Decentralization

Decentralization—the transfer of authority and responsibility for public functions from the central government to subordinate or quasi-independent government organizations and/or the private sector — is a complex and multifaceted concept. It embraces a variety of concepts. Different types of decentralization shows different characteristics, policy implications, and conditions for success.

I) Political Decentralization

Political decentralization aims to give citizens or their elected representatives more power in public decision-making. It is often associated with pluralistic politics and representative government, but it can also support democratization by giving citizens, or their representatives, more influence in the formulation and implementation of policies. Advocates of political decentralization assume that decisions made with greater participation will be better informed and more relevant to diverse interests in society than those made only by national political authorities. The concept implies that the selection of representatives from local electoral constituency allows citizens to know better their political representatives and allows elected officials to know better the needs and desires of their constituents. Political decentralization often requires constitutional or statutory reforms, creation of local political units, and the encouragement of effective public interest groups.

We say that everything in our nation is political, but in a deeper sense of the word, almost nothing anymore in our nation is political, and that is the problem. Almost nothing is left to the determination of people, uniting in groups as they see fit to build a common life far more satisfying and more human than anything that a state can rig up or mandate. This freedom of association that I am calling for is nothing other than the very foundation of "government of the people, by the people, for the people" — the self-governance necessary for a Constitutional Republic, though it has been plowed under by the consolidation of power within the federal government by a myriad of corrupt special interests. In this sense, the American people need more political life, not less, as we understand that the ever-growing size and rampant corruption of the federal government, like the sprawling bureaucracies of the Persian empire, tend to strangle the political at the level where we do most of our living: at the level of the neighborhood, the school, the village, the club, the ball field, the library, the town hall, the mill, the church. - Anthony Esolen, The Forgotten Freedom

"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost." - Aristotle