The Political Economy of Decentralization in Latin America

Abstract

Several Latin American countries have historic experiences with federal arrangements and decentralized forms of governance. However, decentralization has gained region wide attention as a highly important political topic only when the move towards democratization during the last decades provoked a tendency to delegate part of political autonomy to the subnational level. However, the process of decentralization in Latin America has not only led to positive outcomes. Instead, many decentralization processes are still plagued with deficiencies, which are not only due to the resistance of centralist governments.