Local Governments and Public Goods: Assessing Decentralization in the Arab World Edited by Mona Harb and Sami Atallah First edition 2015 © The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies ISBN 1-886604-78-9 Publisher The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies Size 17 x 24cm Number of pages 248 Design Polypod Design execution Dolly Harouny Text revision John McCabe and Rania Abi Habib This book was published thanks to the support of اﻟﻤﺮﻛﺰ اﻟﻠﺒﻨﺎﻧﻲ ﻟﻠﺪراﺳﺎت The Lebanese Center LCPS for Policy Studies Sadat Tower, Tenth floor, Leon Street POB 55-215 Ras Beirut, Lebanon T +961 1 799 301 F +961 1 799 302 [email protected] www.lcps-lebanon.org Table of contents 1 Introduction A New Framework for Assessing Decentralization in the Arab World Mona Harb and Sami Atallah 11 Chapter 1 Tunisie: La Constitution (du Printemps) Ouvre le Débat sur la Décentralisation Sami Yassine Turki et Eric Verdeil 47 Chapter 2 Maroc: Tensions Centralisatrices Ali Bouabid et Aziz Iraki 93 Chapter 3 Yemen: Between Tides of Unity and Tribal Approval Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj 139 Chapter 4 Jordanie: la Décentralisation par Décision Centralisée et la Démocratie par Volonté Royale Myriam Ababsa 189 Chapter 5 Lebanon: A Fragmented and Incomplete Decentralization Mona Harb and Sami Atallah 229 Synthesis An Assessment of Decentralization and Service Delivery in the Arab World Mona Harb and Sami Atallah 235 Authors Introduction A New Framework for Assessing Decentralization in the Arab World * This chapter has Mona Harb and Sami Atallah* benefitted from the research assistance of Sophie Spaan. One of the major features of democracies is the extent to which the state is decentralized. With the advent of democratic transformations in the Arab world, decentralization will soon be on the reform agenda. In many Arab countries, it already is. Decentralization is desired for two reasons: One, it enhances democracy and participation in managing local affairs; two, it consequently leads to better developmental outcomes. The assumption here is that delegating authority to lower echelons of authorities will make service provision more effective, as it will be more responsive to the actual needs of beneficiaries, while political representation will also be enhanced through 1 better participatory practices.1 Moreover, decentralization is believed to increase The following representation for religious and ethnic minorities and empower local commu- discussion of the nities. An additional claimed advantage is that decentralization encourages pros and cons of decentralization are flexibility, creativeness, and innovation. Local governance is also believed partly based on to hold local politicians responsible, and thus increases direct accountability. Bardhan (2002) and De Vries (2000). In 2013 the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS) led a research project funded by the Open Society Foundation on decentralization, democra- tization, and the role of regional administrations for better service delivery in the Arab world, with a focus on Lebanon. The project had two objectives: n Take stock of past and current decentralization policies and initiatives in Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen through a desk review guided by a common framework and methodology, leading to five country reports. n Propose a pilot research methodology to assess urban management, service delivery, and decentralization in Lebanon that could be adapted to other Arab countries. The project aims to lay the groundwork for sharing information on decentralization and service delivery in the Arab world. It is based on the assumption that decentralization is a ‘good thing’ for the Arab world that would further democratic accountability and civic engagement, as well as produce checks and balances to prevent a return to authoritarianism, counter corruption, and ensure more transparency. There are many limitations to decentralization reforms and not all of them lead systematically to better outcomes in terms of service delivery and democratic representation. Indeed, local policies can vary across local governments, depending on levels of local knowledge and availability of financial and other resources, as well as ‘free riding’ of smaller and less wealthy municipalities. Often, decentralization does not benefit the disadvantaged communities and territories that are unable to address complex local development issues. Decision makers could recuperate decentralized service provision for their narrow political and economic interests, and thus decen- tralization could enhance clientelism and corruption (Batterbury and Fernando 2006, Bergh 2012). This scenario is very plausible in the context of less democratic political systems where checks and balances are not strongly 2 A New Framework for Assessing Decentralization in the Arab World institutionalized and operative, such as countries in the Arab world (LCPS 2005). Authors agree that effective decentralization can be achieved when a central government transfers enough responsibilities to the local level and when local opposition parties have limited ability to block decentralization efforts and influence citizen participation (Goldfrank 2007, Bergh 2012). Political reformists attempt to address these challenges and propose legal, institutional, and fiscal models that can improve the practice of decentralization. The key questions that occupy them relate to governance administration and tiers, fiscal responsibilities, and geography. In other words: How many tiers of government should a country have in a post-authoritarian era? How should the competences and responsibilities be assigned between the different tiers of government i.e., central, regional, and local? How should these local and regionally elected governments ensure their fiscal autonomy, which is a key component of decentralization? How large should these regional and local governments be? Decentralization challenges are not confined to the developing world or to authoritarian states. Advanced democracies also struggle with decentrali- zation; being less about financial devolution and more about public policy redistribution. Additionally, different levels of government have different levels of administrative and technical capacity. Most of the time, central administrations attract more qualified and talented people than regional and local administrations (Bardhan 2002). The type of service also determines the level of governance: Services that require minimum expertise such as street cleaning and garbage collection often work well at the local level while services requiring technical know-how such as power generation or urban planning are better delivered via regional and central echelons (Bardhan 2002). Decentralized control is also more successful when human services are important and when the provided service can be variable, such as education or health (De Vries 2000). The administrative scale should thus depend on the type of service delivered or the policy sector. The discussion about the ‘right’ scales of decentralization regularly fluctuates between giving primacy to the local level (localism), regional level (regionalism), or advocating re-centralization (De Vries 2000). In fact, reasons for devolving certain responsibilities and certain levels of government are used at different times to argue different positions, and are often embedded within issues of power and political conflicts (Brenner 1999). Hence, one must recall that decentralization is not a neutral policy-making process but an inherently political tool that reshuffles the distribution of power among decision makers and leaderships, and therefore is often the object of resistance and contestation. Hence, understanding the historical specificity of the studied context is of primary importance: Decentralization is closely associated with the social and political history of a place. Accordingly, generalizing about the ‘right’ governance scale is often misguided. Yet, analyzing decentralization through a conceptual framework that critically and relationally investigates its attributes, in relation to history, A New Framework for Assessing Decentralization in the Arab World 3 politics, economics, and geography can be beneficial for a critical and rigorous understanding of its process and impacts. For instance, Razin (2000) suggests assessing five dimensions of local government organization: n Territoriality (fragmentation vs. consolidation) n Functional responsibilities (decentralization vs. centralization) n Political autonomy (extent of central government control) n Fiscal autonomy (extent of self-generated income vs. central government grants) n Electoral politics (democratic representation levels) Based on these dimensions, he proposes four typologies of local government models that variably affect spatial development and disparities: n The American model: Local governments perform fewer functions but have more fiscal and political autonomy. This leads to fragmentation and a competitive environment, which in turn results in fiscal disparities and inequality. n The Western welfare state model: Local governments have a lot of functions, but less political autonomy. Funding often comes in the form of central grants. This produces fewer inequalities as there is more central government planning control, at times accompanied by fiscal centralization. n The developing-world centralized model: A central government and its regional branches have the authority. Local governments do not have much influence on spatial development, and corruption is rife at all levels of