Decentralization is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group and given to smaller factions within it.
Concepts of decentralization have been applied to group dynamics and management science in private businesses and organizations, political science, law and public administration, technology, economics and money.
History
The word "centralisation" came into use in France in 1794 as the post-Revolution French Directory leadership created a new government structure. The word "décentralisation" came into use in the 1820s.Vivien A. Schmidt, Democratizing France: The Political and Administrative History of Decentralization, Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 22 , "Centralization" entered written English in the first third of the 1800s;Barbara Levick, Claudius, Psychology Press, 2012, p. 81 , Mentions of decentralization in English also appear during this period. In the mid-1800s Tocqueville would write that the French Revolution began with "a push towards decentralization" but became, "in the end, an extension of centralization."Vivien A. Schmidt, Democratizing France: The Political and Administrative History of Decentralization, p. 10 . In 1863, retired French bureaucrat Maurice Block wrote an article called "Decentralization" for a French journal that reviewed the dynamics of government and bureaucratic centralization and recent French efforts at decentralization of government functions.Robert Leroux, French Liberalism in the 19th Century: An Anthology, Chapter 6: Maurice Block on "Decentralization", Routledge, 2012, p. 255 ,
Ideas of liberty and decentralization were further developed during the 19th and 20th centuries by anti-state political activists calling themselves "anarchists", "libertarians", and even decentralists. Tocqueville was an advocate, writing: "Decentralization has, not only an administrative value but also a civic dimension since it increases the opportunities for citizens to take interest in public affairs; it makes them get accustomed to using freedom. And from the accumulation of these local, active, persnickety freedoms, is born the most efficient counterweight against the claims of the central government, even if it were supported by an impersonal, collective will."A History of Decentralization , Earth Institute of Columbia University website, accessed February 4, 2013. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), influential anarchist theorist wrote: "All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization.""Du principe Fédératif" ("Principle of Federation"), 1863.
In the early 20th century, America responded to the centralization of economic wealth and political power with a decentralist movement. This movement blamed large-scale industrial production for the decline of middle-class shopkeepers and small manufacturers, and it promoted increased property ownership and a return to small-scale living. The decentralist movement attracted Southern Agrarians like Robert Penn Warren, as well as journalist Herbert Agar.Craig R. Prentiss, Debating God's Economy: Social Justice in America on the Eve of Vatican II, Penn State Press, 2008, p. 43 , New Left and libertarian individuals who identified with social, economic, and often political decentralism through the ensuing years included Ralph Borsodi, Wendell Berry, Paul Goodman, Carl Oglesby, Karl Hess, Donald Livingston, Kirkpatrick Sale (author of Human Scale), Murray Bookchin,David De Leon, Leaders from the 1960s: A Biographical Sourcebook of American Activism, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994, p. 297 , Dorothy Day,Nancy L. Roberts, Dorothy Day and the Catholic worker, Volume 84, Issue 1 of National security essay series, State University of New York Press, 1984, p. 11 , Senator Mark O. Hatfield,Jesse Walker, Mark O. Hatfield, RIP , Reason, August 8, 2011. Mildred J. LoomisMildred J. Loomis, Decentralism: Where It Came From – Where Is It Going?, Black Rose Books, 2005, and Bill Kauffman.Bill Kauffman, Bye Bye, Miss American Empire: Neighborhood Patriots, Backcountry rebels, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2010, p. xxxi ,
Leopold Kohr, author of the 1957 book The Breakdown of Nations – known for its statement "Whenever something is wrong, something is too big" – was a major influence on E. F. Schumacher, author of the 1973 bestseller Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered.Dr. Leopold Kohr, 84; Backed Smaller States , The New York Times obituary, February 28, 1994.John Fullerton, The Relevance of E. F. Schumacher in the 21st Century , New Economics Institute, accessed February 7, 2013. In the next few years a number of best-selling books promoted decentralization.
Daniel Bell's The Coming of Post-Industrial Society discussed the need for decentralization and a "comprehensive overhaul of government structure to find the appropriate size and scope of units", as well as the need to detach functions from current state boundaries, creating regions based on functions like water, transport, education and economics which might have "different 'overlays' on the map."W. Patrick McCray, The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future, Princeton University Press, 2012, p. 70 , Daniel Bell, The Coming Of Post-industrial Society, Basic Books version, 2008, p. 320–21, Alvin Toffler published Future Shock (1970) and The Third Wave (1980). Discussing the books in a later interview, Toffler said that industrial-style, centralized, top-down bureaucratic planning would be replaced by a more open, democratic, decentralized style which he called "anticipatory democracy".Alvin Toffler, Previews & Premises: An Interview with the Author of Future Shock and The Third Wave, Black Rose books, 1987, p. 50 , Futurist John Naisbitt's 1982 book "Megatrends" was on The New York Times Best Seller list for more than two years and sold 14 million copies.John Naisbitt biography at personal website, accessed February 10, 2013. Naisbitt's book outlines 10 "megatrends", the fifth of which is from centralization to decentralization.Sam Inkinen, Mediapolis: Aspects of Texts, Hypertexts and Multimedial Communication, Volume 25 of Research in Text Theory, Walter de Gruyter, 1999, p. 272 , In 1996 David Osborne and Ted Gaebler had a best selling book Reinventing Government proposing decentralist public administration theories which became labeled the "New Public Management".
Stephen Cummings wrote that decentralization became a "revolutionary megatrend" in the 1980s.Stephen Cummings, ReCreating Strategy, SAGE, 2002, p. 157 , In 1983 Diana Conyers asked if decentralization was the "latest fashion" in development administration.Diana Conyers, "Decentralization: The latest fashion in development administration?" , Public Administration and Development, Volume 3, Issue 2, pp. 97–109, April/June 1983, via Wiley Online Library, accessed February 4, 2013. Cornell University's project on Restructuring Local Government states that decentralization refers to the "global trend" of devolving responsibilities to regional or local governments.Decentralization , article at the "Restructuring local government project " of Dr. Mildred Warner, Cornell University, accessed February 4, 2013. Robert J. Bennett's Decentralization, Intergovernmental Relations and Markets: Towards a Post-Welfare Agenda describes how after World War II governments pursued a centralized "welfarist" policy of entitlements which now has become a "post-welfare" policy of intergovernmental and market-based decentralization.
In 1983, "Decentralization" was identified as one of the "Ten Key Values" of the Green Movement in the United States.
A 1999 United Nations Development Programme report stated:
Overview Systems approach
Those studying the goals and processes of implementing decentralization often use a systems theory approach, which according to the United Nations Development Programme report applies to the topic of decentralization "a whole systems perspective, including levels, spheres, sectors and functions and seeing the community level as the entry point at which holistic definitions of development goals are from the people themselves and where it is most practical to support them. It involves seeing multi-level frameworks and continuous, synergistic processes of interaction and iteration of cycles as critical for achieving wholeness in a decentralized system and for sustaining its development.""Decentralization: A Sampling of Definitions", 1999, p. 13.
However, it has been seen as part of a systems approach. Norman Johnson of Los Alamos National Laboratory wrote in a 1999 paper: "A decentralized system is where some decisions by the agents are made without centralized control or processing. An important property of agent systems is the degree of connectivity or connectedness between the agents, a measure of the global flow of information or influence. If each agent is connected (exchange states or influence) to all other agents, then the system is highly connected."
University of California, Irvine's Institute for Software Research's "PACE" project is creating an "architectural style for trust management in decentralized applications." It adopted Rohit Khare's definition of decentralization: "A decentralized system is one which requires multiple parties to make their own independent decisions" and applies it to Peer-to-peer software creation, writing:
Goals Decentralization is often presented as a response to problems associated with centralized systems. Decentralization in government, the topic most studied, has been seen as a solution to problems like economic decline, government inability to fund services and their general decline in performance of overloaded services, the demands of minorities for a greater say in local governance, the general weakening legitimacy of the public sector and global and international pressure on countries with inefficient, undemocratic, overly centralized systems.Holger Daun, School Decentralization in the Context of Globalizing Governance: International Comparison of Grassroots Responses, Springer, 2007, pp. 28–29 , The following four goals or objectives are frequently stated in various analyses of decentralization.
Participation
In decentralization, the principle of subsidiarity is often invoked. It holds that the lowest or least centralized authority that is capable of addressing an issue effectively should do so. According to one definition: "Decentralization, or decentralizing governance, refers to the restructuring or reorganization of authority so that there is a system of co-responsibility between institutions of governance at the central, regional and local levels according to the principle of subsidiarity, thus increasing the overall quality and effectiveness of the system of governance while increasing the authority and capacities of sub-national levels.""Decentralization: A Sampling of Definitions", 1999, pp. 2, 16, 26.