Problematizing the interplay between decentralized governance and the urban in asia

Pacific Affairs

Volumn 86, Issue 4, 2013, Pages 715-729

  Miller, Michelle Ann ^a   Bunnell, Tim ^a  

^a NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE   (Singapore)

Author keywords

Asia; Decentralization; Governance; Urban

Indexed keywords

DECENTRALIZATION; DECISION MAKING; DEMOCRACY; ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; METROPOLITAN AREA; POLITICAL RELATIONS; URBAN DEVELOPMENT; URBAN GROWTH; URBAN POLITICS; URBANIZATION;

ASIA;

EID: 84889004562     PISSN: 0030851X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5509/2013864715     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. For a more elaborate definition of decentralization, see Michelle Ann Miller, "The Problem of Armed Separatism: Is Autonomy the Answer?" in Autonomy and Armed Separatism in South and Southeast Asia, ed. Michelle Ann Miller (Singapore: ISEAS, 2012), 6-8.
2. While national decentralization projects in India and China have been implemented on a far bigger scale than in Indonesia since the late 1970s and early 1990s respectively, Indonesia's democratic decentralization project is the largest in the world in terms of the wide-ranging powers, responsibilities and resources that have been devolved to its sub-national city (kota) and regency (kabupaten) administrations.
3. Michelle Ann Miller, Autonomy and Armed Separatism in South and Southeast Asia (Singapore: ISEAS, 2012).
4. This definition draws from Markku Suksi, "Concluding Remarks," in Autonomy: Applications and Implications, ed. Markku Suksi (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1998), 357-363.
5. See Michelle Ann Miller, Rebellion and Reform in Indonesia. Jakarta's Security and Autonomy Policies in Aceh (London and New York: Routledge, 2009).
6. Bibhu Prasad Routray, "Autonomy and Armed Separatism in Jammu and Kashmir" in Autonomy and Armed Separatism in South and Southeast Asia, ed. Michelle Ann Miller (Singapore: ISEAS, 2012), 177-94
7. Shanthie Mariet D'Souza, "Armed Conflicts and Movements for Autonomy in India's Northeast" in Autonomy and Armed Separatism in South and Southeast Asia, ed. Michelle Ann Miller (Singapore: ISEAS, 2012), 195-215.
8. On Andhra Pradesh's high-profile investment in Hyderabad as a centre of growth, see Tim Bunnell and Diganta Das, "A geography of serial seduction: urban policy transfer from Kuala Lumpur to Hyderabad," Urban Geography 31, no. 3 (2010): 1-7.
9. For recent consideration of the wider goal of making "world-class" cities in India through emergent forms of postcolonial urban governmentality, see Ananya Roy, "Postcolonialism and the urban question: The 'slum-free cities' of the Asian Century," paper presented at Advancing Postcolonial Geography: An International Symposium, National University of Singapore, 21-22 February 2013.
10. United Cities and Local Governments, Decentralization and Local Democracy in the World. Executive Summary (Barcelona: United Cities and Local Governments, 2007), 25.
11. UN-Habitat, The State of Asian Cities 2010/11 (Fukuoka, Japan: United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat, 2010), 232.
12. A.J. Scott, J. Agnew, E. W. Soja and M. Storper, "Global city-regions," in Global city-regions: trends, theory, policy, ed. A.J. Scott (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 15.
13. Neil Brenner, "Between fixity and motion: accumulation, territorial organization and the historical geography of spatial scales," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 16 (1998): 459-481.
14. Neil Brenner, New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 87.
15. See, for example, Tim Bunnell, "Cities for nations? examining the city - nation-state relation in informational age Malaysia," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 26, no. 2 (2002): 284-298.
16. Bae-Gyoon Park, "Uneven development, inter-scalar tensions and the politics of decentralization in South Korea," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32, no. 1 (2008): 40-59.
17. Literature on decentralization that reflects this macro-level focus on changes to national systems and processes of governance includes: The World Bank, East Asia Decentralizes. Making Local Government Work (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2005)
18. Ponna Wignaraja and Susil Sirivardana, eds., Pro-Poor Growth and Governance in South Asia. Decentralization and Participatory Development (New Delhi, Thousand Oaks and London: Sage Publications, 2004).
19. See, for example, Jenny Robinson and Sue Parnell, "Traveling theory: Embracing postneoliberalism through Southern Cities," in The New Blackwell Companion to the City, eds. Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011).
20. See, for instance, Michelle Ann Miller, Rebellion and Reform in Indonesia. Jakarta's Security and Autonomy Policies in Aceh (London and New York: Routledge, 2009)
21. Rachel Diprose, "Decentralization, Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict Management in Indonesia," Ethnopolitics 8, no. 1 (2009): 107-34.
22. Examples include: Shinichi Ichimura and Roy Bahl, eds., Decentralization Policies in Asian Development (Singapore, Hackensack and London: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pty Ltd., 2009)
23. Clay Wescott, "Fiscal Decentralization in East Asia," in Citizens in Charge. Managing Local Budgets in East Asia and Latin America, ed. Isabel Licha (New York and Washington: Inter-American Development Bank, 2004), 15-54
24. Francisco Javier Arze del Granado, "Spatial Considerations on Decentralization and Economies of Concentration in Indonesia," in Reshaping Economic Geography in East Asia, eds. Yukon Huang and Alessandro Magnoli Bocchi (Washington, DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/ The World Bank, 2009), 135-153.
25. For example, Christopher Bjork, Educational Decentralization: Asian Experiences and Conceptual Contributions (Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer, 2006)
26. Anthony Welch, "Governance Issues in South East Asian Education: Finance, Devolution and Transparency in the Global Era," Asia Pacific Journal of Education 27, no. 3 (2007): 237-53.
27. For instance, Carol J. Pierce Colfer, Ganga Ram Dahal and Doris Capistrano, eds., Lessons from Forest Decentralization. Money, Justice and the Quest forGood Governance in Asia-Pacific (London, UK and Sterling, USA: Earthscan, 2008)
28. Thomas Enters, Patrick B. Durst, Michael Victor, Decentralization and Devolution of Forest Management in Asia and the Pacific (Bangkok: FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Regional Community Forestry Training Center for Asia-Pacific, 2000)
29. Charles Palmer and Stephanie Engel, For Better or For Worse? Local Impacts of the Decentralization of Indonesia's Forest Sector, World Development 35, no. 12 (2007), 2132-2149.
30. Allen L. Clark, Meril Dobrin Fujiki, eds., Urban Transformation in Asia: Policy Implications of Decentralization (Honolulu: East-West Center, 2009).
31. Carola Hein and Philippe Pelletier, eds., Cities, Autonomy and Decentralization in Japan (London and New York: Routledge, 2006).
32. See, for example, Sophie Buhnik, "From shrinking cities to Toshi no Shukusho: identifying patterns of urban shrinkage in the Osaka Metropolitan Area," Berkeley Planning Journal 23 (2010): 132-155.
33. Gordon Crawford and Christof Hartmann, "Introduction: Decentralization as a Pathway out of Poverty and Conflict?" in Decentralization in Africa. A Pathway out of Poverty and Conflict?, eds. Gordon Crawford and Christof Hartmann (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008), 12.
34. On urban learning, see Colin McFarlane, Learning the City: Knowledge and Translocal Assemblage (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001).
35. In this, we move beyond the obvious distinction between China's unitary system, which suggests a certain level of centralization in that state power is constitutionally located at the national level, and India's federal system, which implies a degree of decentralization as state power and authority are constitutionally organized within a two-tier framework at the central and regional levels. Federations and unitary states take many different forms since federal states can be decentralized through constitutional change while unitary states may be decentralized through legislation. At the national scale, some federations are far more centralized (such as Russia and the Czech Republic) than decentralized unitary states (for example, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands). At the city level, too, many local governments in unitary China enjoy greater fiscal autonomy than do city administrations in federal India, which are constrained by more powerful provincial administrations.
36. For further elaboration on the unitary-federal divide, see Michelle Miller, Rebellion and Reform in Indonesia (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 46.
37. Government of India, Planning Commission, Report of the Steering Committee on Urban Development for the Tenth Five Years Plan (2002-2007) (New Delhi: Government Publication Division, 2001)
38. M.G. Rao and N. Singh, "How to Think About Local Government Reform in India," in Economic Reform and the Liberalisation of the Indian Economy: Essays in Honour of Richard T. Shand, ed. K.P. Kalirajan (UK: Edward Elgar, 2003), 335-90.
39. It should be noted that four of China's cities (Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing and Shanghai) have provincial status and report directly to the State Council.
40. R. Dobbs and S. Sankhe, Comparing Urbanization in China and India, McKinsey & Company, McKinsey Quarterly, July 2010, 3.
41. N. Singh, Fiscal Decentralization in China and India: Competitive, Cooperative or Market Preserving Federalism?, MPRA (Munich Personal RePEc Archive) Paper no.1705, November 2007, 4.