The studies of reform experiences reviewed above present a mixed picture of
successes and failures, of both marketization and communitarian reforms, especially in relation to service provision and poverty alleviation in the global South. This counters any simplistic assumptions of geographical relevance or greater symmetry in the ordering principles of either governance paradigm with the conditions in developing countries, and leaves the question of context-appropriate reform open. This is not surprising, since developing countries are at different points in multidimensional trajectories of modernity and post-modernity, and their integration with the world economy. Geo-historical, economic, political and socio-cultural characteristics of various nations or sub-national regions therefore embody the environmental
assumptions of both decentralization discourses to different degrees, and in different ways, countering dualities of developed/undeveloped, industrialized/agrarian or pre- modern/modern. The question of context-appropriateness must therefore necessarily be seen as relative and multidimensional.
Yet the case for decentralization in developing countries is not negated, as the
instances of improved outcomes suggest decentralization is both necessary and can be successful under suitable conditions. Taken together with the intrinsic democratic merit of decentralized over centralized governance, this warrants efforts to identify the context-appropriate institutional-organizational configurations for effective
decentralized governance. The key question therefore, and the one that this study engages with is – what are these?
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5.1. THE KEY QUESTION AND THE KNOWLEDGE GAP
Two kinds of (related) issues are identified as necessary to the success of reformed arrangements. The first is the design question. One aspect of this relates to the
distribution of tasks between actors in and levels of governance, and another, perhaps more significant, to adequate devolution of the resources and authority concomitant with the devolved responsibilities. Both of these refer to the extent of decentralization, which is most often identified as the main reason for failure. A third aspect is the necessity of ‘bundling’ of various kinds of reform. For example, privatization must be accompanied by other allied reforms to develop competitive markets, as explained by Kikeri and Nellis (2002, see quote above). In sum, the details of the organizational arrangements are critical.
A second issue is the ‘fit’ between the design of the decentralized arrangements and variables in its context, which is crucial to the success of any decentralized
governance arrangement. Context here is plural: the sector, the pre-decentralization institutional pattern, and most important, the political, economic and socio-cultural characteristics of the locality. The latter can vary on many parameters, of which a large number are relevant to effective functioning of governance structures, as Turner and Hulme (1997) point out.111 Not only do these differ between developed and developing countries, but also among developing countries, and the kind of reform
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Turner and Hulme (1997: chapter 2) list country-level environmental elements that they find pertinent and significantly different between developing and developed countries – economic factors such as gross national product, structure of production, the human resources profile, domestic capital, foreign aid and debt, foreign exchange reserves, infrastructure, technology, poverty and inequality and the informal sector. Cultural factors include ethnicity, family and kinship structures, values and norms, gender relations and history. Important demographic factors are population growth rates, age structure, urbanization and migration patterns, and the health profile of the population. Political factors include social class structure, legitimacy of governing regimes, policy scope ans capacity, the strength of the state and neo-patrimonial patterns of rule.
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must therefore be adequately tailored to the local context.
Authors take two approaches to the question of environmental fit. Some focus on the creation of conditions for success of particular kinds of decentralization – for example, Kikeri and Nellis (2002), evident in the quote above – without questioning the
desirability of instituting the reform when conditions for success do not exist. This approach embodies the naturalization of a particular governance paradigm – neoliberal in this case – and constructs the need to reshape the context. Others, such as Burki et al (1999), Work (2002), Litvack (1998), point to the need to tailor reforms to the existing conditions, perceiving success or failure as residing in the institutional design more than in the characteristics of the local socio-economic, political and cultural context. In either approach, knowledge of the relationship between particular reforms and environmental conditions for its success is essential, but the latter is clearly less presumptive of the inherent merits of any particular governance paradigm, and thereby, (relatively) innocent of ideological imposition. Morever, as Turner and Hulme (1997) also point out, the design of organizations and processes within them can be directly influenced, or in this case, reshaped, but many environmental factors are outside the control of policy-makers and cannot be directly influenced, particularly in the short or medium term. Therefore the question to ask is not ‘which conditions are necessary for the success of various reforms’, but ‘what is the relative suitability of different types of reform to the variety of developing contexts’.
Answers to this question are completely missing in the literature, for the almost- universal approach has been to study the performance of reformed arrangements relative to the previous (more centralized) ones. Studies reviewed above reveal successes and failures of specific institutional configurations in specific locations, but
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fail to consider if – and what type of – alternatives would have worked better. In other words, outcomes and effects of decentralization are almost always examined in
relation to previous arrangements (before-after studies)112; but there are no studies that compare the effects of alternative institutional designs in or across similar contexts. This is certainly possible, for different types of decentralized arrangements,
configured according to the prescriptions of neoliberal and more progressive
discourses respectively, have been instituted in many countries for the same functions, in the same locations, for example in forest management and water provision in India (Sundar 2001, Jairath 2003) and water provision in Uganda (Saito 2002). Yet few such comparisons have been undertaken, and the question remains unanswered.
5.2. AFRAMEWORK FOR RESEARCH
Discursive differences between various kinds of reform indicate that they belong to two generic types or categories, ‘market’ and ‘democratic’, as discussed before. Not only do the different reforms within each type share basic premises, there also appears to be a ‘bundling’ in terms of the necessity to institute a number of them in tandem.113 The question of context-appropriate reform therefore is, at the first level, essentially a question of the relative suitability of marketization and democratization to specific types of contexts. Also, since contextual fit is key to successful functioning and desired outcomes, the relative efficacy or success of the two types would be a good measure of their relative suitability to the context. Therefore, to answer the question of context-appropriate design of decentralized arrangements, a comparative assessment
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Glenn Pearce-Oroz (2003) compares concurrently operating centralized and decentralized systems for water provision in Honduras.
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For example, as Kikeri and Nellis (2002) point out in the passage cited in section 4.1 in this Chapter, privatization has to be necessarily accompanied by ‘removal of entry and exit barriers’, i.e.,
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of the operation and outcomes of the two types of reform in the same locality would be appropriate. A corresponding comparison of the same type of reform in different localities would also add to the understanding of context-appropriateness of the two types.
Sectoral location also makes a difference, and the research was therefore located in a sectoral context where both types of decentralization have been instituted for the performance of the same tasks or functions. The issue of domestic water supply was found appropriate – it is a priority in developing countries, which centralized
governance arrangements have failed to address, and decentralization has been undertaken over the last decade. Discursive differences mirroring the larger
discussions on decentralization have led to the simultaneous introduction of a variety of reforms, of both marketization and democratization types – liberalization and privatization, devolution to local governments and delegation to user groups, other community groups or NGOs – witness the policies in Uganda (Saito 2002), India (Jairath 2003, GoI 2002a, 2002b, Sundar 2000) and Britain (Howe 2000).
In the next chapter I locate the general research question identified above in the context of decentralization of domestic water provision in India, define the specific research questions, explain the methodological approach and the research design, the selection of cases and the methods used for data collection and analysis.
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