Douglas E. Ashford

TERRITORIAL POLITICS AND EQUALITY: DECENTRALIZATION IN THE MODERN STATE

The growth of the public sector over the past two decades has not eliminated the importance of local government, and may have actually increased conflict over policies affecting local government. To understand these changes a more articulated concept of centralization is needed which can encompass the reciprocal relationships of various levels of government, and which takes into account their shared claim on national revenues. Using national accounting data, the effect of the growth of public spending from 1963 to 1973 is compared with the relative share allotted to local government in five countries. These trends in the distribution of resources are then compared with the fiscal and financial policies affecting each local government system. The conclusion is that the alternative ways that countries chose to provide resources to the local level may be a better way of gauging relative degrees of centralization over time than the more commonly used absolute measures.

Resources, Spending, and Party Politics in British Local Government

A common basis for reasoning about increasing need for local government support is the high variation of local government resources, measured here by the value of taxable property. The Labour and Conservative parties differ, as do most democratic parties, in their interpretation of how spending should relate to the local resource base. The purpose of the analysis is control for resource base while relating partisan influence on local councils to spending patterns. In fact, the British local government system appears to be relatively impervious to resource differences. Party differences do appear to be affected by resources in boroughs under Conservative control. The larger implication of the study is that the British appear to have devised a local government system where policy, in terms of per capita and total amounts of spending, is unrelated to the partisan structure of politics.

Parti Es and Participation in British Local Government and Some American Parallels

an increasingly important role in the towns, cities, and other subunits of local government of most democracies. There are two prevailing views of this trend, each based on very different assumptions. The first is that local governments are basically the conduit for extending services and benefits to citizens (Sharpe, 1970). In general, this view holds that the jurisdictional confusion of local government is an obstacle to effective government, and that the political vitality of the local government unit in terms of its partisan links to the center, voter turnout and participation, and the like are of secondary importance. Thus, the first view places emphasis on nationalization through the control of local government finance, provision of standard services, and unification of local units to provide the &dquo;optimal&dquo; size local government. Nationalization through political channels is often viewed with suspicion, if not simply rejected as retrogressive and inefficient. The second position starts from more distinctly political premises, considering the vitality of democracy at the local level as an indicator of democratic vitality in the entire system. If local governments have active two-party systems, a high degree of voter interest and participation, and competitive local councils, so also will the local citizens benefit from more responsive government, communicate their preferences and needs more

Bureaucrats and Citizens

Although it has been recognized that the develop mental process places many new requirements on the official of the developing country, there has been relatively little investi gation of how the relationship between national authority and the emergent citizen may affect the role of the administrator. Using a typology suggested by Professor Apter, the article com pares how a modernizing autocracy (Morocco), a mobilization regime (Tunisia), and a reconciliation regime (Pakistan) differ in bringing influence to bear on the administrator through the political system. The thesis is advanced that rapid change will not be possible unless administrative reorientation is encour aged by the direct impact of the citizen on the bureaucracy, and that political systems vary widely in their capacity to generate and focus such pressures.

The Last Revolution: Community and Nation in Africa

The major revolutions in Africa over the past decade may have distorted our estimates of future develop ment. Considerable evidence shows that African leaders are currently most concerned with the consolidation of power and the construction of highly centralized governments. But, as development proceeds, the community takes on an increas ingly important role and the new government is challenged to reconstruct the political system so as to give a more important role to localities. Despite the efforts to depoliticize communi ties in their relation to the governments of Africa, local reforms must be made and the political system must encompass a more complex pattern of political relationships. To refuse means to risk serious dislocations between levels of government and may produce stiff resistance to changes demanded by develop ment programs.