Toward a Political Economy of Local Governance in Africa: Policies, Institutions, Interests, and Consequences

Abstract

"This paper is an attempt to develop and explore a model of what might be called the 'political economy' of local governance in Africa, and how it affects several of the policies and institutions used to organize key aspects of decentralization and local governance. It explores how the various institutions and policies developed by the center affect, impede, and sometimes destroy nascent local governance. The paper's thesis is that these key functional and structural issues have not yet been resolved in a way which works to encourage and sustain effective local governance. It is also that these failures are caused, by at least in part, by the political economy that in Africa seems to grow up around local governance in Africa."