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Introduction

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Decentralization and Governance Capacity

Part of the book series: Public Sector Organizations ((PSO))

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Abstract

The introduction sets out the major issues the book examines, highlighting the most prominent discussions in the literature on the relationship between decentralization and governance capacity. Noting the ambiguous relationship between decentralization and better governance, the Introduction puts forward the research questions the book addresses, namely ‘how should policymakers decide on the degree of decentralization to ensure the best outcome in public governance?’ and ‘how do governance capacities affect this outcome?’. Explaining the political and practical relevance of these questions, the introduction explains the importance of the issue to public administration, governance, and development studies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Working Group 5 (Institutional Capacity) at the Technical Consultation on Decentralization and Rural Development, FAO, Rome, December 1997.

  2. 2.

    Cassette and Paty (2010)’s findings on a panel data set of EU 15 countries contest the Leviathan hypothesis on aggregate government expenditures, by showing the tax autonomy tends to increase local government expenditures by a wide margin in the long run despite limiting central government expenditures, and thus leading to higher aggregate government expenditure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Evrim Tan

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Tan, E. (2019). Introduction. In: Decentralization and Governance Capacity . Public Sector Organizations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02047-7_1

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