Call for papers
“Central and Local Governments’ Relations : Two Opposite Trends ?”
For the International Political Science Association Conference to be held in Istanbul on 23-28 July 2016.
The panel seeks to investigate current trends in central and local governments’ relations. Two divergent processes appear in scholarly debates. On the one hand, during the last three decades, reforms fostering decentralisation have been a common trend across a range of countries. They went with the development of multilevel governance in policy making. On the other hand, more recently, reforms aimed at reducing state deficits have functioned as a recentralisation process. Increased control over public expenditure has put new constraints over local governments’ actions. Both of these trends have opposite consequences for the discretion of local governments’ policies and for the way localized interests are represented vis-à-vis the central government.
To address such puzzle, the panel welcomes papers that analyse changes in the distribution of power between central and local governments by: 1) focusing on substantive institutional reforms (modified competences), on financial transfers and fiscal policies, and on sector-based case studies; 2) shedding light on the political competition: how parties and territorial interests deal with these processes, which are the competing visions, which forms of legitimacy are put forward; 3) advancing the understanding of the outcomes of these processes in terms of territorial differentiation and the evolution on sub-national inequalities. Diversity in papers’ methodologies and case-studies, and comparative research are valued.