Decentralization in Colombia, Bolivia, and Mozambique

• In Event: Multi-Level Governance

Abstract

Colombia, Bolivia, and Mozambique made constitutional changes in the 1980s and 1990s to devolve national government power to lower levels. Decentralization in these three countries was representative of global trends of the Third Wave of democratization (Huntington 1991). Decentralization in Latin America has been thoroughly documented (Campbell, et al; Falleti; Faguet; Grindle; Alesina). Analysts have studied decentralization in Africa (Ndegwa) and globally (Antwi-Boasiako and Csanyi), but decentralization in Africa has been shallower than that of Latin America. Colombia and Bolivia decentralized earlier and more thoroughly than Mozambique and are representative of global trends. Colombia created 1,009 directly elected local officials in 1986 and Bolivia created 314 directly elected local officials in 1994. Mozambique created only 63 elected local officials, today selected by party list, from 1998 to 2023. The ratio of elected local executives to population in Mozambique is 1:540,000 compared to 1:29,000 and 1:25,000 in Colombia and Bolivia, respectively. Governors became elected in Colombia in 1991, in Bolivia in 2006, and in Mozambique in 2019. In Mozambique, a new centrally appointed position was created to shadow the elected governor. Fiscal decentralization similarly lags in Mozambique where districts receive only 1.5% of the national budget, while in Bolivia municipalities receive 10%. Longer historical experience with democracy in Latin America, leadership, and country-level political coalitions explain the differences among the cases. This research is based on Fulbright global scholar-supported fieldwork in Colombia and Mozambique in 2022-23, and on fieldwork in Mozambique in 2018 and in Bolivia since 1997.

Author

• Brian Norris, Lincoln University of Missouri