Den Staat in Bewegung bringen: Die Politik der demokratischen Dezentralisierung in Kerala, Südafrika und Porto Alegre

Abstract

Abstract

With the decline of the nation-state as an effective instrument of social provisioning, sub-national local governments have emerged an increasingly critical sites for redistributive struggles. If many initiatives at decentralization in the developing world have amounted to little more than downsizing the state in favor of markets, there have been a number of important efforts at democratic decentralization. In the three cases examined here favorable historical and political circumstances created significant opportunities for strengthening the developmental and participatory character of local governments. In the South Africa, the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre and the Indian state of Kerala, left-of-centre political parties, vibrant civil societies and nationallevel constitutional reforms have created a favorable environment for promoting democratic deepening from the bottom-up. In all three cases significant institutional reforms have promoted democratic variants of decentralization by expanding both the range and scope of popular participation in authoritative decision-making. But ifthe opportunities and basic enabling conditions have been similar, subtle differences in political and social configuration have produced highly varied outcomes. In the cases of Kerala and Porto Alegre, initial reforms have seen a dramatic increase in participation and a strengthening of local planning and budgeting capacity. In contrast, in South Africa constitutional and programmatic commitments to nurturing community-based development have given way to concerted political centralization, the expansion of technocratic and managerial authority and a shift from democratic to market modes of accountability. These varying outcomes are in traced to the relational dynamics between political parties and civil society. In Kerala and Porto Alegre, post-leninist political  parties have created synergistic linkages with social movements, whereas in South Africa the hegemonic politics of the African National Congress has marginalized the role of civil society and shifted the balance of power from communities to technocratic elites.