The role of Spanish central government in a multi-level State

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9962265
AutoresSalvador Parrado (0000-0001-6600-5515, UNED (Spanish Distance Learning University), Madrid, Spain, autor correspondente)
Ano2010
Volume76
Fascículo3
Páginas469-488
Data de publicação2010-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoInternational Review of Administrative Sciences (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0020-8523 • E-ISSN: 1461-7226
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0020852310376899
OpenAlexW2318566342
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas22

The Spanish polity has made the transition in the last three decades from a centralized system to a quasi-federal one characterized as having features of a shared power model with overlapping powers among levels of government. The new system has implied a change in the functions of central government from service delivery to planning and policy design. Enquiring beyond the hierarchy—non-hierarchy role of central government of intergovernmental studies, this article applies control concepts of oversight, mutuality, competition and contrived randomness from grid & group cultural theory in order to empirically examine the evolution of the role of central government in intergovernmental relations. Although the institutional features of the Spanish polity are expected to foster cooperative intergovernmental relations and a brokerage role of central government fostering mutual (peer) relations of the regions, the text suggests that institutional praxis and the ‘youth’ of the Spanish decentralization process are accountable for the direction taken by the Spanish polity. The system is characterized by central government still embedded in the inertia of oversight (with examples of fostering mutuality at times and in some policy fields) and by the regions seeking unilateralism through contrived randomness. Points for practitioners This text tries to unveil two distinct aspects of central government’s role in intergovernmental relations. First, it crosses the traditional axis (hierarchy and autonomy) between central/federal government and the regions/states when examining intergovernmental relations by including cases of competition and collegiality among the constituent parts. Second, it assumes that early stages of intergovernmental relations are likely to be conflictual regardless of the formal (cooperative) institutional design of the system. By acknowledging this, promoters of decentralization should be aware not only of the formal aspects of cooperation, but also of the informal mechanisms for building up cooperative practices

Central government · Centralized government · Competition (biology · Decentralization · Economic system · Economics · Government (linguistics · Hierarchy · Local government · Marketization · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Polity · Sociology · European Union Policy and Governance · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Political Systems and Governance · Public Administration