Democratic Decentralization and Participatory Municipal Planning in Global Context

• In Event: 4366 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 6. Global and Transnational Perspectives on Development

Abstract

In recent decades a “silent revolution” shifted the locus of planning downward from national states to local municipalities. By the new millennium, 80% of all countries underwent some form of political decentralization. Moreover, thousands of municipalities around the world are establishing democratic elections, directly linking individuals to state administration and governance. These changes are reorienting organizational procedures on a global scale, upending the capacities, roles, and practices that long governed command and control state planning. What explains this striking transfer of political authority and functions to municipal governments? How do transnational political institutions and organizations prompt states to enact these policies? In this study I assess the national and global sources of political decentralization and municipal planning using panel data from and econometric analyses of 140 countries from 1970 – 2010. I make three key contributions: 1) Using an original, cross-national data set on decentralization reforms and municipal democratization I illustrate the global shift from centralized to decentralized administrations; 2) Using rigorous quantitative techniques, I assess the rise of municipal authority since the 1970s with implications for democratization, development, and civil unrest. I do so by examining determinants of the legal codes and constitutional amendments that devolved public administration across countries; 3) By deploying a global-comparative lens, I am poised to challenge conventional explanations that highlight domestic conditions and global economic forces. In turn, I shed light on how transnational institutions and organizations drove the locus of state planning downwards, from central to local governments.

Author

• Aaron W. Tester, University of California-Irvine