This paper examines the challenges Madagascar has faced in decentralizing government activity since its independence in 1960. This is of interest as we will show that it has been plagued by a series of misstarts down that path. The paper is divided in three parts. The first one summarizes the...

The last two centuries have seen the rise of the nation-state as the dominant political institution around the world. During this period, the colonial empires of varying duration and reach created first by the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch, then the French and British, then the Germans and...

This insightful study examines the decentralization experiences from 15 countries in different regions of the world. All of these countries have actively attempted to decentralize, or continue to do so, and have faced obstacles serious enough to either derail or significantly delay their...

This paper examines the importance of fiscal autonomy in the analysis of decentralization. Using new data published by the OECD (2001 and 2002), it reproduces several indicators and proposes new measures of decentralization that take into consideration subnational governments' autonomy over...