Decentralised Governance: Crafting Effective Democracies Around the World

Jean-Paul Faguet is professor of the political economy of development in the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the co-programme director of the MSc in Development Management and chair of the Decentralization Task Force at Columbia University’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue. He works at the frontier between economics and political science, using quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the institutions and organisational forms that underpin development transformations. He has published in the economics, political science and development literatures, including Is Decentralization Good for Development? Perspectives from Academics and Policymakers (Oxford, 2015) and Governance from Below: Decentralization and Popular Democracy in Bolivia (Michigan), which won the W.J.M. Mackenzie Prize for best political science book of 2012.Sarmistha Pal is professor of financial economics at the University of Surrey. In the past, she served as a research fellow at the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Cambridge, research affiliate at the Centre for the Study of African Economies at the University of Oxford, and a Leverhulme research fellow in the United Kingdom. She is currently a research fellow at the IZA – Institute of Labour Economics in Bonn, Germany, and an academic member of the European Corporate Governance Institute. She also serves as an editorial board member for the Journal of Development Studies. Her research focuses on public finance, public policy, institutions and political economy, with an emphasis on emerging economies. She conducts empirical analysis to examine the impact of laws, social policies, corporate practices and public policies on economic outcomes for individuals, households, firms, banks and communities, using a range of quasi-experimental methods.

• Extended contentsList of figures and tablesAbout the editorsAbout the authorsEditors’ acknowledgements1 Decentralised governance crafting effective democracies around the worldJean-Paul Faguet and Sarmistha Pal1.1 Fifty years of decentralisation studies1.2 Politics1.3 Mechanism design1.4 Scope for future researchConclusionsPART 1 TAKING STOCK OF SIX DECADES OF DECENTRALISATION2 Understanding decentralisation theory evidence and practiceJean-Paul Faguet2.1 Understanding decentralisation2.2 The benefits of decentralisation2.3 How to build decentralisation a framework for developmentConclusions3 Decentralised targeting of transfer programmes a reassessmentDilip Mookherjee3.1 Intra community targeting distortions3.2 Inter community misallocation upper level manipulation3.3 Institutional reforms3.4 Rules versus discretion assessing pros and consConclusionsPART 2 POLITICS4 Realising the promise of partial decentralisationShantayanan Devarajan and Stuti Khemani4.1 The promise and shortcomings of decentralisation4.2 Political decentralisation has taken hold even as fiscal decentralisation remains partial4.3 The potential of political decentralisation4.4 Building legitimacy and changing norms through decentralisationConclusions5 Devolution under autocracy evidence from PakistanAdeel Malik Rinchan Mirza and Jean-Philippe Platteau5.1 Devolution under Pakistan’s authoritarian regimes5.2 Electoral politics in autocracies5.3 Dynastic politics in Pakistan revival and persistence5.4 Analysing post Zia dynastic politics and competition in detailConclusionsAnnex Detailed statistics on competition and dynastic families involvement at national and provincial elections in the Punjab6 Social fragmentation public goods and local elections evidence from ChinaMonica Martinez-Bravo Gerard Padró i Miquel Nancy Qian and Yang Yao6.1 The core approach and findings of our study6.2 Conceptual framework6.3 Data6.4 Results6.5 RobustnessConclusions7 How does fiscal decentralisation affect local polities Evidence from local communities in IndonesiaAnirban Mitra and Sarmistha Pal7.1 Fiscal decentralisation in Indonesia7.2 Literature and hypotheses7.3 Empirical analysis7.4 ResultsConclusions8 Can parliamentary sanctions strengthen local political accountability Evidence from KenyaMichael Mbate8.1 The value of this study8.2 The literature on legislative oversight and partisanship8.3 Kenya’s institutional setting for audit8.4 Research design data measurement and estimation strategy8.5 ResultsConclusionsPART 3 MECHANISM DESIGN9 Centralised versus decentralised monitoring in developing countries a survey of recent researchFarzana Afridi Amrita Dhillon Arka Roy Chaudhuri and Dashleen Kaur9.1 Understanding top down and bottom up monitoring9.2 Modelling incentives for honest or dishonest behaviour9.3 Centralised monitoring9.4 Community monitoring9.5 Studies comparing top down versus social auditsConclusions10 Subnational governance in Ghana a comparative assessment of data and performanceDaniel Chachu Michael Danquah and Rachel Gisselquist10.1 Subnational governance research and data in sub Saharan Africa the case of Ghana10.2 A framework for studying local government performance10.3 The Ghana data and data gapsConclusions further areas of study11 Birth registration child rights and local governance in BangladeshAbu S. Shonchoy and Zaki Wahhaj11.1 Birth registration systems and sources of weakness11.2 Interventions to improve birth registration in LMICs11.3 Birth registration in Bangladesh’s rural areas11.4 Determinants of birth registration among adolescent girlsConclusions12 Administrative decentralisation and its impacts on educational expenditure and student outcomes evidence from ColombiaValentina Chegwin Isabela Munevar and Fabio Sánchez12.1 Decentralisation in Colombia12.2 Analysing the efficiency effects of decentralisation on outcomesConclusionsAnnex Background information on the characteristics and behaviours of certified and non certified municipalities