Fiscal decentralization in Indonesia: A new approach to an old idea

A framework for analyzing institutional gaps in natural resource governance

“…But the community and government came to an agreement, which resulted in the community being allowed to design its' own rules as long as they complied with the official regulations. This aligns well with the increasing call for decentralization in natural resource management (Sekhar 1998;Ribot 2003), which attempts to satisfy the institutional void between formal and informal institutions by: (i) including increasing efficiency and equity in natural resource management (Huther and Shah 1998), (ii) improving service delivery (Smoke and Lewis 1996), and (iii) growing participation and contributing to democracy (Ribot 2002). However, the decentralization process cannot be completely effective when there is an absence of coordination between the formal constitutional choice rules (fishery regulations) and the informal collective choice rules.…”

Corruption and Decentralisation: Some Evidence in Indonesia

“…Jin et al (1999in Kuncoro 2006 highlighted that competition among localities will discourage governments from adopting interventionist policies -fearing that mobile factors of productions may run away to less interventionist jurisdictions. There is however a more moderate stance that holds a view that whether decentralisation should encourage or discourage bureaucratic rent-seeking would depend on whether expenditure decentralisation is accompanied by the devolution of revenue generation to local governments or not (Smoke and Lewis, 1996). Some studies review evidence from cross-country regressions concerning the relation between decentralisation and measures of corruption and government performance.…”

The Decentralization Process of Rural Development Policy in Greece

“…Some of these include: insufficient financial resources allocated to local communities and inadequate transfer of decision-making powers (Crook and Manor, 1998;Wunsch, 2001), accountability problems (World Bank, 2001a;Edmiston, 2002), use of decentralization as a strategy for increased territorial control rather than a means to promote local autonomy (Crook and Sverrisson, 2001), deficiencies in administrative and political organisation (Wunsch, 2001;Edmiston, 2002), regional endeavour inequities (Sonja, 1996;World Bank, 2000), appropriation of benefits by local elites (Wyckoff-Baird et al, 2001;Manor, 2002), and conflicts between central and local governments (Smoke and Lewis, 1996). Alternative explanations for decentralization's failure to achieve its stated aims have also been suggested (Hadiz, 2004).…”