Decentralization of the government means that the decision-making power is no longer in the hands of a few individuals but is distributed to regional and local levels. This helps in making administration and making decisions easier, so many developing countries have opted for decentralization. However, Colombia and Venezuela were some of the few countries that did it much later than others. The article focuses on finding data on the members who supported the decentralization. Therefore, the research question posed was; “Which members supported the decentralization strongly enough to introduce a bill that would increase its support?” (Escobar-Lemmon, 2003)
Both Columbia and Venezuela were strong democratic countries, but their oldest political parties slowly fell out of favour. In this situation, decentralization of the government was seen as the best option. Colombia decided to implement the unitary system, and Venezuela chose the federal system. In the unitary system, the final decision-making powers rest with the central government, but in the federal system, the control is distributed among the centre and units. The support for these types of systems came from the political parties that were more popular among the citizens and had better political standing. The citizens also had a high level of trust in this government. The author used the previously passed bills, publicly available documents and election results to study the support variations. This data helped in studying the efficiency of transferring authority in a decentralized government. In Columbia, decentralization began in 1968 with the amendment of the constitution authorizing the automatic transfer of authority from central government to department governments (Pg.684). Venezuela initiated decentralization in 1988 when elected officials entered office (Pg.684).
The author collected data for all members of the two Columbian congresses from 1986 to 1990 and 1994 to 1998. The same was done for the four congresses of Venezuela, and the data was collected from 1979 to 1998. The logistic regression model (LOGIT) was used to analyze the data as the dependent variables presented a dual nature. This model also helped compare the two countries selected for the study. Mixed support evidence was found for the hypothesis through the data collected on both countries. The political parties of Columbia showed more trust in their deputies than in the government. This support acted as an incentive for the deputies to introduce the decentralization bill. The deputies of Venezuela belonged to wealthy districts, so the decentralization benefited them more. For this reason, the Venezuelan deputies presented the decentralization bill. The Columbian political parties were more unified than the Venezuelan political parties. Columbia and Venezuela were some of the oldest countries that had democratic governments in Latin America, but the political unrest was causing great turmoil in the fabric of these countries. To prevent further political stress, the countries sought to re-legitimize their authority through the decentralization of the governments. The author’s hypothesis was supported by the data, and she concluded that although the supporters of decentralization were determined, the success of this system is yet to be determined (Pg. 694).
References
Escobar-Lemmon, M. (2003). Political Support for Decentralization: An Analysis of the Colombian and Venezuelan Legislatures. American Journal of Political Science, 47(4), 683–697. https://doi.org/10.2307/3186127
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