Centralism and "Decentralization" in Unitary States: A Comparative Analysis of Peru and Senegal

Abstract

Since the 1980s, countries around the developing world have come under increasing international and domestic pressure to decentralize governance. Yet many central governments have resisted decentralization while adopting the rhetoric necessary to please donors. Representative of this trend are Peru and Senegal, neither of which has capitulated with regard to decentralization. How have these countries resisted growing pressures for decentralization, and why? This article aims to puncture the myth that decentralization has taken hold across Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa and offers alternative explanations for the observable empirical outcomes. A structured comparison demonstrates that the party systems and state bureaucracies are crucial to the management of fiscal relations in these two countries. This empirical evidence suggests three major policy recommendations for international bodies seeking to promote decentralization: 1) requiring the financial co-participation of central governments; 2) limiting central government discretion over social funds; and 3) tightly specifying concepts of decentralization to ensure programmatic compliance in policy reforms. 1