Understanding decentralization: deconcentration and devolution processes in the French and Italian cultural sectors

• Published date: 04 April 2020
• Pages: 435-460
• Date: 04 April 2020
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-02-2019-0050
• Author: Maria Elena Santagati,Sara Bonini Baraldi,Luca Zan
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management

Understanding decentralization:

deconcentration and devolution

processes in the French and Italian

cultural sectors

Maria Elena Santagati

Department of Management, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

Sara Bonini Baraldi

Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning,

University of Turin, Turin, Italy, and

Luca Zan

Department of Management, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

Abstract

Purpose –Decentralization is a widespread and international phenomenon in public administration. Despite

the interest of public management scholars, an in-depth analysis of the interrelationship between two of its

forms –deconcentration and devolution –and its impact on policy and management capacities at the local level

is seldom investigated.

Design/methodology/approach –This article addresses this gap by examining the implementation of

deconcentration and devolution processes in France and Italy in the cultural field, combining the analysis of

national reform processes with in-depth analyses of two regional cases. The research is the result of document

analysis, participatory observation and semi-structured interviews.

Findings –The article reconstructs the impacts of devolution and deconcentration processes on the

emergence of policy and management capacity in two regions (Rhone-Alpes and Piedmont) in the cultural

sector. The article shows that decentralization in the cultural sector in France and Italy is the result of different

combinations of devolution and deconcentration processes, that the two processes mutually affect their

effectiveness, and that this effectiveness is deeply linked to the previous policy and management capacity of

the central state in a specific field/country.

Originality/value–The article investigates decentralization as a result of the combination of deconcentration

and devolution in comparative terms and in a specific sector of implementation, highlighting the usefulness of

this approach also for other sectors/countries

Keywords Decentralization, Deconcentration, Devolution, Regions, Cultural sector

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

In the second half of the 20th century, decentralization of power and authority from the

central state to lower levels of government was one of the key features of many reforms

worldwide (Rondinelli et al., 1983;Litvack et al., 1998;Litvack and Seddon, 1999;OECD, 1997)

and as a general political process (e.g. Requejo 2011;M

aiz and Requejo, 2005). Later on, and

focusing more directly on administrative studies, starting from the 1980 to 1990, the diffusion

of the New Public Management literature that had the aim of “reinventing government”

(Osborne and Gaebler, 1992) also promoted decentralization as a way to increase the

performance of the public sector (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011).

This article investigates decentralization processes in the cultural sector in France and

Italy, with a focus on the regional level. It draws on a relatively marginal approach that

articulates decentralization in terms of deconcentration and devolution and focuses on the

interrelation between the two. The underlying research question is how the relationship

Decentrali-

zation in the

cultural sectors

435

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0951-3558.htm

Received 21 February 2019

Revised 30 September 2019

9 January 2020

Accepted 14 January 2020

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 33 No. 4, 2020

pp. 435-460

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-02-2019-0050

between the two distinct processes affects the ability of regions in the two countries to

develop policy and management capacities in the cultural field. Indeed, we look at

decentralization in terms of the way it affects local administrations’capacity building

(Cheema and Rondinelli, 2007).

We compare the cultural fields of France and Italy because they share an administrative

law tradition (Kickert, 2007;Bonini Baraldi, 2014), and the state plays an important role in the

cultural policies of both nations (Pongy and Saez, 1994), although there are some important

differences in qualitative and quantitative terms (Rubio Arostegui and Rius-Ulldemolins,

2018). Yet the recent decentralization reforms of the two countries differ considerably, and the

intervention of regions in the administrative processes of cultural policy has been rarely

investigated (in France: Queyranne, 1982;Doucin, 1987;Pongy and Saez, 1994;Negrier and

Teillet, 2011;Association des R

egions de France, 2013. In Italy: Bechelloni, 1972;Bodo, 1990;

Meneguzzo, 2004;Stratta, 2009). This is an important gap in the literature.

The article is organized as follows. The next section focuses on the literature review. Section

three highlights methodological issues. Section four reconstructs deconcentration and

devolution reforms in the cultural sector at the national level in the two countries. Section five

provides an in-depth analysis of two regional case studies in the actual process of enacting

decentralization reforms. Section six compares these practices in the two contexts, investigating

the interplay between devolution and deconcentration elements. The concluding section

addresses possible implications for the broader debate on decentralization.

2. Literature review

Given the focus of the paper, there are three potentially controversial issues that are involved

in providing an adequate literature review. First, at a very general level, the traditional public

administration literature examines different forms of decentralization in a variety of ways,

introducing the distinction between the following: political, administrative and fiscal

decentralization (Furniss, 1974;Litvack et al., 1998;Smoke, 2003;Falleti, 2005); devolution,

delegation and privatization (Rondinelli et al., 1983;Manor, 1999;Smith, 2001); horizontal and

vertical (Dubois and Fattore, 2009), internal and external (Pollitt, 2005) and functional and

territorial decentralization (Cohen and Peterson, 1999).

However, despite the interest of public management scholars, an in-depth analysis of the

interrelationship between two forms of decentralization deconcentration and devolution 

is seldom investigated, and when it is, it is in relation to developing countries (Cheema and

Rondinelli, 2007;Wollmann, 2007;Utomo, 2009;Adamtey, 2012). Deconcentration refers to an

intra-organizational transfer of functions from the central government to its peripheral

offices (e.g. Hutchcroft, 2001). Litvack and Seddon, 1999, p. 2) defines it as “the redistribution

of decision making authority and financial and management responsibilities among different

levels of the national government”; and similarly Wollman (2007, p. 3) describes it as “the

transfer of administrative tasks from an upper to a lower layer of unit of state administration,

typically through the establishment of regional or local field offices”. Devolution is intended

as a transfer of authority to legally established lower-level organizations run by elected

representatives (e.g. Pollitt et al., 1998) or, as the WB defines it as “the transfer of authority for

decision making, finance, and management to quasi-autonomous units of local government

with corporate status”. With devolution, powers and functions (as well as resources) are

assigned to sub-national bodies and actors that possess some political autonomy in their own

right (Wollmann, 2007) involving “a much more extensive transfer of decision-making

authority and responsibility to local government units”(Hutchcroft, 2001, p. 30).

We adopt the perspective of deconcentration and devolution processes (Maddick, 1963;

Lundquist, 1972;Rondinelli et al., 1983;Manor, 1999;UNDP, 1999;Hutchcroft, 2001;Benz,

2002;Schneider, 2003;Pinto, 2004;Wollmann, 2007) for several reasons. First, the

IJPSM

33,4

436