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Local governance and decentralization is an ever growing topic in politics and public administration studies. This is better achieved by a good relationship between the local and central governments. A coordinated relation between these two important institutions provides prosperity and stability for a country.This paper aims to describe the notion of central-local governments relations, based on decentralization. It begins by briefly presenting the theoretical aspects of the abovementioned concepts of central-local relations and decentralization.The paper first gives an overview of these concepts in the Republic of Albania, by describing the situation in different periods and different regimes. The aim of this study is to show how the central-local relations have evolved during the years in Albania and how much this relation has been concerned with decentralization and local self-governance.This study provides different competencies and budget capacity of both levels ofgovernment and gives examples from different developed countries in order to show how the system works in reality in Albania and how they should function in order to be more effective and efficient.Finally this study presents some of the problems that the local government institutions are facing in Albania, with the main issue being corruption in all levels of public administration and possible solutions for these problems will be suggested.Keywords: Albania, Central-local relations, Decentralization, Local government,Corruption

Focuses on municipalities. Argues that recent decentralization serves to increase central state control over local government expenditure.

Central-local relations have been of particular interest since the Labour government came to power in 1997. Both academics and practitioners have pointed to tensions within the Labour government's reform agenda—between a 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' approach; between a drive for national standards and the encouragement of local learning and innovation; and between strengthening executive leadership and enhancing public participation. It is argued that while Labour's modernisation strategy has clear elements of a top-down approach (legislation, inspectorates, white papers, etc) there is also a significant bottom-up dimension (a variety of zones, experiments and pilots, albeit with different degrees of freedom). This article utilises a multi-level governance framework of analysis and argues that, while much of the research using such frameworks has hitherto focused on the EU, recent developments in governance at neighbourhood, local authority, sub-regional and regional levels facilitate its application within a nation state. The central thesis is that, while there is extensive interaction between actors at sub-national level, this should not be seen as a proxy for policy influence. The local political arena is characterised less by multi-level governance than by multi-level dialogue. Sub-national actors participate but they are rarely major players in shaping policy outcomes: the plurality which characterises sub-central governance does not reflect a pluralist power structure.

Divergent conclusions have been drawn from research about whether or not local government in Sweden has become more independent of central government during the post-war expansion of the Swedish welfare state. By using a multi-dimensional resource perspective it is argued that local government could be viewed as potentially strong with regard to constitutional–legal, political, financial and professional resources. However, during the 1980s as several decentralist and deregulative programs were being implemented, central government strengthened its financial control over local government. An increasing interdependency between local government agencies and private institutions could also be observed. Thus, the current relations between central and local government in Sweden can be summarised in the formula: centralising (financial) power — decentralising responsibility.

In April 1980 a group of urban historians and political scientists met at the University of York under the auspices of the Social Science Research Council to pool what they knew about the changing relations between central and local government and to identify areas for future research. The initiative had come from the political scientists whose interest in the subject had been stimulated by recent government policy. Those who attended from among the historians had to confess that this was not a subject that had recently been much discussed among them. When I was invited by the editor of thisYearbookto contribute an article on a neglected aspect of urban history, it seemed a good opportunity to draw the attention of the urban history group to the subject. What follows is an amended version of the paper that had originally been written for the SSRC seminar.

AbstractWhen a central government deals with local demands, it may strengthen political accountability of the local governments by political decentralization or offer benefits through economic assistance. An authoritarian regime uses economic assistance policy because political decentralization may contradict regime survival. Although economic benefits can be used to buy political support, the distribution of these benefits is seldom equal. We argue that the unequal distribution is more salient in regions where ethnic minorities reside because the unusual demographic composition of those areas make it difficult for the national government to evaluate the performance of the local government who is responsible for the distribution of the economic benefits. As a result, economic assistance may backfire in ethnic regions and intensify their existing conflicts. We develop a simple formal model to illustrate our arguments and explore the cases of Xinjiang and Hong Kong for empirical analysis.

A trend toward decentralisation has meant that sub-national governments increasingly find themselves responsible for providing a host of public goods and services. Rarely, however, can they "go it alone". Co-ordination among levels of government is imperative. This book offers a unique analytic framework for assessing multi-level governance arrangements, which is subsequently applied to five case studies of regional development policy: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The book reveals the importance of contractual arrangements for customised management of interdep

Concludes that given the amount of discretion that local government is allowed, and its firm integration into the 'Swedish model' of state welfare provision, current reforms can have only marginal effects. (SJK)