Suchergebnisse

The reduction of citizen alienation has stood as a goal for the decentralization of public services among researchers & policymakers. It has been hypothesized that decentralization can bring government closer to the public being served, & therefore improve public attitudes toward government. No existing research completely tests this hypothesis. Several national surveys do provide sufficient data to examine the relationships between various types of citizen activity linked with decentralization & the 2 dimensions of political alienation; powerlessness/efficacy & distrust/trust. Sidney Verba & Norman Nie analyzed responses to a national survey conducted in 1967 in PARTICIPATION IN AMERICA: POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL EQUALITY (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1972). They characterized all R's according to their degree of participation. The sense of political efficacy/powerlessness was examined with a 4-question index, & the results showed that the sense of efficacy was higher for all types of participants who did more than vote. A review of these national surveys shows that decentralized activity, whether taking the form of citizen participation, citizen awareness of decentralized facilities, or service improvements, is consistently associated with people's sense of efficacy, but not their sense of trust. Decentralization may affect alienation in terms of reducing sense of powerlessness, but it has no impact on people's trust in government. Decentralization of public services may be one of the steps taken to reduce citizen alienation toward government, but not alienation by itself. 2 Tables. Modified HA.

The French governmental system comprises a mixture of central and local power. The Socialist Government came to power pledged to decentralization. This is being achieved through a series of laws. Yet separating central and local affairs has raised major problems. There are contradictions within the Socialists' ideology with regard to decentralization and the implementation of the programme has been slowed down. The reform is likely to produce a redistribution of power within the system which is neither unambiguously centralist or decentralist but a mixture of the two.