Democratization and the Reform of Local Government in Mozambique PDF Download

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

View

Book Description

Author: Victor Antonio
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Decentralization in government
Languages : en
Pages : 28

View

Book Description

Author: Fidelx Pius Kulipossa
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 528

View

Book Description

Author: Jeremy Grest
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 25

View

Book Description

Author: P. S. Reddy
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

View

Book Description

Author: Salvador Forquilha
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789292568894
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

View

Book Description
With the introduction of the economic reforms in the late 1980s, the opening up of the political arena and the end of the civil war in the early 1990s, the decentralization process began in Mozambique. Different research developed in recent years shows that, as is the case in other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the impact of the decentralization reforms on the promotion of local development and the strengthening of democracy in Mozambique is modest. How can this modest impact be explained? Based on three important reforms in the decentralization process in Mozambique, namely the '7 million', municipalization and decentralized provincial governance, this article seeks to answer this question by analysing how different aspects of the institutions affect the results of the reforms. The main argument in the article underlines the idea according to which the results of the decentralization reforms in Mozambique are constrained by the nature and by the operation mechanisms of the political system. Of these institutional factors/constraints, state capacity and independence from private interests, particularly political groups, stand out in the three reforms analysed throughout this article. In this context, the reforms develop according to group interests, particularly party political interests, which capture the state and use the reforms as a mechanism for maintaining and bolstering political power. In this sense, rather than being a means of improving the provision of public services and strengthening democracy, decentralization works more as an instrument for reinforcing state control and pandering to the elite. This is probably the biggest challenge decentralization is facing in Mozambique, therefore making it a fundamental issue to be taken into account in any reform in this area, within the context of strengthening democracy and promoting local development.

Author: Adriano Nuvunga
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 120

View

Book Description

Author: Beatrice Anne Reaud
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781267368126
Category : Central-local government relations
Languages : en
Pages : 255

View

Book Description
Governments in weak states routinely fail to deliver services they promised to provide their citizens. In theory, decentralization is supposed to promote accountability at the local level and hence, improve municipal performance by encouraging public participation, building government capacity, and increasing political competition. Decentralization should improve performance because it gives civil society, voters, and fee payers an opportunity to hold local officials accountable by incentivizing them with political and revenue pressures. However, even in cases where decentralization has occurred, local municipalities vary in the extent to which they are effective suppliers of services.

Author: Beatrice Reaud
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
Governments in weak states routinely fail to deliver services they promised to provide their citizens. In theory, decentralization is supposed to promote accountability at the local level and hence, improve municipal performance by encouraging public participation, building government capacity, and increasing political competition. Decentralization should improve performance because it gives civil society, voters, and fee payers an opportunity to hold local officials accountable to providing high municipal service by incentivizing them with political and revenue pressures. Even cases in which decentralization has occurred, local municipalities vary in the extent to which they are effective suppliers of services The literature on decentralization and performance suggests that participation, resources and voting are three accountability mechanisms that affect municipal performance (Crook and Manor 1998; Cheema and Rondinelli 2007). Mozambique, a post-conflict, low-income new democracy that implemented a major decentralization effort in 1998, provides a natural laboratory in which to investigate how these factors cause variation in municipal performance. I found that municipal performance for four case studies is largely reliant on resources provided by donors and the central government. Across these cases, public participation was low and donor-dependent, municipalities relied on central government transfers and donor funding, and a single party dominated state resources, which limited political competition and accountability. However, whereas theory predicted that these conditions do not foster accountability and incubate municipal performance, I found that donors, unearned income, mayoral leadership and political competition improved municipal performance in three cases. First, donors provided resources that capacitated public participation and funded services, which improved municipal performance. This paper, part of a larger research project, presents these findings. Second, decentralization provided authorities with incentives for municipalities to double revenue collections in the face of high aid and central government transfers. Third, mayoral leadership was critical in using resources and authorities to improve performance. Lastly, decentralization provided the political opening in a de facto one-party state for opposition mayors who performed well to have a greater chance of winning re-election. These findings extend beyond international relations to the fields of development studies, public administration and political science. Even in the context of weak institutions and serious constraints, local governments are able to build revenue capacity and sustainable political independence in dominant-party states through decentralization reforms.

Author: Ariane Liazos
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231549377
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237

View

Book Description
Most American cities are now administered by appointed city managers and governed by councils chosen in nonpartisan, at-large elections. In the early twentieth century, many urban reformers claimed these structures would make city government more responsive to the popular will. But on the whole, the effects of these reforms have been to make citizens less likely to vote in local elections and local governments less representative of their constituents. How and why did this happen? Ariane Liazos examines the urban reform movement that swept through the country in the early twentieth century and its unintended consequences. Reformers hoped to make cities simultaneously more efficient and more democratic, broadening the scope of what local government should do for residents while also reconsidering how citizens should participate in their governance. However, they increasingly focused on efficiency, appealing to business groups and compromising to avoid controversial and divisive topics, including the voting rights of African Americans and women. Liazos weaves together wide-ranging nationwide analysis with in-depth case studies. She offers nuanced accounts of reform in five cities; details the activities of the National Municipal League, made up of prominent national reformers and political scientists; and analyzes quantitative data on changes in the structures of government in over three hundred cities. Reforming the City is an important study for American history and political development, with powerful insights into the relationships between scholarship and reform and between the structures of city government and urban democracy.