Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Tulia Faletti, emphasizes the importance of the sequence of reforms in decentralisation processes. From her research and teaching interests she spans issues of democratization, political and civic participation, federalism and decentralization, and Latin American politics. Based on her experience and knowledge, she provides an overview of 30 years of decentralisation processes in Latin America.
According to Faletti, the process of decentralisation that started in the late 1970’s or early 1980s was the consequence of the end of the developmental state. The process of decentralisation is described by her more likely as a state reform that entails different levels of government. Faletti sees a wide variety of consequences of decentralisation after 30 years in the regions of Latin America. Some regions are economically more developed, and have more resources to implement administrative decentralisation successfully, while some regions have a lack of resources or local capacity, which makes it more difficult for them to implement administrative decentralisation.
An explanation for this wide variety in regions can be found in the sequence of the process of decentralization. Faletti’s research shows that countries that started with political decentralisation ended up with more autonomous municipalities and more power to local governments, while countries that started with administrative reforms have less autonomous municipalities. This means that types of territorial or political coalitions that are at the beginning of the process are very important in deciding the type of reforms that are first implemented. The type of reform, being political, administrative or fiscal, is therefor a very important consequential to determine the end results in terms of the autonomy of local governments.
Click here to watch the interview with Tulia Faletti.