Regional Authority Index

Measuring Federalism and Decentralisation

Measuring Federalism and Decentralisation

Abstract

In this article I argue that federal scholars are well-advised to think of federalism as a continuum whereby subnational units can have more or less autonomy rather than allocating countries into federal and non-federal categories. The Regional Authority Index (RAI) measures the extent of self-rule and shared rule of regional government on an annual basis since 1950 and it reveals that regional autonomy arrangements in federal countries are more likely to be affected by reform than non-federal countries. In addition, self-rule appears to be the object of decentralization in non-federal countries whereas decentralization in federal countries has mostly affected shared rule. These are surprising results which come to the fore only when one escapes categorical thinking. The RAI also changes the way in which we think about the impacts of regional governance and thereby a whole new research agenda is being opened up.

 

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Posted by Arjan H. Schakel in Theory, 0 comments
Self-Rule and Shared Rule

Self-Rule and Shared Rule

Abstract

‘Self-rule’ and ‘shared rule’ are two widely used notions to define, describe and classify federal political systems. In this contribution, I define what these two concepts mean, particularly in the context of federal studies, as well as discuss the different understandings and practices of them. Drawing upon the Regional Authority Index (Hooghe et al. 2016), I present a number of variables that can be used to measure the self-rule and shared rule dimensions of federal political systems.

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Posted by Sean Mueller in Theory, 0 comments