Ilona Pálné KovácsIRS, CERS. HAS

palne@rkk.hu

Theories of decentralisation (disciplinary separation)State theory focus on structure: local governments

as fourth branch of power or local states?Public administration science focus on

functioning: how much and what kind of decentralisation is „ideal”,

Institutional economics focus on economic and fiscal consequences (spill over, public choice, fiscal federalism, etc.)

Regional science and economic geography focus on territory: (economy of agglomeration, regional competitiveness etc.)

How to measure? Few empirical evidences (Müller, 2009, Saito, 2011, lot of fiscal analysises)

Decentralisation is still rather about democracy than performance (standards: European Charter of Local Governments)

Neoliberal „governance” likes decentralisationLess public sector- enabling role of the stateNew actors, stakeholders, political class

(Oborne, 2007)Social capital, cultural contextsNew (horizontal) mechanisms: policy networks,

bargaining, grass-rootsSensitive to the scalePrinciples: subsidiarity, closeness to the citizens

Decentralised governance is better : new regionalism, glocalism, MLG

territorial reforms

Complex assessments of decentralisation

1993, Begg1993, Begg 2002, Linder2002, Linder 2004,Barlow 2004,Barlow 2009, Müller, 2009, Müller, decentr.indexdecentr.index

+more information+more information +more targeted (place- +more targeted (place- based) policybased) policy

+ generating local + generating local resourcesresources

+ more local space of + more local space of movementmovement

+better adaptabilty +better adaptabilty (resilience)(resilience)

+healthy competition+healthy competition +local choice+local choice +flexibility+flexibility

+accountability+accountability +legitimacy/participation+legitimacy/participation +identity, trust+identity, trust +efficient resource +efficient resource allocationallocation

- Limited economy of - Limited economy of scale, inflation, public scale, inflation, public debt (Saito, 2011)debt (Saito, 2011)

- Less equity- Less equity - Less professional - Less professional knowledgeknowledge

Corruption (Treisman, Corruption (Treisman, 2007)2007)

Regional governance matters (Charron et al, 2011)

European quality of government index at national and regional levels (survey in 27 MS, in 172 regions, 34.000 residents)

Size of the region: no matter in general, and lower quality in larger cities!

Level of political decentralisation: no direct impact!Conclusions The macro governance and socio-economic context and

social trust have more impact on the quality of governance and performance,

but „Regional governance matters”: improving regional administrative capacities is one of the performance reserves.

Crisis and disappointment in neo-liberal, decentralised governance

Renaissance of old public values Strong (good) state instead of market Traditional representative democracy and executive

model instead of partnership Hierarchy, centralization instead of fuzzy networks Weakening regionalism (Keating, 2008), new secession

movements (Spain, Italy, UK)Connecting neo-liberal and neo-weberian models: NP Governance (Osborne,2011) Place-based governance (Barca, 2009) Emerging urban governance challenges Territorial governance

Vague term and intention behind

Territorial governance for place-based development policy

Less about public power structure, more about soft, horizontal elements

Territorial governance is the formulation and implementation of public policies, and projects for the development of a place/territory by

1) co-ordinating actions of actors and institutions, 2) integrating policy sectors, 3) mobilising stakeholder participation, 4) being adaptive to changing contexts, 5) realising place-based/territorial specificities and

impacts.

Where is decentralisation?

History and cultural roots matter: never strong local governance in Hungary before

1990: systemic change, dominance of political values, strong but fragmented bottom, weak meso: sand-glass shape

1994-2010: rescaling experiments under the pressure of European cohesion policy

Law about regional development in 1996, overture of EU accession

Micro-regional associations (1993-2004)

Macro regions (for NUTS, development, self-governance, state governance), 1998, 2004

Empty counties

Weak meso and lack of political will to decentralise led to

the jungle of geographical units („fuzzy/messy” regionalism)

shock of the joining to the EU in 2004- centralised management of Structural Funds

exclusive, closed networks in the management

of SF, it is not a friendly match!

Need (crisis, debt) and political chance (2/3) to do something:

New constitution, new act on local government

Crisis handling parallel with the paradigm change

Strong and expanding „Neo-Weberian”state Regionalisation cancelled (empty map) Nationalisation of many local services:

local government system is almost empty bottle

As a compensation stronger involvement in development policy?

Készült: MTA KRTK, 2013

Top down rescaling (EU pressure): shifting power up (except Poland?)centralisation

EC ambivalent behaviour, lack of trust towards regionalism in CEE

Weak local governments and civic society (lack of social capital)

Imitating instead of learning and adaptation

Asimmetrical European landscape of governance model and uniform management system of SFs

Vertical paradox: Dominance of centralised governance systems in CEE and Southern Europe

Horizontal paradox: Weak non public actors (partners) in CEE and SE

MLG paradox: Three-level governance only for the Core of Europe with regions and places strong enough

Lessons for us:Place-based governance is more than decentralisation

Do not confuse managing SFs and development policy

Do not hurry, copy and imitate Less structural shock, more functional

adaptation by small steps Empowerment needs enabling

(responsibilty+instruments) Building capacity, trust and knowledge (local

leadership)

Territorial (place- based) governance= making policy sectors territorially sensitive: integrating, coordinating, local fitting etc.

Regional studies matter

Without regional studies there is no regional policy

Without navigation (information, skills, analytical tools) regional policy is just blind flying with big risk and waste of money

Thank you for your attention