Why Decentralise Authority An Analysis of Medium Term - PDF document

Why Decentralise Authority? An Analysis of Medium Term Electoral Motives of Government Parties on the Territorial Dimension. André Kaiser and Leonce Röth Paper Proposal for Panel Multi - level Governance Within and Beyond the State (Chairs: Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks) , ECPR General Conference Bordeaux, September 20 13 Abstract: Beyond the notion of a general trend of increasing regional authority, the timing and cause s of decentrali s ation reforms remain a puzzle to functionalist economists as well as po litical scientists. The decentrali s ation theorem lacks a consistent answer to decades of observable counterfactu als – the absence of reforms in regions with the same theoretical likelihood . In institutional and constitutional economics as well as in public choice approaches decentrali s ation reforms are seen to tame the rent - seeking ambitions of political actors . But empirically, we observe these same actors sometimes shift ing competencies to lower administrative levels on a voluntary basis . We try to resolve this puzzle by comparing the electoral pro spects of national government parties on the national and regional level . R elative electoral performance is assumed to be the main driver of governments to decentrali s e authority . However, governm ents play different decentrali s ation games in different contexts. The main difference is whether regional ly concentrated national minorities exist . If so, asymmetrical shifts of authority may be institutionalised , in exchange for legislative support on the national level. R egions without national minorities are usually treated equal . H ence, governments calculate electoral tren ds encompassing all regions . Our main argument is assumed to hold for both scenarios: The electoral success of the government parties on the nation al level in relation to electoral performance on the regional level is supposed to affect the likelihood of governments to decentralize autho rity . W e test this hypothesis wi th a panel analysis including 21 OECD countries and their regions for the time period of 1950 to 2006 . We use the first difference of the regional authority index and its constituent parts as dependent variables. Rela tive vo te shares of government parties in national and regional elections covering different time periods are applied to measure the relative electoral performance on both level s . Preliminary results indicate robust explanatory power of electoral concerns as an important explanatory factor in decentrali s ation processes. G overnment s hesitate to transfer authority to region s with stable opposition majorities, regardless of functionalist concerns about its necessity. The downward shift of competenc i es in regions dom inated by political a llies is much more likely. Author bios: Dr André Kaiser is Full Professor of Political Science at the University of Cologne and holds the Chair for Comparative Politics in the Cologne Center for Comparative Politics (CCCP). He is a member of the faculties of three doctoral schools: the International Max Planck Research School ‘The Social and Political Constitution of the Economy’, the Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences and the Cologne Research Training Group ‘Social Order and Life Chances in Cross - National Comparison’. His rese arch focus is on institutional determinants of political action. His most recent major research project, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, was on ‘Federalism and Decentralisation as Dimensions of State Activity’. Leonce Röth is Research A ssist ant at the Chair for Comparative Politics in the Cologne Center for Comparative Politics (CCCP). His research focus is on the interplay between political parties and institutional structures. The shift of authority between multiple levels of government is one of his research objectives. Additionally, his most recent research project deals with changing attitudes of political parties to wards the market as a means of social coordination.