The Quiet Revolution

As third-wave democrats began to supplant Latin America's dictators in the 1980s, the democrats manifested their extreme distrust of central authority in the hasty strengthening of municipal government. 1Although their authoritarian predecessors had enhanced local technical capacity, municipal leaders were unprepared to manage the abrupt influx of revenues that, for a brief time, exceeded new spending responsibilities.The money transfers provoked a period of fiscal euphoria, but the economic damage done by the lost decade of the 1980s soon caught up with it, dampening the craze for decentralization.The excitement had spread nonetheless, and had increased involvement in new participatory political structures, such as town meetings.In this book, Tim Campbell argues that the changes wrought by this tumultuous period constitute a "quiet revolution.""Swiftly and radically, yet remarkably peacefully, these two trends of decentralization and democratization transformed the entire face of governance in the region" (2003, 4).Campbell tells the story of this revolution in four parts.After presenting the framework of the book and the regional context for decentralization (two chapters), he analyzes decentralization in five Latin American countries (two chapters), explores the conceptual dimensions of reform (three chapters), and argues that the lessons of the quiet revolution demand a rethinking of conventional policy wisdom on decentralization (two chapters).Each section contains important insights, but I find the chapters on reform dimensions the most innovative and engaging of the book, and thus the most deserving of critique.I will begin with the framework and case studies in Campbell's main empirical chapters, then take a deeper look at the dimensions of his "new model of governance," and finish with a brief examination of Campbell's lessons for the future.In his framework chapter, Campbell emphasizes the maturing urban system as a pivotal causal factor behind the quiet revolution; but he overshadows this interesting claim with a complex mix of competing explanations--the debt crisis, Reagan and Thatcher's new republicanism, Pope John Paul II's challenge to secular authoritarianism, local autonomy in post-Franco Spain, and several others--few of which reap

Decentralization · Development economics · Economics · Latin Americans · Political economy · Political science · Politics · QUIET · Sociology · Public Policy and Governance

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