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Publius: The Journal of Federalism Advance Access originally published online on January 18, 2008
Publius: The Journal of Federalism 2008 38(2):248-271; doi:10.1093/publius/pjm040
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CSF Associates: Publius, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

A Critical Survey of Subnational Autonomy in African States

Yonatan Fessha* and Coel Kirkby{dagger}
*University of the Western Cape
{dagger}McGill University; E-mail: coel.kirkby{at}gmail.com

This article examines the quiet yet pervasive transfer of power from central governments to subnational units in Africa since the early 1990s. Central governments have justified this trend by arguing it promotes one or more of three goods: democracy, development, and accommodating diversity. The authors survey six selected countries representing federal-unitary and regional differences to evaluate their degree of formal and substantive political, administrative, and financial autonomy. Transfer of powers to subnational units, the authors conclude, is a real and nearly universal trend. However, many central governments have clawed back this grant of power in numerous ways, which led to an informal recentralization of power. Moreover, central governments of federations have deliberately strengthened local government at the expense of regional autonomy.


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