Paths and Constraints of Subnational Government Mobilization in East-Central Europe

The article studies the impact of enlargement on subnational governments in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. It compares the resources and political constellations of subnational governments and analyses how these variables interact with Europeanization to influence domestic intergovernmental relations, the management of structural funds and the European Union relations of subnational governments. The article argues that stronger regional governments (in Poland and the Czech Republic) have been able to resist attempts to centralize intergovernmental relations. Decentralizing reforms occurred where incumbent governing parties dominated subnational government (Poland). Under ‘vertically divided’ government (Czech Republic), subnational governments sought unmediated access to European Union institutions.     

The home front: Internal organization of public affairs in Dutch subnational governments

Dutch subnational governments such as municipalities and provinces are increasingly compelled to express their interests in the national and European political arenas. Effectiveness in these arenas requires an optimal arrangement of Public Affairs (PA) activities in the subnational organization. Based on 41 in‐depth interviews with prolific PA professionals and practitioners in the Netherlands, this article provides an overview of initiatives that subnational government organizations have to develop in their own organization after their “discovery” of how useful PA may be, but before the moment they enter the arenas. According to the participants, the creation of individual, collective, and regional commitment regarding PA is the first initiative. Subsequently, conditional and instrumental terms should be fulfilled, so that PA will be used as a tool to model PA messages. Concluding from the interviews, human aspects and internal cooperation determine the sensemaking of PA in a subnational organization, but a lack of arena knowledge frustrates this process.     

Interacting Capacities: The Indirect National Contribution to Subnational Service Provision

Different levels of government often interact on the ground, providing closely related services. While multilevel governance arrangements have been studied broadly, scarce literature has explored the contribution of national governments to achieving subnational policy goals. By reconceptualizing administrative decentralization as coexisting devolution (to subnational governments) and deconcentration (through field units), this research explores the indirect national contribution to subnational performance by delivering associated services. This article tests the following hypotheses: (1) there is a positive effect of national deconcentrated capacity on subnational policy outputs, and (2) under policy overlap, this contribution diminishes with increasing levels of subnational capacity. While Colombian schooling is decentralized, the national government indirectly contributes to education through a national agency that administers child protection services. Analyzing data for Colombian subnational governments over a decade reveals that national capacity boosts education provision while the least endowed regions benefit the most, thus providing evidence supporting both hypotheses.     

Subnational Taxes in Developing Countries: The Way Forward

Both theory and experience in a variety of circumstances around the world suggest strongly that if fiscal decentralization is to produce sustainable net benefits in developing countries, subnational governments require much more real taxing power than they now have. Students of public finance have studied the subject, and practitioners in developing countries have installed many different versions of subnational government tax. In most developing countries there are potentially sound and productive taxes that subnational governments could use: personal income tax surcharges, property taxes, taxes on the use of motor vehicles, payroll taxes, and even subnational value‐added taxes and local “business value” taxes may all be viable options in particular countries. Still, there is no general consensus about what works and what does not. In this review paper, we try and pull together enough evidence to suggest the way forward. We also develop the argument that given political realities one cannot usually decentralize significant revenues to subnational governments without having in place an intergovernmental transfer system to offset at least some of the disequalizing effects that would otherwise occur. Nor does it make sense to think of decentralizing exactly the same package of tax choices to all subnational governments regardless of their scale and scope of operations.     

When do you follow the (national) leader? Party switching by subnational legislators in Japan

In 1993, after 38 years of single-party control, more than 20% of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) House of Representatives members left the party to form new alternatives and create an anti-LDP coalition government. However, despite substantial popular support, the new parties attracted few subnational politicians. The effect of this lack of subnational party switching was substantial since the relatively small pool of subnational defectors meant that the new parties had difficulty forming the strong subnational bases of support that would help them to compete with the LDP in the future. In this paper, we consider why so few subnational politicians were willing to switch to these new party alternatives. Using case studies and conditional logit analysis of party affiliation pattern among prefectural assembly members in Japan, we find that party switching was most common among subnational politicians who had powerful patrons who had also left the LDP and had maintained especially good access to central government largesse. We also find that subnational politicians from urban areas, which depend less upon central government pork, were considerably less likely to switch parties, than their rural counterparts.     

Fiscal decentralization and the size of government: a European country empirical analysis

This article is an original contribution to the understanding of the relationship between fiscal decentralization and government size. Using a panel data set of the EU-15 countries, we analyse the effect of decentralization on aggregate, national and subnational government sizes by separating the long run effects of decentralization from its short run dynamics. In the long run, tax autonomy reduces central expenditure but increases—and to a greater extent—subnational public expenditure, leading to higher aggregate public expenditure. We find also that vertical imbalances tend to increase the sizes of subnational, national and aggregate governments.     

Intergovernmental Grants: A Formal Model of Interrelated National and Subnational Political Decisions

Intergovernmental grants are based on the interrelated choicesof: (i) the national government deciding whether to offer thegrant; (ii) the national government determining grant conditions;(iii) the subnational government deciding whether to acceptthe grant; and (iv) the subnational government determining policy,including spending levels, upon grant receipt. Empirically andtheoretically, scholars often study these decisions separately,leading to an incomplete understanding of grant-related behavior.This article develops a noncooperative game theoretic modelthat simultaneously captures all four of these decisions. Thisapproach helps to better explain puzzles surrounding intergovernmentalgrants, including the ‘flypaper effect,’ asymmetricresponses of recipient governments to grant increases and decreases,the grant-acceptance decisions of subnational governments, andtradeoffs between the size of grants and the strings that areattached.     

Presidential coattails and electoral coordination in multilevel elections: Comparative lessons from Brazil

This article seeks to understand how concurrent presidential and gubernatorial elections in strong federal systems affect electoral coordination and coattails voting between national and subnational levels of government. We seek to determine whether the nationalizing effect of presidential elections can overcome the strong incentives for regionalization that can arise in federal systems. We use individual-level survey data and time-series cross-sectional electoral data from Brazil, a federal country with decentralized electoral institutions that has recently adopted concurrent presidential and gubernatorial elections. We find that the congruence between national and subnational elections increases when elections are temporally proximate and the effective number of presidential candidates is low. In short, the coattails effect can not only operate “horizontally,” by shaping national legislative elections, but also “vertically,” by shaping subnational elections.     

Citizen political knowledge and accountability: Survey evidence on devolution in Kenya

Devolution complicates citizens’ ability to assign responsibility for the provision of public goods and services to different tiers of government. Misattribution of responsibility limits the effectiveness of electoral accountability in the nested principal–agent relationships comprising voters, politicians, and bureaucrats. This raises two important questions. First, how do citizens learn about the functions of different tiers of government under devolution? Second, how do levels of political knowledge condition citizens’ evaluations of subnational governments? Using cross‐sectional and panel survey data from Kenya (2014–2018), this article shows that voters accumulate knowledge through exposure to government services, and that gender and partisanship mediate knowledge accumulation. In addition, exposed citizens are more likely to give positive evaluations of subnational politicians, despite the fact that such exposure may reveal subnational governments’ low capacity, ineffectiveness, and governance gaps. These findings advance our understanding of the dynamics of political accountability under devolution.     

Autonomous Local Climate Change Policy: An Analysis of the Effect of Intergovernmental Relations Among Subnational Governments

Local governments have emerged as important players in climate change governance, both at home and on the international stage. Likewise, action by states and provinces has been increasingly highlighted, particularly as national actors have moved slowly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But to what extent do local governments act independently from state and provincial governments in the area of climate change mitigation? Using an explicit process tracing approach, the article tests two hypotheses regarding the influence of upper level subnational governments on local policy. In Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, a city that is a climate change leader, provincial government intervention cannot explain the results of climate change mitigation policy making. This suggests that local governments can exercise an important degree of autonomy over climate change policy, but also implies that where municipalities are less independently committed to climate action, active upper level government intervention will likely be needed.     

The limits of decentralisation: Legislative careers and territorial representation in Spain

Scholars of decentralisation in comparative perspective have argued that these reforms should lead to a ‘territorialisation of politics’. For the party system and the legislature this means that subnational interests will increasingly influence rules and practices as well as positions on policy choice. This study tests this proposition in Spain, which has undergone extensive decentralisation during its democratic history (1977–present). By examining the career trajectories of deputies in the ruling lower house, the study finds little evidence that decentralisation expanded the influence of subnational representatives within the party system or the parliament of democratic Spain. This was true despite the growing cohort of deputies with subnational experience in the Congreso, the ability of subnational party offices to recruit and place candidates on electoral lists, and the increasing importance of regional issues in national elections.     

Fiscal institutions of Brazilian municipal borrowing

In an effort to understand subnational borrowing, this article explores how three Brazilian institutions—the 1988 Constitution which mandates revenue and expenditure assignments among the levels of the federation; the national Law of Fiscal Responsibility, which imposes expenditure and debt limitations on all levels and branches of government; and various borrowing arrangements—affect the municipal borrowing environment. These institutions are examined in light of de Mello's (2001) policy recommendations for strengthening efficiency and fiscal discipline in subnational borrowing. The institutions of Brazilian borrowing were found to have some of de Mello's recommendations, with the new Constitution and the Law of Fiscal Responsibility making progress towards increased fiscal responsibility, but the current borrowing arrangements serving to maintain a controlled system that is not conducive to responsible municipal borrowing. Several recommendations are made to improve the borrowing environment and foster fiscal discipline and efficiency Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Not always second order: Subnational elections,national-level vote intentions,and volatility spillovers in a multi-level electoral system

The widespread second-order view on subnational elections leaves little room for the idea that subnational election campaigns matter for national-level electoral preferences. I challenge this perspective and explore the context-conditional role of subnational election campaigns for national-level vote intentions in multi-level systems. Campaigns direct citizens’ attention to the political and economic “fundamentals” that determine their electoral preferences. Subnational election campaigns and the major campaign issues receive nation-wide media coverage. This induces all citizens in a country to evaluate parties at the national level even if they themselves are not eligible to vote in the upcoming subnational election. Thereby, subnational election campaigns may lead to a reduction in the uncertainty of voters’ national-level electoral preferences throughout the country, which is reflected by a decrease in the volatility of national-level vote intentions. I explore weekly vote intention data from Germany (1992–2007) within a conditional volatility model. Subnational elections reduce uncertainty in nation-wide federal-level vote intentions for major parties. However, patterns of incumbency and coalitional shifts moderate this volatility-reducing effect.     

Explaining voter turnout: A meta-analysis of national and subnational elections

Research about voter turnout has expanded rapidly in recent years. This article takes stock of this development by extending the meta-analysis of Geys (2006) in two main ways. First, we add 102 studies published between 2002 and 2015 to the initial sample of 83 studies. Overall, we document only minor changes to the original inferences. Second, since different processes might conceivably play at different levels of government, we exploit the larger sample to separately analyse the determinants of voter turnout in national versus subnational elections. We find that campaign expenditures, election closeness and registration requirements have more explanatory power in national elections, whereas population size and composition, concurrent elections, and the electoral system play a more important role for explaining turnout in subnational elections.     

The Influence of Political Parties on Policy Coordination

Despite an increasing interest in party‐state relations, the functions political parties as organizations fulfill in the government apparatus are rarely theorized or empirically examined. Instead of focusing on citizen demands toward parties, this article focuses on the demands of government. It argues that party organizational linkages help integrate an increasingly complex government apparatus. To substantiate this claim, it analyzes the impact of party linkages on policy coordination within and across subnational governments in the United States, Canada, and Switzerland. The analysis shows that: (1) the extent to which processes within different policy fields are connected—policy integration—is shaped by the relative strength of party organizational linkages rather than being a mere reflection of institutional divisions and (2) depending on the party configurations predominantly governing at the subnational level, policy integration within subnational governments either facilitates intergovernmental policy coordination or accelerates cross‐jurisdictional conflict between them.     

Analyzing the Fiscal Health of State Governments in India: Evidence from the 14 Major States

The paper seeks to assess the fiscal sustainability of the 14 major State (subnational) governments in India employing the deficit indicators approach. Evidence from the 14 States indicates to a deep fiscal stress across rich and poor States with just a third of the States showing a sustainable revenue account and primary revenue balance and even fewer States showing a sustainable primary deficit thereby reinforcing the serious concern for State‐level (subnational) fiscal health as weak State finances can have an impact on the stability of overall government finances.     

When state‐level institutions cannot tell the whole story: An inquiry into municipal variations in quality of government

The lion's share of comparative research on corruption, good governance, and quality of government (QoG) has been cross‐country. However, a growing body of literature has begun to explore within‐country variations observed at the subnational level regarding corruption and social trust. The existence of such variations implies that state‐level institutions are not capable of telling the entire story and that quality of subnational‐level institutions might be important determinants of within‐country variations regarding, for instance, trust. This article delves into the Swedish case, an egalitarian country that scores high in international indices on lack of corruption and social trust; hence, a “least likely case” of subnational variations in both QoG and trust. Using two unique data sets, we find variations in both municipal QoG and social trust. In line with theory, we find that “local QoG” is associated with individual levels of community trust. This finding—in a low‐corrupt, high‐trust egalitarian society—strengthens the universality of the QoG‐perspective.     

Political Support for Decentralization: An Analysis of the Colombian and Venezuelan Legislatures

A worldwide trend of decentralizing political power, fiscal authority, and the responsibility for providing services to subnational governments has been especially evident in Latin America over the past decade. This article focuses on variation in intracountry support for decentralization, using data on bill initiation from Colombia and Venezuela to determine the domestic sources of this policy. While the data support prior findings that decentralization is supported by parties whose future electoral prospects are better at the subnational level, the analysis also shows that citizen's trust in government and greater wealth affect a deputies' support for decentralization .     

The Political Budget Cycle and Subnational Debt Expenditures in Federations: Panel Data Evidence from India

What political variables explain variations in subnational fiscal expenditures on interest payments on the debt? The author argues that the political budget cycle and center‐right political party ideology—rather than the effective number of parties, alternation of power, ideological proximity between the central government and constituent units, or most forms of political party ideology—can help explain the level of expenditures on interest payment of subnational debt in India. The core empirical finding is that significant increases in expenditures on the debt occur the year in which a state assembly election is held in India.     

Distance,services, and citizen perceptions of the state in rural Africa

In most poor countries, basic services in rural areas are less accessible and of lower quality than those in urban settings. In this article, we investigate the subnational geography of service delivery and its relationship with citizens' perceptions of their government by analyzing the relationship between service access, satisfaction with services and government, and the distance to urban centers for more than 21,000 survey respondents across 17 African countries. We confirm that access to services and service satisfaction suffer from a spatial gradient. However, distant citizens are less likely than their urban peers to translate service dissatisfaction into discontent with their government; distant citizens have more trust in government and more positive evaluations of both local and national officials. Our findings suggest that increasing responsiveness and accountability to citizens as a means of improving remote rural services may face more limits than promoters of democratic governance and citizen‐centered accountability presume.