1 Why states decentralise

Almost every democratic country in the world started to decentralize and introduced local elections at some time in the last 50 years. This is remarkable for several reasons. Why should central state actors agree to decentralize, given that decentralization does not even have a clear positive record to improve public management or accommodate conflicts? Decentralization is hard to reverse: once introduced countries almost never recentralized again. How can this major trend in institutional reform be explained? We look at different explanation and find that a political competition is positively associated with decentralization which indicates that decentralization is taking place due to different political actors competing for electoral support. Having had a economic crises recently has a positive impact on decentralization too. Additionally we can show the donor influence on decentralization: the more aid a country receives the more likely this country is to decentralize. * Many thanks goes to Fabian Liechti for the help with data collection