Political-economy of decentralized governance: a study of Provincial Council System in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The state-centered approaches to development introduced after the World War II failed to achieve the expected outcomes in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Consequently, as an alternative approach, an innovative institutional governance structure emerged and it was a multi-dimensional, politico-economic solution to this state-centered developmental impasse. Thus, decentralized governance began to be accepted by various international agencies worldwide, and many national governments began to adopt it at the end of 1970s and early 1980s. The factors that have led to the introduction of decentralized governance are country specific. Sri Lanka adopted a framework of decentralized governance and introduced a devolution reform under the 13th amendment to its constitution in 1987. The Provincial Council (PC) reform was introduced at a crucial juncture when the state-centered governance paradigm was reaching a crisis point and amidst international pressures to adopt decentralization as a means to resolve the ethnic conflict. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the structural, procedural changes in governance apparatus and to evaluate the efficacy of those changes in devolved service provisions brought about by the PC reform. In order to achieve this objective, the study analyzes the secondary and primary data collected from published and unpublished sources employing mixed methods. This study explored the structural and procedural changes in political, financial and administrative spheres that could be vital for effective local service provision, brought about by the Provincial Councils reform. Though, these structural and functional changes appeared in the governance apparatus on the surface is significant, many drawbacks detrimental to the smooth implementation of the reform also have been spotted, particularly regarding the power sharing mechanism, the listing of shared powers, and the role of the central government. Legal constrains, central control over provincial discretions, parallel administration structures, incompetent governance, and heavy dependence on central finance are the main draw backs that have affected the PCs.