounting for unobserved community-level heterogeneity with random effects and correlated random effects models, we link facility-based birth delivery to the period of decentralisation and Indonesia’s major island groups using a pooled sample of 71,815 children. We also generate direct estimates of neonatal mortality from 1990 to 2007. The results show that the implementation of decentralisation has accorded with a marked expansion in both health service and outcome inequalities in Indonesia, at least with respect to neonates. Systemic funding failures for health and decision-space issues resulting from decentralisation are likely to have greater impact in disadvantaged regions where local capacity is weakest. The need to address these fundamental issues to reduce inequalities and improve general health outcomes appears supportable.
Local governments play a critical role in delivering services to the public. Over recent decades scholars have begun to empirically examine the relationship between the management and performance of local governments, locating this in economic, contingency, and resource-based theoretical frameworks. In this study, we undertake a comprehensive assessment of what is currently known about the management-performance hypothesis in local governments by integrating the empirical research that has been published over the past 40 years. We uncover 86 empirical articles that rigorously test the management-performance hypothesis and apply the support score review technique to the findings of these studies. Our analysis suggests that scholars have yet to explore all of the approaches to local government management with the same vigor. The majority of attention has been focused on the concepts of organization size, strategy content, planning, staff quality, personnel stability, representative bureaucracy, and networking. The evidence points toward strong positive performance effects resulting from staff quality, personnel stability, and planning, and moderate support for the benefits of networking, representative bureaucracy, and strategy content. Subanalyses reveal different relationships across dimensions of performance and organizational levels within local governments, and that the British and American scholars that have dominated these studies have largely drawn upon divergent theoretical perspectives. Directions for future research are also considered.
Do political and fiscal decentralization make it easier or harder to control inflation? Statistical analysis of average annual inflation rates in a panel of 87 countries in the 1970s and 1980s found no clear relationship between decentralization and the level of inflation. Political decentralization, however, does appear to reduce change in countries' relative inflation rates over time. By cr eating additional veto players, federal structure may "lock in" existing patterns of monetary policy-whether inflationary or strict Among the (mostly developed) countries that stal ted with low inflation, inflation tended to increase more slowly in federations than in unitary states. Among the (mostly developing) countries that started with high inflation, inflation tended to increase faster in the federations. There is evidence that political decentralization locks in a country's degree of practical central bank independence-whether high or low-and the relative hardness or softness of budget constraints on subnational governments.
A large part of the decentralization literature is fragmented along political, fiscal, or administrative lines. In this article we employ a diagnostic framework to draw these dimensions together in a coherent manner to focus on analyzing local government discretion and accountability in Tanzania. Tanzania seems to have a deconcentrated local government system with central appointees having large powers at the local level. Centrally-funded mandates—such as constructing secondary schools—dominate local government plans and budgets. Central control over administrative functions has ensured that administrative decentralization is yet to occur. In the fiscal sphere, progress has been made in transparency and harmonization of transfers in the last 5 years but local governments still have some way to go in raising own revenues, being less reliant on transfers, and ensuring downward accountability. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Fixed effects regression methods are used to analyze longitudinal data with repeated measures on both independent and dependent variables. They have the attractive feature of controlling for all stable characteristics of the individuals, whether measured or not. This is accomplished by using only within-individual variation to estimate the regression coefficients. This paper surveys the wide variety of fixed effects methods and their implementation in SAS, specifically, linear models with PROC GLM, logistic regression models with PROC LOGISTIC, models for count data with PROC GENMOD, and survival models with PROC PHREG.
Every month in every neighborhood in Chicago, residents, teachers, school principals, and police officers gather to deliberate about how to improve their schools and make their streets safer. Residents of poor neighborhoods participate as much or more as those from wealthy ones. All voices are heard. Since the meetings began more than a dozen years ago, they have led not only to safer streets but also to surprising improvements in the city's schools. Chicago's police department and school system have become democratic urban institutions unlike any others in America. Empowered Participationis the compelling chronicle of this unprecedented transformation. It is the first comprehensive empirical analysis of the ways in which participatory democracy can be used to effect social change. Using city-wide data and six neighborhood case studies, the book explores how determined Chicago residents, police officers, teachers, and community groups worked to banish crime and transform a failing city school system into a model for educational reform. The author's conclusion: Properly designed and implemented institutions of participatory democratic governance can spark citizen involvement that in turn generates innovative problem-solving and public action. Their participation makes organizations more fair and effective. Though the book focuses on Chicago's municipal agencies, its lessons are applicable to many American cities. Its findings will prove useful not only in the fields of education and law enforcement, but also to sectors as diverse as environmental regulation, social service provision, and workforce development.
The variety of constitutional designs found in democratic governments has important effects on policy choices and outcomes. That is the conclusion reached in Democratic Constitutional Design and Public Policy, in which the constitutional procedures and constraints through which laws and public policies are adopted—election laws, the general architecture of government, the legal system, and methods for amendment and reform—are evaluated for their political and economic effects. Leading scholars, many of them pioneers in the new field of constitutional political economy, survey and extend recent empirical evidence on the policy effects of different constitutional procedures and restraints. Their findings are relevant not only to such dramatic changes as democratic transition throughout the world and the development of a European constitution but also to the continuing process of constitutional reform in established democracies. Using the tools of rational choice analysis, the contributors approach the question of constitutional design from public choice, new institutionalist, and new political economy perspectives. Drawing on empirical evidence largely from the OECD countries, the book analyzes such issues as the policy effects of direct (as opposed to representative) democracy, democratic accountability in presidential as compared to parliamentary government, bicameralism and its relation to stable policies, the relative effectiveness of centralized and decentralized governments, the civil and legal regulatory system as a nation's "economic constitution," and the link between constitutional stability and the amendment process.
ContributorsJohn C. Bradbury, Roger D. Congleton, W. Mark Crain, Daniel Diermeier, Lars Feld, Bruno Frey, James D. Gwartney, Randall Holcombe, Hülya Eraslan, Brian Knight, Robert A. Lawson Antonio Merlo, Dennis Mueller, Torsten Persson, Bjørn Erik Rasch, Thomas Stratmann, Alois Stutzer, Birgitta Swedenborg, Guido Tabellini, Stefan Voigt, Barry Weingast
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 policy. The contributors to Decentralization and Local Governance in Developing Countries examine this institutional transformation from comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives, offering detailed case studies of decentralization in eight countries: Bolivia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, South Africa, and Uganda.
Some of these countries witnessed an unprecedented "big bang" shift toward comprehensive political and economic decentralization: Bolivia in 1995 and Indonesia after the fall of Suharto in 1998. Brazil and India decentralized in an uneven and more gradual manner. In some other countries (such as Pakistan), devolution represented an instrument for consolidation of power of a nondemocratic national government. In China, local governments were granted much economic but little political power. South Africa made the transition from the undemocratic decentralization of apartheid to decentralization under a democratic constitution. The studies provide a comparative perspective on the political and economic context within which decentralization took place, and how this shaped its design and possible impact.
ContributorsOmar Azfar, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Pranab Bardhan, Shubham Chaudhuri, Ali Cheema, Jean-Paul Faguet, Bert Hofman, Kai Kaiser, Philip E. Keefer, Asim Ijaz Khwaja, Justin Yifu Lin, Mingxing Liu, Jeffrey Livingston, Patrick Meagher, Dilip Mookherjee, Ambar Narayan, Adnan Qadir, Ran Tao, Tara Vishwanath, Martin Wittenberg
Does New Zealand's success story have lessons far developing countries contemplating public sector reform? That question usually elicits one of two reactions, both inadvisable in the authors' view. The first reaction is to be impressed with the efficacy of the reforms and conclude that they should be adopted uncritically in other countries. The second reaction is that the special conditions existing in New Zealand are such that none of its reform experience is relevant to others. The authors take a middle position, maintaining that poorer countries can indeed extrapolate from the experience of their higher income neighbor despite the different conditions tinder which they have to operate. New Zealand's comprehensive overhaul of its public sector affords bath general principles and specific elements relevant to countries looking to improve the quality, efficiency, and cost effectiveness of their public service sectors, and a careful analysis of those reforms can ascertain what might be transferable and what principles might apply.
The governments of developing countries have been decentralizing. Since the mid-1980s, decentralization reforms have been introduced in states ruled by virtually all varieties of national political regimes, from military dictatorships, authoritarian presidencies, and monarchies through single-party or dominant-party regimes to multiparty competitive democracies. There is no close connection between form of decentralization and regime type: elected, democratic local governments have been introduced by military regimes-mostly nonpartisan but even in one case (Bangladesh in the 1980s) with party competition-while technocratic, administrative deconcentration is to be found in a formally multiparty system such as that of Kenya, and, under Ghana's multiparty regime, which produced a peaceful transfer of power nationally in 2000, parties are banned from District Assembly elections. Much of the literature tends to assume that decentralization of government has generic benefits that are independent of regime context. The most common argument is that, because decentralization by definition involves bringing government closer to the governed in both the spatial and institutional senses, government will be more knowledgeable about and hence more responsive to the needs of the people.1 It is the more recent tendency to conflate decentralization with democratization and enhancement of participation at the "community" level, which underlies the belief that decentralization will lead to greater responsiveness to the needs of the "poor." Insofar as the majority of the population in developing countries is both poor and excluded from national elite or "high" politics, then any scheme that appears to offer greater political participation to ordinary citizens seems likely to increase their "voice" and hence (it is hoped) the relevance and effectiveness of government policy. In this chapter, we address two linked questions: whether decentralized forms of government in general are more responsive to poor people, and whether there is any systematic relationship between variations in responsiveness and the political and regime context of decentralized systems. It will be argued that regimes, particularly the kinds of policy coalitions constructed within democratic ruling parties at both the central and local levels, do have an important impact on the pro-poor outcomes of decentralization. We shall focus primarily on political and administrative decentralization, that is, the allocation of power among territorially defined and nested hierarchies.2 The majority of cases examined will be either devolved local governments with or without federal systems or mixed forms of devolution with deconcentrated administrations. Pure deconcentrated administrations, whether general or sectoral, are of less interest unless (as is increasingly routine) they incorporate at least some participatory elements (or aspirations). A review of the literature led to the selection of the following cases for which there was sufficient evidence to make a comparison of their responsiveness and social and economic performance outcomes: West Bengal and Karnataka States (India), Colombia, the Philippines, Ceara State (Brazil), Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Mexico. The Indian states of West Bengal and Karnataka stand out as probably the most systematically studied and richly documented of any in the world, while the Philippines is beginning to generate a mass of research evidence that has yet to come to fruition. There are other interesting cases from the rest of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but the evidence is frequently partial and contradictory. Bangladesh, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Brazil, and Colombia count as among the best-documented cases from those continents, while Chile, Kenya, Nigeria, and Mexico provide useful contrasts on particular dimensions.
Questo lavoro esplora i vantaggi in termini di benessere derivanti dalla decentralizzazione in un sistema di governo a livelli multipli. L’analisi rivela che nei casi in cui le differenze in output locali efficienti risiedano nella domanda locale, i potenziali vantaggi in benessere dovuti alia decentralizzazione variano con l’entità di queste divergenze nella domanda e con il valore del coefficiente angolare (in termini assoluti) della curva di domanda. Al contrario, se la fonte delle differenze nei livelli efficienti dell’output locale risiede nei costi, allora l’entità dei vantaggi in benessere dovuti alia decentralizzazione fiscale varia direttamente con la grandezza delle differenze di costo intergiurisdizionale ma inversamente all’inclinazione della curva della domanda. Inoltre, quando si fa venir meno l’assunzione di «tecnologie” date, la decentralizzazione fiscale offre potenziali benefici in benessere grazie alia «sperimentazione» locale di diverse forme di programmi pubblici; il cosiddetto «federalismo di laboratorio» puo promuovere innovazione nei settore pubblico.
People have three ways of responding to neighborhood problems: leaving (exit), political action (voice), and doing nothing (passivity). The model assumes: 1. Voice is more likely to ameliorate neighborhood problems than exit or passivity; exit, in fact, can make things worse, 2. Rational behavior on the part of residents, coupled with constraints that limit options: status, race, the responsiveness of government and the nature of the problems. Survey data on one city are combined with census data differentiating neighborhood types. Voice is characteristic of suburban areas among high and low status whites; exit is characteristic of white urban areas. Among ghetto blacks—whose exit options are severely constrained—voice is most characteristic. Problems faced by blacks and whites living in the city are similar, while their adaptations are different.
Recent research on federations, particularly in the developing world, emphasizes the importance of hard budget constraints and a strong central government to attenuate intergovernmental economic conflicts. Such research fails on two counts. First, it does not explain how hard budget constraints emerge or become self-enforcing. Second, it does not take into account the insight of the market-preserving federalism literature that central governments strong enough to impose restraint on regions are likely too powerful to be checked in a manner consistent with the longterm health of markets. Unfortunately, the market-preserving federalism literature itself provides little insight into how to move from a market-distorting to a market-preserving equilibrium. This article answers these theoretical shortcomings with reference to the evolution of political competition at the regional level and the representation of those regions at the national level. More specifically, whereas regional competition determines the subnational demand for soft budget constraints, the coalition of those regions at the national level determines the likelihood of their provision. Empirically, the research relies on a case study of the state debt crisis of the 1840s when the United States made a definitive movement toward market-preserving federalism.
This article analyses some of the major attributes of Pakistan’s contemporary administrative culture. The article uses Hofstede’s famous four dimensional model of national cultures as an analytical framework. Hofstede’s fourfold typology – power distance, individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity/femininity – is used as a point of departure for a more elaborate description and analysis of the traditions, values and norms that characterize Pakistan’s governing system. The author uses secondary data from official documents, newspapers, magazines and scholarly literature to support Hofstede’s initial findings. A brief account of the colonial antecedents and post-colonial evolution of the administrative institutions is given to provide the context in which the system operates. The main conclusion is that Pakistan’s relatively high collectivist orientation, high propensity toward uncertainty avoidance, high power distance and masculinity largely account for many traditions and practices including strict adherence to hierarchy, centralization, corruption, nepotism and gender differentiation in administrative roles.
Political economy models of growth and public service provision stress the incentives of the elite under high inequality to under-invest in the human capital of the majority. Other political economy models stress that ethnic divisions will lead to low public goods provision. This paper examines Pakistan as a case study of these two propositions. Pakistan has had respectable per capita growth over 1950-99, intensive involvement by donors and international agencies ($58 billion in foreign aid), and has a well- educated and high-achieving elite and Diaspora. Yet Pakistan systematically underperforms on most social and political indicators -- education, health, sanitation, fertility, gender equality, corruption, political instability and violence, and democracy -- for its level of income. It systematically under-performs on improvements in these indicators for its rate of GDP per capita growth over time. I call this pattern "growth without development." Large inequalities exist between men and women, between urban and rural areas, and between regions. The donor- and government-supported Social Action Program that sought to address these lags in the last 8 years has failed. This follows a long history of failed government and aid programs to address social lags. While foreign aid and government programs may have contributed to overall economic growth, they were an egregious failure at promoting social and institutional development under the circumstances of elite domination and ethnic division.
This article reviews and redirects the cross-country empirical literature on the causes and consequences of decentralization and federalism. A "first generation" of studies viewed decentralization as a simple zero-sum transfer of authority from the center to subnational governments, drew upon the assumptions of welfare economics and public choice theory, and employed blunt measures of expenditure decentralization and federalism. By defining several alternative forms of federalism and fiscal, policy, and political decentralization, then measuring them and exploring inter-relationships across countries and over time, this paper paints more detailed pictures of decentralization and federalism that help explain the growing disjuncture between theory and cross-national evidence, pointing the way toward a "second generation" of more nuanced empirical work that takes politics and institutions seriously.
Under-provision of essential public goods is making development in Africa slower and more inequitable than it needs to be. A good part of this problem concerns the governance of provision at sub-national levels. This article provides a mid-term report on a multi-country research effort to shed light on the institutional sources of variation in local public goods provision. The particular focus is on key bottlenecks to improvement in maternal mortality, water and sanitation, facilitation of markets and enterprise, and public order and security. Drawing on fieldwork evidence and secondary literature, it identifies three clusters of issues and associated explanatory variables which seem to account for much of the variation in intermediate outcomes. They concern the extent of policy-driven incoherence in the institutional framework, the strength of corporate disciplines in provider organisations and the degree to which self-help is able to be ‘locally anchored’ in two particular senses.
While democratic decentralisation is viewed as an important vehicle for development in sub-Saharan Africa, its viability in practice is often doubted. Lack of resources, expertise, marginalised populations and the inexperience of local electors are all barriers to successful decentralisation. However, often overlooked are the diverse ways in which local people use the opportunities provided by democratic decentralisation to engage local authorities and demand accountability. Using examples from Uganda and South Africa,1 this article demonstrates how local people use democratic openings to meet the challenges of marginalisation and demand accountability. While the data is from the mid to late 1990s, the evidence presented here is relevant to the continuing debate over democratic decentralisation for it reveals something that is not always recognised: lack of resources is not necessarily the problem; developing political capacity for demanding accountability for existing resources is what is important. The implication is that for decentralisation to be effective, practitioners must develop a better understanding of local political engagement so that their efforts may strengthen rather than thwart emerging political relations of accountability. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The universal administrative reform movement in public management of the past two decades, as illustrated in the three articles on administrative reform in Britain, Australia and New Zealand which follow this article, has obviously been driven in large part by the requirement that governments respond to the fiscal stresses brought about by changes in the international economic system on the one hand and by the unrelenting demands for government services and regulations in national political systems on the other. These stresses have led to the paramountcy of policy responses aimed at budgetary restraint and at downsizing the public services of governments, as well as - various measures to privatize government operations and to deregulate private economic enterprises. Within the context of these developments, two major sets of ideas have come to influence the design of governance and management therein. They are not unrelated to the policy responses which have come to be characterized as ”neo-conservative,” but they have a separate identity. The first set of ideas, emanating from the school of thought known as public choice theory, focuses on the need to reestablish the primacy of representative government over bureaucracy. The second set of ideas, now generally referred to as the “managerialist” school of thought, focuses on the need to reestablish the primacy of managerial principles over bureaucracy. Taken together, they have had a profound impact on the ways in which governments are structured for the purposes of administering public affairs. Although the changes which have been introduced or proposed as a result of these two sets of ideas might be regarded as a ”return to the basics” of representative government and public administration, there is an important sense in which the fundamental prescriptions of the two proceed from quite different premises about what constitutes public management. The coupling of the two thus must inevitably give rise to tensions, if not outright contradictions, in the implementation of these ideas. At the same time it is clear that these tensions and contradictions are inherent in the governance of modern administrative states (Waldo 1984). It is not illogical, therefore, that governments should attempt to pursue the
Kerala is regarded as one of the most decentralized states in India. Through a ‘big bang’ approach, Kerala implemented a significant fiscal decentralization program and then built the capacity of its local governments. We employ a diagnostic framework to analyze its local government discretion and accountability in political, administrative and fiscal domains. We find that Kerala's local governments have a very high degree of discretionary power accompanied by a high degree of accountability towards citizens. But the areas of administrative accountability and financial management need to be strengthened. Also there may have been excessive focus and investment on social accountability mechanisms at the cost of local government discretion and formal public sector accountability mechanisms. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Burkina Faso opted for a progressive approach to decentralization reforms, aiming at building local government capacity first before transferring responsibilities. We employ a diagnostic framework to analyze local government discretion and accountability in Burkina Faso. We find that local governments have a very low degree of discretionary power accompanied with weak accountability towards citizens at all levels. In the political and administrative spheres, the center plays a dominant role in local government affairs leaving little space for discretion. In the fiscal sphere, taxing powers are restricted, while transfers are insufficient and unpredictable, making local financial management extremely difficult. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Philippines has an exhaustive decentralisation code providing local governments with a high degree of discretion. But the concurrent upward and downward accountability mechanisms are weak resulting in inefficiency and ineffectiveness of local governments. We employ a diagnostic framework to analyse local governments' discretion and accountability in political, administrative and fiscal domains. We find that the entrenched culture of power accumulation and patronage—within which decentralisation operates—has resulted in elite capture at the local level. This along with lack of capacity at national and local levels has caused serious impediments in downward accountability of local governments. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Decentralisation is a complex and often somewhat elusive phenomenon. Many countries around the world have been attempting—for several reasons and with varying degrees of intention and success—to create or strengthen sub-national governments in recent years. Africa is no exception to either the decentralisation trend or the reality of its complexity and diversity. Drawing selectively on the large academic and practitioner literature on decentralisation and the articles in this volume, this article briefly outlines a number of typical prominent goals of decentralisation. It then reviews some key dimensions of decentralisation—fiscal, institutional and political. These are too frequently treated separately by policy analysts and policy makers although they are inherently linked. Next, a few popular myths and misconceptions about decentralisation are explored. Finally, a number of common outstanding challenges for improving decentralisation and local government reform efforts in Africa are considered. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Does decentralization, and particularly the creation of democratically elected local government, broaden mass political participation and make local government more effective and responsive? Evidence from two African Countries that have ‘democratized’ to varying degrees and through different approaches, this study makes two major points. First, although many of the hypotheses and initial findings of the Cornell Participation Project regarding the role of local organizations may still be valid, they remain largely untested in much of Africa because local government reform has been so limited and so recent. Second, in the limited number of cases where reform of local government has occurred in Africa, popular participation directed toward these governments can make them more responsive. This is only true, however, under particular circumstances, notably where projects with strong local and international non-governmental organizational support chose to link to local government as well as to exert influence over policy at other levels of the political system. The fear expressed by some ‘civil society’ actors that the focus on local government may be narrowing the opportunities of non-governmental associations to influence development policies is not confirmed in these cases. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The relationship between decentralization of government activities and the extent of rent extraction by private parties is an important element in the recent debate on institutional design. The theoretical literature makes ambiguous predictions about this relationship, and it has remained little studied by empiricists. In this paper, we systematically examine this issue empirically, by looking at the cross-country relationship between fiscal decentralization and corruption, as measured by a number of different indices. Our estimates suggest that fiscal decentralization in government expenditure is strongly and significantly associated with lower corruption; these results persist when decentralization is instrumented for by the origin of a country’s legal system.
This paper presents a simple model that unifies most of the results of the literature on fiscal federalism. The model describes an economy characterized by two levels of government, one public good, and a private good. The predictions of the model are tested by using a new set of measures of fiscal centralization. The main findings are that country size, income per capita, ethnic fractionalization, and level of democracy are negatively correlated with the degree of fiscal centralization. The model is tested using OLS, Tobit, and semi-parametric estimators. The paper also shows that the variables included in the regression are helpful in the prediction of changes in the level of centralization.
We use a panel data set of 46 countries over the 1970–1989 period to investigate the relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic growth. We find a negative relationship between fiscal decentralization and growth in developing countries, but none in developed countries. Several explanations are offered for our findings.
Decentralisation offers significant opportunities to improve government accountability by exerting stronger pressures both from below (demand) and above (supply). The literature contains many examples, however, where the potential has not been realised, partly because decentralisation reforms have often been introduced without thinking through their accountability implications. Even when accountability is taken into account, the efforts tend to emphasise either the supply or the demand side of the equation, but not both. Drawing on the sets of literature on fiscal, administrative and political decentralisation, this article presents a methodology for studying this. Copyright (c) The Authors 2010. Journal compilation (c) 2010 Overseas Development Institute..