Kumar Singh7

The paper speaks to the panel’s topic by proposing a conceptual and methodological framework for analysing centralizing and decentralizing trends in federations. Although de/centralization trends are crucial for understanding how federal systems operate, no systematic and comparative investigation of the phenomenon over time has been conducted so far. Our paper seeks to address this gap by proposing a conceptual and methodological framework for doing so. In its first substantive section, the paper defines static de/centralization as the distribution of power between the general and the constituent orders of government of a federation at any given point in time, where power is understood as the ability of a constituent unit to take binding decisions on public policy unconstrained by the general government or other constituent units. Such autonomy is conceptualised as having two principal dimensions – policy and financial – each of which can be disaggregated into sub-dimensions. For our project, we have identified twenty policy areas and three financial areas for investigation. On the basis of this conceptualization, the paper proposes a measuring scheme able to capture static de/centralisation in each sub-dimension at a given time point. In its second part, the paper puts forward a conceptualization of de/centralization from a dynamic perspective, defined a