Administrative Decentralization: Strategies for Developing Countries

Rating:
Summary: informative reading
Review: Cohen and Peterson attempts to make the argument that the lack of role definition has led to failures in decentralization efforts in the third world. Current efforts have focused on system wide changes/decentralization, and assumes the roles the actors have after the changes will take care of itself.

They provide case studies from various countries to show how they perform using various decentralization schemes. Without giving too much away, the Mexico case is an example of what the authors deem as what other countries should strive for in decentralization.

Their chapter on the evolution of decentralization and the case studies was very informative. When they elaborated on administrative concepts, it is very easy for a person not involved in the development administration field to get lost in the jargon and forget what the whole point of the chapter was. This book is not designed for the person looking for a good international development read.

The conclusion is sketchy and not very convincing that is why I give it 3 stars.