GOLD Report I - UCLG

POSTFACE308 United Cities and Local Governmentster, more exact, is the only one, as we willsee, which has a normative scope. Decentralizationshould also be distinguishedfrom related notions: devolution, originallyan English concept, and deconcentration,which is of French origin and the notion ofdelegation.But it still signifies, and this is the basis ofits unity, an institutional and political differentiationbetween the state and the localauthorities, and the legitimacy of representationat local level of public interestsdistinct from those for which the state isresponsible.8. Op. cit. p.4.In its broadest sense, decentralizationexpresses a quality of the relations betweenlevels of authority one of which is under thecontrol of the other. We say that these relationsare more or less decentralized, dependingon whether the inferior power benefitsmore or less from freedom of action in theexercise of its attributions under the controlof the superior power. The notion of decentralizationcan thus apply both to the relationsbetween the federal power and themember states (for example Austrian orAustralian types of federalism are said to bemore centralized than those in the USA orCanada) and to the relations between thestate and local authorities in a unitary state,or between the federated entities and thelocal authorities which they comprise, oreven to the internal relations in a companyor a group of companies considered as anorganization.In the narrow sense, decentralizationmeans that local authorities are establishedby the law, have a legal personalityand are administered by bodies throughwhich they exercise, with a degree ofliberty, the powers and responsibilitiesthey obtain from the law under the controlof the state. This notion was first assertedin France. According to an English variantfound in many countries influenced by Britishtradition, the law confers the legalpersonality and powers not on the communitiesbut on the bodies; since the 90s, it isthis concept which has been followed, withcertain differences, by Russian legislationand that of other former Soviet Unioncountries. Decentralization understood inthis way, depending on the variant, hasresulted in quite different regimes from thepoint of view of local institutions and theself-governance left to local authorities.From decentralization in its narrowest sense,we must compare and distinguish theEnglish notion of devolution, which onehesitates to translate as “dévolution” inFrench. It is a relatively imprecise notionwhich appeared at the end of the 19 th centuryas an attempt to respond to the Irishindependence movement through an internalregime of extensive self-government(Home Rule). Devolution corresponds tothe transfer of wide-ranging powers to apolitical assembly for the management ofinternal affairs. The word was used todesignate the projects in the 70s and thereforms of 1998, which transferred importantpowers and means to regional bodies.But it is also used, today, in a broader sense,particularly outside the UK, to designatetransfers of power to local or regionalcommunities.The meaning of the word devolution thusseems akin to a distinction commonly madetoday between political decentralizationand administrative decentralization. Butthe criterion of the distinction is far fromclear. In the typology of decentralizationproposed in the UNDP report referred toabove, administrative decentralization ischaracterized by the fact that the localauthorities are accountable to the higherauthority. This corresponds to what onecould call de-concentration or delegation(depending on the cases - cf. infra). Thiscontrol relation (accountability) withthe higher authority does not exist inpolitical decentralization nor in devolution,which implies a total transferof powers and responsibilities, decision-makingpower and resources,including the power to procure resources8 . However, devolution does not necessarilyimply that the local authority results