Going beyond the Buzzwords of Decentralization and Local
Governance Reform
Fumihiko Saito
Ryukoku University
Any quotation nor circulation of this paper is prohibitedwithout the permission of the author.
Abstract:Decentralization measures are one of the most frequently implemented institutional
reforms in the world. While they are commonly interpreted as “transferring functions andauthorities from the central to local governments,” they in fact mean building appropriate
institutional capacity both at the central as well as sub-national levels in responding to a newly
refined division of responsibilities. Thus, in order for decentralization to be successful, capacity
development (CD) needs to be carefully pursued at different levels/spheres of the government. In
addition, sufficient attention should be paid to how CD of governments can be put into synergetic
effects with that of NGOs and the private sector. Building multi-dimensional partnershiparrangements is easy to be said but difficult to be realized not only in the North but also in the South.
For this difficult task to move forward, recent empirical investigations of decentralization measures,
evolving theory/theories of institutions, and increasing articulation of governance analyses are all
helpful but insufficient. Much more careful conceptualization is needed to go beyond the
buzzwords of CD, governance and institutional change. Institutional design principles also need tobe carefully crafted to reflect the political economy of each situation.
1 Introduction
The world today still suffers from poverty. Development efforts to mitigate widespreadpoverty in the south have made significant progress since the end of World War II, but there remain
considerable challenges to eliminate poverty in our time. Our understanding of poverty and ofcountermeasures to combat human suffering and misery has improved substantially since the second
half of the twentieth century. Initially, poverty was conceptualized as a deficiency of material
prosperity, and the mainstream understanding was equating development with economic growth.
Thus making development plans to modernize societies in the south with a top-down approach wasconsidered effective.

While this notion has not totally disappeared today, the contemporary

scholars and practitioners alike understand poverty more as a multi-dimensional phenomena
encompassing not only as material deficiencies but also social exclusion and politico-cultural
marginalization (Stewart et al, 2007). The countermeasures therefore need to be relatively morebottom up promoting participation of the poor and the marginalized in decision making. While the*

The research of this article was made possible by various funds of Ryukoku University, especially Local

Human Resources and Public Policy Development System Open Research Centre (LORC), Ryukoku
University http://lorc.ryukoku.ac.jp/eng/index.html.

115debate about what development is and should be all about remains, it can be safe to say that it isessentially a process of social change.1
This gradual evolution of our understanding of development has also affected how externalinterventions, especially in the form of aid, can and should be provided primarily from rich to poor
countries. When top-down initiatives were considered effective, aid was often provided by foreign
experts and the poor did not have much say about what they wanted to receive or how they wanted
to be supported in order to move out of the poverty trap.

Once bottom-up methods became more

preferable as has been practiced by numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs),2
participatory approaches have become a kind of new imperative for aid to be planned andimplemented (Cornwall and Brock, 2005).
Alongside of this evolution there has been an increasing emphasis on the role of institutions tobring about social change, particularly since the 1980s. The emergence of institutional focus
promoted heated debates about old and new institutional analyses in several social science
disciplines (Peters & Pierre, 2007). More practically, effectiveness of institutions in aid-recipient
countries started to receive much attention. Influential aid donors started to pay increasing
attention to the agenda of so-called good governance (Smith, 2007) as well as of building institutionsin the south for effective development management.

Thus, in both academic and practical arenas,(re)newed emphasis on institutions produced a cadre of new concepts and management tools. The
prime examples include governance and capacity development (CD).
The purpose of this article is to investigate whether the increasing circulation of these newconcepts has contributed to the substantive improvement in our understanding of development. Or,
are they just other “buzzwords,” which can be interpreted differently for different purposes, andthereby contributing substantially little? In order to investigate these important questions, thisarticle focuses on decentralization.

It is primarily because decentralization measures, in one formor another, have been implemented in wide-spread countries, and have been a key institutional
reform agenda promoted by influential aid donors. Thus, uncovering to what extent
decentralization measures have achieved the assumed objectives is useful to examine wider issues ofgovernance and CD.

2 Brief Review of Key Concepts

Different scholars and analysts tend to use the essential concepts differently. Thus, although
it is not easy to provide a precise definition of them, some explanations are provided to byhighlighting commonalities.

1

The debate about development might be articulated by the critique of so-called post development.
for example, Ziai, 2007.
2
For the potentials and limitations of NGOs, see for example, Bebbington et al, 2008.

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See,

2-1 Institutions
When development was primarily understood as economic modernization, economic thinking
dominated the development agenda. The prime institution for economic growth is markets, andsocial and political mechanisms did not receive much attention. However, in the 1980s what was
assumed as a rational and agreeable goal of fostering markets by the structural adjustment
programmes (SAPs) faced tremendous difficulties in implementation. Especially in Africa, several
political leaders have agreed with the international financial institutions about the SAPs, but they
intentionally circumvented the implementation, which was contradictory to their understanding of
the state-society relations (van de Wall, 2001). This discrepancy between assumed economic
rationality and political reality has awakened economists‟ attention to institutional analyses.
Essentially, institutions are “complexes of norms and behaviors that persist over time because
they serve common purposes” (Saito, 2003, p.18). Institutions are different from organizations,which can be defined as structures of recognized roles for particular purposes (ibid). Some, but notall, organizations are institutions. Institutions can be crafted in different ways. Constantinteractions by actors and stakeholders to make transactions (either in economic, social, or politicalarenas) may create certain norms which can serve for mutually beneficial outcomes. Wheninstitutions are stable and functioning, these actors depend on such institutions precisely because theoutcomes are predictable.

Institutions, therefore, relate to the rules of the game in which these

actors and stakeholder are engaged. 3 Understanding the importance of institutions is essential forsocial change including economic growth (North, 2005).
For developmental purposes, it is deemed preferable when institutions are functioning.
Effective institutions reduce transaction costs. They can facilitate social change. On the other
hand, institutions do not exit ahistorically.

Institutions are embedded in a particular socio-historicalcontexts and designing new ones are still influenced by the wider circumstances in which designing
processes are unfolding.

Institutional reform, therefore, needs much care for success. Any changeof the rules of the game produces both winners and losers. Some are supportive of it, while others
are against it. This reality poses tremendous management challenges, particularly in the
resource-scarce situations in the south.

2-2 Governance
The term governance is widely used, and subject related to economic growth is only one ofsuch wide usages (Kjær, 2004).

Broadly, it relates to both processes and outcomes of (formal andinformal) rules applied to diverse actors in the pursuit of common social concerns (Saito, 2003, p.19).
The difference between government and governance highlights the fundamental reasons why this3

For a good understanding of relations between institutions and wider social issues, see Peters & Pierre,
2007.

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term has been used frequently especially since the 1980s. The term government has been with us
for a long time. The government was and still is considered as an important actor that resolves
many critical social issues. When government is well resourced, it can fulfill the expectation of the
big state, which historically been associated with the notion of the welfare state. This fulfillment isbased on the assumption that citizens‟ expectation is rather simple and homogeneous, andstate-society relation is stable.

This assumption does not apply to many governments in the world

today whether they are in the north or in the south. Most of the governments are not sufficiently
resourced. Demands by citizens are ever diverse today, and state-society relations sometimes faceimminent crises. Many citizens in the north do not believe in “democracy” as it operates recently.
In this kind of situations, the governments alone cannot resolve many critical social issues today.
Thus, government is only one of the agents which might be able to resolve social issues. It is rathera facilitator that coordinates joint collaborative actions with other stakeholders. This new situationnecessitated to create a new word of governance. 4
What is important is that the notion of governance signifies, first of all, the shift ofcoordination mechanisms (Peters and Pierre, 2003). Previously, government depended on
bureaucracy for administrating tasks and duties. Bureaucracy adopted a hierarchical structure inwhich command and control was the main mode of operation. For managing top-down initiatives,
bureaucracy was suitable. Now, governance is about partnerships of different agents. The
coordination mechanism is horizontal in which trust and mutual respect is needed. Bottom-up
endeavors need participation of diverse stakeholders recognizing each as an important representationof citizens. Second, this new notion emphasizes the network of diverse agents and stakeholders(e.g. Rhodes, 2007). This kind of network is fluid and changes constantly depending on how
available knowledge and expertise can be jointed together in order to resolve complex andmulti-dimensional issues that the today‟s world are facing.

Government may still be the center ofthe network, but may not be necessarily so. 5
Any change of governing mechanisms affects how stakeholders interpret the new rules of thegame. Thus interactions in a new situation usually no longer display the same sort of behaviors byagents and stakeholders. The interactions among diverse stakeholders are affected by a change intrust and respect among themselves.

2-3 Capacity Development
The term of capacity development (CD) is used in this article even if other words such as
institution building and capacity-building have been used more or less interchangeably. CD can beconceptualized at different levels: individuals, organizations in which they belong, and wider society

4Here, we are not referring to global governance as scholars of international relations apply the term
governance. This subject deserves separate importance.
5
Bevir (2007) is a good collection of issues related to governance and public policy.

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(Fukuda-Par et al., 2002). Thus, roughly, it is defined as an endogenous process of cumulative
improvement of capabilities, ranging from individuals to social levels, resolving common goals indeveloping countries (JICA, 2006). Some analysts pay more attention to the level of society rather
than individual or organizational units. For instance, accordingly to Shunji Matsuoka, CD entails
the ability of social actors (government, firms, and citizens) to monitor, analyze and evaluate criticalsocietal problems such as environment (Matsuoka, 2007).

Social CD is fundamentally aboutproblem solving by a given community or society. Social CD can therefore be examined by two
aspects.

The first one is the unit, who‟s capacity is to be built? Second, what is the source ofability?

The main sources may include policy, knowledge, and human resources. Obviously thesetwo questions are interrelated, and ability one agency affects elements of other ability as well.
CD is much related to external intervention, especially as a form of aid projects. Whendevelopment was about economic modernization, numerous large-scale aid projects were
implemented to build variety of infrastructures. Although such projects made a certain contribution,
they usually created a new set of problems in maintenance and sustainability.

Thus, with thechange of our understanding of poverty and development, it became increasingly emphasized thatdevelopment should be about people not about large dams and airports, for instance.
People-centered development calls for empowerment of the socially weak and the disadvantaged(Eade, 1997). In addition, in order to enhance effectiveness of aid projects, national governments
need to play a more assertive role rather than passively accepting foreign aid. Ownership ofrecipients came to be emphasized (Fukuda-Par et al., 2002). CD, in this kind of evolving
understanding, came to hold a key position in linking the various levels of ability improvement fromindividual empowerment of the poor to the national ownership of development planning andcoordinated implementation by the governments in the south.6
The definition of CD accordingly came to emphasize the endogenous processes, even if many
aid projects are aimed to attain CD as their project goals.

While it is acknowledged that one levelof CD does not lead to the next level automatically, usually these aid projects are implemented withthe expectation that several key components would produce synergetic effects: individual level CDtrough training, organizational CD reform to build leadership and to introduce incentive mechanisms,
and knowledge transferred from external sources is to be internalized to build a wider bases for CD
in a country.

3 Decentralization Measures
Decentralization measures are processes through which authorities and functions aretransferred from a central to sub-national units of the government.
6

In many parts of the world today,

CD, therefore, has not attracted much attention of scholars as the notions of institution and governancehave done.

119various forms of decentralization measures have been implemented.
states will fulfill high expectations reflecting the demands of our time.
expected to make the states both democratic and developmental.

It is hoped that decentralized
These measures are

Toward democratization,

decentralization intends to widen the opportunities for citizens to participate in local
decision-making processes.

As for economic development, the decentralized states are expected toreduce poverty by making public services more responsive to the needs of people.

Decentralization,

therefore, has often been regarded as a “panacea” as well as a normatively justified policy that has
no room for criticism, particularly when it was introduced by international aid agencies in the late1980s (World Bank, 1999).
It may not be much an exaggeration to say that both such excessive expectations and uncritical
approval have made critical scrutiny of decentralization very difficult.

It is only recently that amore realistic assessment is generated by empirical research (e.g. Saito, 2003).

While the goodintention of decentralization can be appreciated, it is necessary to examine whether such a noble
intention can actually be realized under the harsh realities of today‟s world, especially in developing
countries.

The crucial question is under what conditions decentralization measures can be

successful both politically and economically.
Recent empirical findings conclude several important lessons (Devas & Delay, 2006; Grindle,
2007; Saito, 2008). First, decentralization is a redefinition of what roles and functions to be
performed at what levels of the government.

It is thus a redefinition of what authorities thegovernment as a whole should and can have.
Second, while the phrase “nation building” is no longer commonly used nowadays (unlike inthe 1960s), efforts of public sector restructuring in general, and of decentralization endeavors inparticular, are indeed inexplicably linked with the notion of nation building (Bangura and Larbi,
2006). Government in general, in whatever balance is effected between the central and local
governments, therefore, continues to play an important role.

It is appropriate to say that the

governance agenda has recently highlighted the role of the government (Batley and Larbri, 2004;
Bates, 2006); it is usually very difficult to attain “good governance” without “good government.”
Third, decentralization is essentially a political process.

Although there are several importantfactors that distinguish successful from unsuccessful implementation, perhaps the most essential ispolitical motivation.

As presented by recent analyses (Grindle, 2007; Saito, 2008), one of the mostsignificant factors for success is the nature of the state itself and how the reform of the state isunderstood by political leadership in the countries of Asia and Africa and elsewhere.

Therefore, fora full understanding of decentralization reform, it is indispensable to pay due attention to factors
related to political dynamics.
Fourth, any successful decentralization measures need a concomitant democratization reformat both national and local levels (Heller, 2001). Unless political competition and possibility of
handover of power increases at the national-level, introducing direct election at local councils and120

legislatures alone would not fundamentally alter the political landscape that essentially define
decentralization measures. Likewise, without due increase of political participation by citizens at
the national-level decision making, efforts to promote participatory planning and management bylocal governments and NGOs would not be sustainable.
Fifth, much more attention needs to be paid to the role of media. Even thoughdecentralization measures have been implemented in numerous countries both in the north and in thesouth, this issue has not attracted sufficient attention. In order for decentralization to achieve theintended result of development and democratization, accountability mechanisms, especially
downward channels to relate the government with the grassroots people, need to be improved. For
such improvement, citizens need much more information of what kinds of authorities and budgets
are allocated to each level of the government. Local media has a curtail role to play to disseminate
such information and encourage citizens‟ understanding of the relevance of local governments totheir daily lives.7

4 Theoretical Assessment of Decentralization
Decentralization measures are particularly useful to examine the extent of usefulness of threeessential keywords introduced in this article. In brief, decentralization can be seen as three forms at
once; it is about institutional change, governance reform as well as CD.

Decentralization is a form

institutional change, because, as already pointed out, it inevitably changes how authorities andfunctions are allocated to different levels of the government. Precisely because it is about a change
in the rules of the game, it creates a fluid transition affecting numerous stakeholders (some aregovernment agencies and others are private entities).

Each interprets the new change differently.

Tangible and intangible improvements may emerge as a result of contested negotiations of possiblycompeting interpretations (North, 2005).
Decentralization is also an important governance reform.

It affects how central and local

government offices discharge respective duties. Yet, these duties are not completely separated.
Instead unless careful coordination ensures that each does what it can do best, decentralization
creates more problems for a government, including discharging their obligation in service delivery to
the public. Thus, decentralization measures highlight interdependence of different levels of public
offices, as much more continuous interactions between them becomes necessary for successful
functioning of the government as a whole (Rhodes, 2007).
In addition, decentralization measures are one form of complex CD. With decentralization,
both a central and local governments have new responsibilities. The central government needs toplay a role of coordination and supporting local governments in administering important functions.
The local governments usually need tremendous augmentation of human and financial resources,
7

Agomor and Obayashi (2008) provide an interesting introductory study in this direction.

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usually from the center, to plan and implement public services. Thus, individual, organizational,
and social CD needs to be linked (JICA, 2006).
Furthermore, CD efforts within the government sector alone often may not be sufficient.
Unless citizens are empowered to scrutinize local accountability, decentralization may create morecorruption at local levels. Local media again has an important role to play.

In addition, theprivate sector also has an important role for forging public-private-partnerships. But precisely
because of pervasive poverty, the private sector also need CD, especially in Africa.

5 Implications for Future Research
It has become abundantly obvious by now that the concepts of institutions, governance, andCD have much too common.

There are certain commonalities among these essential terms. First,

all presupposes that there are multiple actors and stakeholders. There would be no institution, norgovernance, nor CD (except at the individual level) if there is only one person in a society. Second,
all notions relate to human behavior and behavioral changes. Such changes are hoped to be in the
direction of much desired development. Third, what is shared as an essential concern iscoordination, which should harness abilities and talents of diverse stakeholders in order to resolve
critical issues that no one alone can resolve decisively.
Then, it has some major implications for future research. First, all of these words still tend toremain buzzwords, and may lack analytical clarity (Cornwall and Brock, 2005). Even if theseterms are widely circulated, and will continue to be used widely, sufficient care needs to be taken
when such terms are used. While it may still be necessary to use these terms, partly because they
originate from different backgrounds and disciplines, loose application of these terms may not only
be misleading but counter-productive in practical efforts on the ground.
Second, as these three terms have much too common, the crux of the matter is to investigatethat commonality: how coordination occurs among diverse actors and agents which may form
network for common purposeful actions and behaviors; and in what ways such coordination may besupported by aid projects. In other words, institutions exit not in void of social, economic andpolitical contexts. One type of institution is related to another bundle of institutions. A change in
one institution – a rule of the game – affects how other institutions function.

Likewise, it isimportant to investigate what would the actual and potential sources of problem solving abilities.
How each individual and organizational levels could become mutually reinforcing? In what ways
such synergy can become effective?

Analyzing multiple cause and effects of this kind ofinter-related changes in a wider society is at the heart of the investigation, and applying whichever
the term of institution, or governance, or CD should not prevent us from seeing the core objective of
our investigation.

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Third, this discussion brings us to the notion of the state,8 because it is about the relationshipbetween those in power (government) and those who are governed (citizens). 9 In order for any
state to function legitimately, how to aggregate interests of citizens becomes an important concern.
Corporatism was and probably still is a mechanism to bring such interests into the processes ofgoverning.

In liberal interpretation of corporatism, organized interests in mature liberal

democracies gain privileged status and institutional access to policy formulation of national
government (Haywood, 2007, p. 299). But many governments today face significant erosions of
their ability and credibility, and shifting the understanding of the governments from that of resolving
problems (the rowing role) by themselves to that of becoming facilitators networking with otherpartners (the steering role) reflects our understanding today of how the state can be reconstituted
more effectively in contemporary circumstances. Decentralization is a method conceived useful forsuch reconstitution and thus is accompanied with all sorts of buzzwords.

6 Re-emphasized Role of the StateThe re-emphasized role of the state represents a clear departure from the dominant thinking in
the 1980s when the role of the state for social good was de-emphasized.

It is ironical that

decentralization introduced by the neo-liberalists in the late 1980s in order to reduce the size of thegovernment for development and democratization now brings back the role of the state in whichgovernment is anticipated to play a pivotal role. Recent findings of empirical research ofdecentralization point two important lessons for both academicians and practitioners.
First, in order for any decentralization measures to be successful it is absolutely necessary toharmonize and coordinate in a much more systematic way different reform endeavors that are often
implemented separately from each other.

Effective decentralization policies need to be examinedwithin a holistic framework.

Often support for the government, market, and civil society is offeredwithout much mutual linkage.

More specifically, decentralization is often pursued for theadministrative reform, while privatization and liberalization are implemented for harnessing market
forces. In addition, participatory and empowerment-focused grassroots activities are conducted inorder to release the energy of civil society.

8

According to a widely used textbook, the state is “a political association that establishes sovereign
jurisdiction within defined territorial borders, and exercises authority through a set of permanent
institutions. These institutions are those that are recognizably „public‟ in that they are responsible for thecollective organization of communal life, and are funded at the public‟s expense” (Haywood, 2007, p.
91).
9
It is interesting to point out that G.W.F. Hegel considered that the state is a separate entity from family
and civil society. The extension of this is found in modeling society in three sectors of government,
private enterprise, and civil society. However, it is important to remind us that this conceptualization ofsociety is “culturally and historically driven.” This model also reflects the desirability of the separationof “public” from “private” spheres of life. This desirability does not apply to many of Africans. See
Tripp, 2005.

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What is problematic is that these respective measures are usually planned with its own logic
and provided without a coherent vision.

Decentralizing administration reflects a wide array of

thinking including theories of political participation and neo-liberal economics and its related
sub-field of new public management (Saito, 2003, chapter 2). Market liberalism is based on
neo-liberal economics (van de Wall, 2001). Participatory development and empowerment derivefrom again variety of sources including popular education, feminist thinking and political science(Luttrell, 2007).

This kind of scattered support has produced partial results at best.

What isneeded is a linking of these separate assistance activities with a focus on locality (Helling et al.
2005).

Thus, what is expected for a local government as a coordinator is much more than what iscommonly understood.

The genuine coordination not only encompasses creating administrative

committees and systems which cut across bureaucratic boundaries to ensure continuity andcoherence, but also devising a new kind of vision which is a blend of public administration,
economics and neo-populist thinking.
If this first task primarily rests with practitioners, then the second one is more analytical.
Since decentralization measures introduce changes in rules of the game, they affect institutions,some of which are formal and others are informal.

The crucial point is in what ways does theformal reorganization of decentralization foster/hinder the informal interactions among
stakeholders? Once rules of the game are affected, people become no longer confident of what thisnew change will entail. Thus, people were concerned with unpredictable behaviors of otherstakeholders with whom some transactions may be necessary for daily survival. As formal
institutions become less predictable, people are pushed toward something that they are familiar with.
This often ends up, in transitional periods, with more clientalistic and neo-patrimonial behaviors
rather than “rational” behaviors that the institutional reforms are often based upon.
adaptation has been observed in many parts of the world (Hyden, 2006).

10This kind ofWith decentralization,

local political leaders often promise that once they are elected to office, they can bring tangible
benefits for local communities.

The voters also tend to judge which candidate is likely to bringmore benefits to secure their day to day necessities. In the end, even if individual choice may be“rational,” cumulative effects in a wider society may be detrimental. Neo-patrimonialism, often
resorted through informal institutions, is a prime example of such devastation and does not foster
conducive political culture for development nor democracy. 11This understandable behavior increases coordination costs, because what formal institutions
are intended and what people react through informal arrangements diverge. Put differently, once a

10

Grindle (2007) describes one such example in Mexico. Discussion of “coopération décentralisée” inBurkina Faso by Iwata (2008) is another example.
11
Hyden (2006) calls neo-patrimonialism as the “ultimate form of clientelism in politics” (p. 79). With
access to state power and wealth, leaders personally control public affairs. With such exploitation, akind of perverted legitimacy is created between leaders (who distribute benefits according to their own
logic) and followers (who seek to satisfy their particular demands) (p. 96).

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change is introduced in one level of institution, a bundle of institutions does not necessarily movetoward the same direction backed by the same sort of thinking. This incongruence puts thegoverning arrangements more in trouble. No matter how well intended they are, aid projects,
therefore, need to be designed and implemented with much more careful understanding of bothformal and informal institutions. 12
CD in this kind of situations faces a fundamental dilemma. It is precisely because social CD
needs to take place in multiple fronts simultaneously.

CD at formal government institutions is for“rational” purposes, while CD at firms and citizens‟ levels may reinforce informal behaviors in linewith clientalistic orientations.

The two values do not converge in any significant way. 13 Here isa paradox. On the one hand, a local government needs much more support for CD, as it is thepivotal coordinator to harmonize different avidities of the government, markets and citizens for the
betterment of local community. On the other hand, citizens who tend to act as clients may just see
local government leaders and officials just another kind of patrons who would in turn return thekinds of benefits that they are seeking. Indeed, as the local government comes to be developedwith improved CD and resources, more people may resort to engage in clientalistic behavior
perceiving such local government as their good patrons.

The behavioral logic here is different fromthat on which the decentralized administrative reform is based.
In order to prevent this kind of incompatibility, much more careful empirical research isneeded. Even if the literature is mushrooming, often country specific findings are not comparable,
because research design vary considerably from case to case. Also, more cross-fertilization ofdiverse academic disciplines is needed for advancing theoretical investigations.

7 Interesting Cases of Uganda and Kerala, India
What is interesting is that successful cases show relative congruence between formal andinformal norms/rules.

The examples include the Local Council (LC) system in Uganda and theexperience of the state of Kerala, India. Uganda is often cited as one of the most experienced
countries in implementing decentralization in Africa.

When the current National Resistance

Movement (NRM) government took power in 1986, the state was virtually void of any formal
institutions due to the preceding long lasted civil war. The NRM attempted to stabilize society inorder to prevent Uganda from falling back into another vicious cycle of political instability,
economic collapse and human misery. One key institutional reform was the introduction of the LC

12

This signifies that, in such circumstances, while it may not be impossible for aid projects to beeffective, it certainly requires much in-dept understanding of contexts in which aid projects are designed
and managed.
13This repeats what we saw in the past, when the SAPs were “agreed.” They were in fact implemented
according to different logic and understanding (van de Wall, 2001) between the international donors andAfrican governments.

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system which was a five-tier hierarchy of legislatures and administrative committees ranging fromvillage to district levels. When the grassroots population encountered with the LC system for the
first time particularly in the 1990s, many considered that it was something that they knew before.
Historical experiences of “village democracy” before the colonial period began, in the eyes of themany, has revitalized as a formal policy.

There have been concomitant efforts to makedecentralization successful. The constitution making was participatory and the elaborated legal
system on local government followed. Significant efforts were made to transfer financial resources
and numerous training activities have been conducted to sensitize the role of both political andadministrative leaders at various localities. Today, the village council system is highly evaluated by
the ordinary people. About one third of the rural population attends the regular council meetings(Saito, 2003 and 2008), and village council is the most trusted public institution in Uganda ahead ofpresident, parliament, newspapers and police (Logan et al., 2003).
Of course, it would be too crude to single out one factor that made decentralization in Uganda
successful. Nonetheless, it would be reasonable to argue that the formal institutional mechanism
was in line with what many have experienced before. This historical experience reduced theanxiety of how this institution would evolve. Then the renewed council system became moretrustful by the ordinary villagers. Of course, the LC system and decentralization in Uganda still
face problems and are not totally free from clientalistic maneuvering.

However, the extent oflocal corruption has been reduced significantly and appears to be relatively low compared with other
African countries.

This success is largely due to the relative fit between formal and informal

institutional arrangement in this land-locked African state. 14
India is also a very interesting country for assessing decentralization.
and adopts a federal system.

India is a huge country,

The history of local governments in India is fairly long andcomplicated. The 1993 constitutional amendments were really the beginning of a significant
change in our time to bring local autonomy. Because India is a federal state, the detail ofarrangements was entrusted to state governments. Thus how each state utilized the opportunities
given by the amendments differs markedly from the state to state. What stands out is theexperience of Kerala, which is located at the southern end of India.

Kerala is known

internationally for its outstanding human development showing, for example, high health andeducational attainment in spite of the economic hardship in the area.

Because this contrasts with allother states in India, Kerala is often praised as a unique development model in South Asia. Again,even if it would be too arbitrary to analyze the model in a schematic way, several scholars link
Kerala‟s contemporary attainment to a series of local public actions taken historically (Heller, 2001).
In the 1960s the local educationalists established a community organization to educate the rural
people. This was a beginning of social movements, and very interestingly enough, one movement
was followed by another without massive support by foreign agents.
14

For Uganda, see Saito, 2003 and 2008
126

In this series of socialmovements, the state government came to realize that it would be more effective to collaborate withthe civic leaders to achieve significant development. The partnership was realized in the early
1990s when the state government launched the Total Literacy Campaign, primarily targeted toreduce adult literacy.

Then, it was a natural evolution that when in 1996 a new policy of People‟sPlan and Campaign was introduced, the collaboration between the state government and civic
leaders continued to facilitate this “participatory budgeting” exercise in which a certain proportion of
the state budget is reserved for activities agreed by a bottom-up consultation and planning byordinary people. 15
Here, the experience shows that participation of the ordinary people helps create a sense ofownership to those activities that they agreed and supported by the government fund. Even if thescale of activities is small, some tangible changes in daily lives are realized, and this helps reduce
the so-called participatory fatigue in this kind of bottom-up exercises. Obviously the Kerala modelis far from perfect. However, what is crucial is that before formal institutional amendment was
made, people in Kerala already had some good experience of collaboration between the state
government and civil leaders. Many have already convinced that grassroots actions led by the civil
leaders can change society.

This experience appears to reduce the anxiety associated with an

introduction of a new policy and institution in the name of decentralization. In contrast with otherstates in India, the accumulated experience helped Kerala to reduce coordination costs in launching a
new Campaign for social development.
success.

It was why decentralization in Kerala was a notable

16

8 Conclusion
Decentralization measures have been widely implemented in one way or another in numerous
countries.

They are the representations of three types of reform agenda simultaneously:

institutional; governance; and CD. Since these key concepts derive from different backgrounds anddisciplines, they will continue to be circulated among academicians and practitioners alike.
However, sufficient care needs to be exercised because these key “buzzwords” are applied loosely in
too many times. Instead, what is needed is a careful examination of real issues that these notionsattempt to uncover. For decentralization to be successful, more empirical research is still needed toanalyze, for instance, in what ways do any changes introduced in formal institutions affect informal
behaviors of stakeholders in engaging other relevant organizations. What would be the sources ofcongruence or incongruence between formal and informal arrangements? Under what kind of
circumstances can individual CD lead to organizational CD? To reach satisfactory understandingof complex relations within some bundles of formal and informal institutions, much more
15
16

For “participatory budgeting,” the literature has been mashrooming. See, for instance, Shah, 2007.
For Kerala, India, see Saito & Kato, 2008 and Harilal, 2008.

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cross-fertilization of research among different disciplines and careful research design to allow
comparative analyses are needed.

Only with such complex and in-dept understanding, aid

projects may become more successful. 1717This has two practical implications for aid. First, for better understanding of complexities of local
societies, involvement of local and foreign researchers in project preparation should perhaps receive more
attention. Second, the successful aid project may need to tackle several different fronts simultaneously.
For instance, as the Kerala experience demonstrates, aid might target to forge collaborative relations
between government offices and civil society organizations. If each is weak, respective organizations
and groups need CD through aid. However, forging partnerships by external intervention is usually very
difficult. For successful attempts, much more nuanced trial and error processes may be needed.

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