decentralization in developing countries
decentralized systems of governance which have recently emerged in different parts of the world vary considerably.They are structured,funded and held accountable in different ways,and they entail different modes and degrees of popular participation.
The environment at present is quite congenial for a comparative study of decentralization.Admittedly,the concepts of nationally planned development and rule by the people through centralized institutions were largely the contribution of the East European Bloc to the developing world.The current counter-revolutionary trends in Eastern Europe-which rest mainly upon their economic failure,evidenced by poverty and inequality.inefficiency,corruption and insensitivity of the centralized bureaucracy and resentment against the arrogance of party elites,and the consequent rejection of the authoritarian rule in those countries-have generated a favourable climate for decentralization in the developing world as well.During the latter half of the 1980s, there was a noticeable tendency to decentralize in a number of developing countries,whose limited experiences need to be documented.