Political centralization and government accountability

This paper studies fiscal federalism when regions differ in voters' ability to monitor publicofficials. We develop a model of political agency in which rent-seeking politicians providepublic goods to win support from heterogeneously informed voters. In equilibrium, voterinformation increases government accountability but displays decreasing returns. Therefore,political centralization reduces aggregate rent extraction when voter information varies acrossregions. It increases welfare as long as the central government is required to provide publicgoods uniformly across regions. The need for uniformity implies an endogenous trade off between reducing rents through centralization and matching idiosyncratic preferences throughdecentralization. We find that a federal structure with overlapping levels of government canbe optimal only if regional differences in accountability are sufficiently large. The modelpredicts that less informed regions should reap greater benefits when the central governmentsets a uniform policy. Consistent with our theory, we present empirical evidence that lessinformed states enjoyed faster declines in pollution after the 1970 Clean Air Act centralizedenvironmental policy at the federal level.

NEWS CONCERNING A CERTAIN TAMOIO CONFEDERATION

In this article we revisit a famous chapter of Brazilian history, yet to be properly analysed from an ethnological perspective: the `Tamoio confederation,` a coalition of 16th century coastal Tupian groups who threatened to undermine Portuguese colonization during the dispute between the French and Portuguese for the Guanabara region (now Rio de Janeiro). Was this `confederation` a new phenomenon in Tupian politics, engendered by the Conquest and inducing a shift towards political centralization? Or was it, on the contrary, the actualization of a possibility already (always) present in Tupian forms of political organization and action? These are the questions guiding our inquiry, which we seek to answer through the use of both historical sources and the in-depth ethnological knowledge of Tupi-Guarani peoples developed by various authors over recent decades.

A politica fiscal no Brasil : limites e contradições : o caso do Estado do Espirito Santo

o estudo pretende contribuir para a análise da realidade brasileira, através do caso do Estado do Espírito Santo, no período compreendido entre 1946 a 1980, tentando demonstrar a dependência financeira dos governos estaduais refletida na perda de receitas próprias e da necessária autonomia para a sua utilização. Numa visão retrospect.iva observa-se uma excessiva tendência à centralização manifestada pelo federalismo brasileiro, principalmente, depois da Reforma Tribut.ária de 1967, que estabeleceu um rigoroso controle da União sobre as receitas tributárias e sobre a ação dos Estados- membros, reduzindo sua autonomia em matéria de legislação tributária. A centralização financeira e política fez com que os go- . , . vernos estaduais perdessem 8S prerrogativasanteriorrnente adquiridas e tivessem limitada sua autonomia em;matéria de politica fiscal. Tentou-se compensar a acentuada redução das receitas tributárias estaduais lnstituindo- se o mecanismo das transferências que, a despeito de suas funç5es redIstributi vas, impõe uma série de exig§ncias e determinações para a sua aplicação. A partir dessa constataç50 passa-se a analisar a política fiscal no Estado do Espírito Santo observando-se as administrações estaduais nesse período. Cheg~-se à conclusão de que as sucessivas crises financeiras ocorridas limitaram a formulação de uma política fiscal estadual. Com isso, constat3-se que os estados passaram a ser rneros agentes administrativos reproduzindo as decis5es maiores formuladas pelo governo federal. Em linhas gerais, tentou-se comprovar a dependência fi--

Um Vice-reinado na República do pós-30: Juarez Távora, as interventorias do Norte e a Guerra de 1932

Esta tese investiga a trajetória da região geopolítica conhecida como Norte, durante o Governo Provisório varguista (1930-1934). Ela começou a ser gestada no imediato pós- 30 e, nos anos seguintes, tornou-se uma das forças políticas mais ativas de todo o período. O Norte era formado pelo então território federal do Acre e os estado do Amazonas, Pará, Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe, Bahia e Espírito Santo. Nesta conjuntura, as principais posições políticas e militares nesses estados passaram a ser ocupadas pelos que adotaram a autodesignação de revolucionários nortistas. A invenção e consolidação dessa identidade política tinha como elemento agregador o reconhecimento de Juarez Távora como grande líder e representante dos interesses da região junto ao Governo Provisório. Chamado ironicamente, por seus opositores, de “Vice-rei do Norte”, Távora liderou esse grupo durante todo o período, construindo uma importante aliança entre essa região geopolítica e o Governo Provisório. Desse modo, o Norte, seus revolucionários e seu líder foram os principais apoiadores de Vargas na defesa do projeto de centralização política, em oposição a outras correntes, sobretudo as que pregavam o retorno ao regime constitucional. Dessa forma, o Norte participou decisivamente do processo de radicalização que desembocou na guerra civil de 1932, enviando milhares de soldados para os campos de batalha e combatendo, dentro da região, os possíveis aliados do movimento rebelde liderado por São Paulo. Com o fim da guerra e confirmado o retorno do país ao regime constitucional, apesar da tentativa de permanecer como um grande bloco político, a região se fragmenta e os antigos laços que definiam a identidade dos revolucionários nortistas se dissolvem, assim como a liderança indiscutível de seu líder e herói, Juarez Távora.

O direito ao próprio direito: modelos latino-americanos de autonomia política indígena

O objetivo deste trabalho é saber se o direito indigenista, como denominarei o direito estatal que diz respeito aos povos indígenas, reconhece a legitimidade do direito indígena, como denominarei o direito produzido pelos povos indígenas, nas experiências colombiana, boliviana e brasileira. A escolha da Bolívia se justifica pelo fato de as Constituições recentes deste país e do Equador serem consideradas um novo marco do constitucionalismo pluralista ao refundarem suas ordens buscando superar a ausência indígena constituinte. Já a Colômbia se destaca entre os países que, sob a influência recente do Convênio 169, incorporaram expressamente o pluralismo jurídico em suas Constituições. A jurisprudência produzida pela Corte Constitucional do país a respeito do direito indígena é considerada exemplar e inspiradora dos desenvolvimentos mais recentes na Bolívia. O trabalho está voltado para dois aspectos do tema: a autonomia jurisdicional, ou a capacidade para julgar conflitos conforme as normas e procedimentos próprios, e os mecanismos de controle de tais decisões. A metodologia do trabalho abrange revisão bibliográfica, seleção e análise documental de decisões judiciais e textos legais. Argumento que a acomodação de autonomias políticas e ordens jurídicas de diferentes culturas depende da criação de meta-instituições e metarregras que solucionem conflitos e promovam a coordenação entre os direitos, permitindo que os grupos se relacionem de maneira equitativa, controlem a dinâmica de suas identidades culturais e se sintam parte de uma mesma comunidade política. A prática das instituições brasileiras, no entanto, está muito mais voltada a aplicar o direito estatal aos índios do que a exercer controle sobre o direito indígena, o que indica que o paradigma da assimilação prevalece sobre eventuais concepções multiculturais de Estado e sociedade, ainda que o direito legislado apresente regras que reconhecem o pluralismo jurídico. Em outras palavras, as instituições estatais enxergam os indígenas como pessoas que percorrem o caminho da incapacidade jurídica à capacidade plena à medida em que se familiarizam com a cultura dominante, e não como pessoas que podem transitar entre diferentes ordens jurídicas. Por outro lado, a experiência recente de países latino-americanos que se abriram ao pluralismo jurídico mostra um caminho difícil e repleto de questões em aberto. As que mais se destacam são a possibilidade de violações de direitos humanos por autoridades indígenas e a tensão entre centralização política e autonomia política. Em relação ao primeiro caso, o aspecto crucial é saber quem deve julgar as violações e sob quais critérios, além de evitar decisões culturalmente enviesadas. Já o segundo caso depende da superação de traços autoritários relacionados ao governo central e da predominância das estruturas estatais já consolidadas, tanto no nível central quanto no nível local, sobre as instituições mantidas pelos povos indígenas. Ainda há um descompasso entre o discurso constitucional de igualdade entre as ordens jurídicas e a prática de subordinação das ordens indígenas às instâncias estatais.

Endogenous spillovers in the trade-off between centralization and decentralization

In this paper, we revisit the classical trade-off between centralized and decentralized provision of local public goods, in a setting where interregional spillovers depend on the level of a national public good. We compare the standard benevolent planner approach with a political economy in which decisions, in a centralized system, are undertaken by a non-cooperative legislature with no separation of powers. We observe that the policy-maker in a centralized system is able to play both with local public goods and spillovers, a mechanism that is not available under a decentralized system. When compared to the traditional exogenous spillovers assumption, this improves the case for centralization under the standard benevolent planner approach. However, the same is not necessarily true in the non-cooperative legislature, as in this case the interests of the legislator do not need to be aligned with those of the society. Finally, we extend the traditional political economy analysis by considering a legislature in which decisions are undertaken by different committees (separation of powers), and show that it performs better than the original non-cooperative legislature, greatly improving the case for centralization.

Is it redistribution or centralization? On the determinants of government investment in infrastructure

The dilemma efficiency versus equity, together with political partisan interests, has received increasing attention to explain the territorial allocation of investments. However, centralization intended to introduce or reinforce hierarchization in the political system has not been object as of now of empirical analysis. Our main contribution to the literature is providing evidence that meta-political objectives related to the ordering of political power and administration influence regional investment. In this way, we find evidence that network mode’s (roads and railways) investment programs are influenced by the centralization strategy of investing near to the political capital, while investment effort in no-network modes (airports and ports) appears to be positively related to distance. Since investment in surface transportation infrastructures is much higher than that in airports and ports, and taken into account that regions surrounding the political capital are poorer than the average, we suggest that centralization rather than redistribution has been the driver for the concentration of public investment on these regions.

Shrouded costs of government: The political economy of state and local public pensions

Why do public-sector workers receive so much of their compensation in the formof pensions and other benefits? This paper presents a political economy model inwhich politicians compete for taxpayers' and government employees' votes by promising compensation packages, but some voters cannot evaluate every aspect of promisedcompensation. If pension packages are "shrouded", so that public-sector workers better understand their value than ordinary taxpayers, then compensation will be highlyback-loaded. In equilibrium, the welfare of public-sector workers could be improved,holding total public-sector costs constant, if they received higher wages and lowerpensions. Centralizing pension determination has two offsetting effects on generosity:more state-level media attention helps taxpayers better understand pension costs, andthat reduces pension generosity; but a larger share of public-sector workers will votewithin the jurisdiction, which increases pension generosity. A short discussion of pensions in two decentralized states (California and Pennsylvania) and two centralizedstates (Massachusetts and Ohio) suggests that centralization appears to have modestlyreduced pensions, but, as the model suggests, this is unlikely to be universal.

Essays on the political economy of European integration

Recently, a rising interest in political and economic integration/disintegration issues has been developed in the political economy field. This growing strand of literature partly draws on traditional issues of fiscal federalism and optimum public good provision and focuses on a trade-off between the benefits of centralization, arising from economies of scale or externalities, and the costs of harmonizing policies as a consequence of the increased heterogeneity of individual preferences in an international union or in a country composed of at least two regions. This thesis stems from this strand of literature and aims to shed some light on two highly relevant aspects of the political economy of European integration. The first concerns the role of public opinion in the integration process; more precisely, how economic benefits and costs of integration shape citizens' support for European Union (EU) membership. The second is the allocation of policy competences among different levels of government: European, national and regional. Chapter 1 introduces the topics developed in this thesis by reviewing the main recent theoretical developments in the political economy analysis of integration processes. It is structured as follows. First, it briefly surveys a few relevant articles on economic theories of integration and disintegration processes (Alesina and Spolaore 1997, Bolton and Roland 1997, Alesina et al. 2000, Casella and Feinstein 2002) and discusses their relevance for the study of the impact of economic benefits and costs on public opinion attitude towards the EU. Subsequently, it explores the links existing between such political economy literature and theories of fiscal federalism, especially with regard to normative considerations concerning the optimal allocation of competences in a union. Chapter 2 firstly proposes a model of citizens’ support for membership of international unions, with explicit reference to the EU; subsequently it tests the model on a panel of EU countries. What are the factors that influence public opinion support for the European Union (EU)? In international relations theory, the idea that citizens' support for the EU depends on material benefits deriving from integration, i.e. whether European integration makes individuals economically better off (utilitarian support), has been common since the 1970s, but has never been the subject of a formal treatment (Hix 2005). A small number of studies in the 1990s have investigated econometrically the link between national economic performance and mass support for European integration (Eichenberg and Dalton 1993; Anderson and Kalthenthaler 1996), but only making informal assumptions. The main aim of Chapter 2 is thus to propose and test our model with a view to providing a more complete and theoretically grounded picture of public support for the EU. Following theories of utilitarian support, we assume that citizens are in favour of membership if they receive economic benefits from it. To develop this idea, we propose a simple political economic model drawing on the recent economic literature on integration and disintegration processes. The basic element is the existence of a trade-off between the benefits of centralisation and the costs of harmonising policies in presence of heterogeneous preferences among countries. The approach we follow is that of the recent literature on the political economy of international unions and the unification or break-up of nations (Bolton and Roland 1997, Alesina and Wacziarg 1999, Alesina et al. 2001, 2005a, to mention only the relevant). The general perspective is that unification provides returns to scale in the provision of public goods, but reduces each member state’s ability to determine its most favoured bundle of public goods. In the simple model presented in Chapter 2, support for membership of the union is increasing in the union’s average income and in the loss of efficiency stemming from being outside the union, and decreasing in a country’s average income, while increasing heterogeneity of preferences among countries points to a reduced scope of the union. Afterwards we empirically test the model with data on the EU; more precisely, we perform an econometric analysis employing a panel of member countries over time. The second part of Chapter 2 thus tries to answer the following question: does public opinion support for the EU really depend on economic factors? The findings are broadly consistent with our theoretical expectations: the conditions of the national economy, differences in income among member states and heterogeneity of preferences shape citizens’ attitude towards their country’s membership of the EU. Consequently, this analysis offers some interesting policy implications for the present debate about ratification of the European Constitution and, more generally, about how the EU could act in order to gain more support from the European public. Citizens in many member states are called to express their opinion in national referenda, which may well end up in rejection of the Constitution, as recently happened in France and the Netherlands, triggering a European-wide political crisis. These events show that nowadays understanding public attitude towards the EU is not only of academic interest, but has a strong relevance for policy-making too. Chapter 3 empirically investigates the link between European integration and regional autonomy in Italy. Over the last few decades, the double tendency towards supranationalism and regional autonomy, which has characterised some European States, has taken a very interesting form in this country, because Italy, besides being one of the founding members of the EU, also implemented a process of decentralisation during the 1970s, further strengthened by a constitutional reform in 2001. Moreover, the issue of the allocation of competences among the EU, the Member States and the regions is now especially topical. The process leading to the drafting of European Constitution (even if then it has not come into force) has attracted much attention from a constitutional political economy perspective both on a normative and positive point of view (Breuss and Eller 2004, Mueller 2005). The Italian parliament has recently passed a new thorough constitutional reform, still to be approved by citizens in a referendum, which includes, among other things, the so called “devolution”, i.e. granting the regions exclusive competence in public health care, education and local police. Following and extending the methodology proposed in a recent influential article by Alesina et al. (2005b), which only concentrated on the EU activity (treaties, legislation, and European Court of Justice’s rulings), we develop a set of quantitative indicators measuring the intensity of the legislative activity of the Italian State, the EU and the Italian regions from 1973 to 2005 in a large number of policy categories. By doing so, we seek to answer the following broad questions. Are European and regional legislations substitutes for state laws? To what extent are the competences attributed by the European treaties or the Italian Constitution actually exerted in the various policy areas? Is their exertion consistent with the normative recommendations from the economic literature about their optimum allocation among different levels of government? The main results show that, first, there seems to be a certain substitutability between EU and national legislations (even if not a very strong one), but not between regional and national ones. Second, the EU concentrates its legislative activity mainly in international trade and agriculture, whilst social policy is where the regions and the State (which is also the main actor in foreign policy) are more active. Third, at least two levels of government (in some cases all of them) are significantly involved in the legislative activity in many sectors, even where the rationale for that is, at best, very questionable, indicating that they actually share a larger number of policy tasks than that suggested by the economic theory. It appears therefore that an excessive number of competences are actually shared among different levels of government. From an economic perspective, it may well be recommended that some competences be shared, but only when the balance between scale or spillover effects and heterogeneity of preferences suggests so. When, on the contrary, too many levels of government are involved in a certain policy area, the distinction between their different responsibilities easily becomes unnecessarily blurred. This may not only leads to a slower and inefficient policy-making process, but also risks to make it too complicate to understand for citizens, who, on the contrary, should be able to know who is really responsible for a certain policy when they vote in national,local or European elections or in referenda on national or European constitutional issues.

The European Union as a System of Differentiated Integration: Interdependence, Politicization and Differentiation. IHS Political Science Series No. 137, 10 July 2014

This paper conceptualizes the European Union (EU) as a system of differentiated integration characterized by both variation in levels of centralization (vertical differentiation) and variation in territorial extension (horizontal differentiation) across policy areas. Differentiation has been a concomitant of deepening and widening and has increased and consolidated as the EU’s powers, policy scope, and membership have grown. Turning to explanation, the paper attributes the pattern of differentiated integration in the EU to the interaction of interdependence and politicization. Differentiation among the member states (internal differentiation) results from supranational integration under conditions of high interdependence and politicization. By contrast, external differentiation (the selective policy integration of non-member states) occurs in highly interdependent but weakly politicized policy areas. These constellations are illustrated in case studies of differentiation in the internal market, monetary union, and defence.

A gazdaságpolitikai döntéshozatal nemzetek fölötti centralizációja és a közösségi gazdaságtan. Az adóverseny elméletének néhány tanulsága (Supranational centralization of economic policy-making and community economics: some lessons from the theory of tax competition)

Mennyiben képes jelenleg a közösségi gazdaságtan az adópolitikák nemzetek fölötti centralizációjára vonatkozó politikai döntések megalapozására? Válaszunk röviden az lesz, hogy a közösségi gazdaságtan főárama - noha számos releváns gazdasági és politikai tényező hatását sikeresen elemzi - jelenleg nem kínál kielégítőnek tekinthető döntési kritériumokat a döntéshozók számára. Ennek oka, hogy központi szerepet játszik benne egy, a modellek szempontjából exogén és a közgazdasági elmélettől idegen tényező: a kormányzatok jóindulatára, pontosabban annak mértékére vonatkozó premissza. Tanulmányunk az adóverseny fiskális föderalista elméletét vizsgálja, és megpróbál általánosabb szinten is a közszektor gazdaságelméletének jelenlegi állapotára, valamint továbbfejlesztésére vonatkozó tanulságokat levonni. A kiutat az elméleti zsákutcából a kormányzati működés és döntéshozatal, valamint a kívánatos gazdaságpolitikai döntések elméletének összekapcsolása jelentheti. Erre megtörténtek az első kísérletek, de a szisztematikus és átfogó elemzés egyelőre várat magára. / === / How far can community economics provide a basis for political decision-making on supranational centralization of taxation policies? The short answer here will be that although the mainstream of community economics succeeds in analysing many relevant economic and political factors, it fails at present to provide satisfactory criteria for decisionmakers. This is because a central role is played in it by a factor exogenous to the models and alien to economic theory: the premise of the measure of goodwill from governments. The study examines the fiscal federalist theory of tax competition. It tries to draw conclusions, on a more general level, about the present state of the economic theory of the public sector and future development of it. The way out of the theoretical blind alley could be to link the theories of government operation and decision-making and of desirable economic-policy decision-making. The first attempts to do so have been made, but a systematic and comprehensive analysis is still awaited.

Bevezetés a Központosítás és piaci reform című kötethez = Introduction to the volume Centralization and Market Reform

Az alábbi írás Kornai János életműsorozata közeljövőben megjelenő harmadik kötetének bevezetője alapján készült. (A sorozat első kötete, A hiány és második kötete, A szocialista rendszer 2012-ben jelent meg.) Ritkán fordul elő, hogy életművét rendszerezve, egy szerző maga veszi tételesen sorra írásait, tárja fel az írások megszületésének körülményeit, és elemzi őket több évtized távlatából. Kornai János életműsorozatának összeállításakor erre a rendkívüli feladatra vállalkozott. A kötetben megjelenő 22 íráshoz fűzött gondolatainak közlésekor mai szemmel veszi górcső alá az egy kivételével a rendszerváltás előtt írt cikkeit, valamint 1956-ban írott első könyvét, A túlzott központosítást. Az írásokat rendszerező bevezető a központosításra és a piaci reformra összpontosítja a figyelmet - e témakörről bebizonyosodott, hogy korai még csupán a közgazdaságtani elmélettörténet fejezeteként számon tartani. A kötetben megjelenő írások egy része közvetlenül kapcsolódik a magyar gazdaság tapasztalataihoz, másik része pedig elméleti jellegű. Ennek megfelelően az itt közölt bevezetés is foglalkozik mind a magyar gazdaságtörténet máig is figyelemre méltó és tanulságos gyakorlati problémáival, mind pedig a szocializmust és a kapitalizmust, a centralizált és decentralizált formákat összehasonlító általános elméletekkel. ______ This piece forms the introduction to the forthcoming third volume of János Kor-nai s life s work series reissued in Hungarian. (The first and second volumes, Economics of Shortage and The Political Economy of the Socialist System, ap-peared in 2012.) It is rare for an author to arrange his own life s work, taking his writings item by item, presenting the circumstances in which they arose, and ana-lysing them decades later. His thoughts on the twenty-two writings in the volume, at the time of republication, involve scrutinizing with present-day eyes articles written, with one exception, before the change of system, along with his first book, Overcentralization, written in 1956. The introduction that systematizes these fo-cuses on centralization and on market reform - events show it is still too soon to see these subjects simply as a chapter in the theoretical history of economics. Some of the articles draw directly on experiences with the Hungarian economy, while others have a theoretical nature. So the introduction also deals both with practical problems of Hungarian economic history that remain notable and instructive, and with comparative general theories of socialism and capitalism and centralized and decentralized forms.

Cidadania e educação física : matrizes históricas e políticas, contradições e perspectivas = Citizenship and physical education : historical and political matrices, perspectives and contradictions

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Cardiopulmonary effects and eyeball centralization with low-dose atracurium in spontaneously breathing, anesthetized dogs

The objective was to determine the cardiopulmonary effects and eyeball centralization time obtained with 15 or 30µg kg-1 of atracurium in anesthetized dogs under spontaneous breathing. Eighteen healthy adult mixed-breed dogs were used, which received 0.1mg kg-1 acepromazine and 0.5mg kg-1 morphine IM, followed by 4mg kg-1 propofol IV and maintained on isoflurane anesthesia with spontaneous breathing. Animals received 1mL 0.9% NaCl IV (CG), 15µg kg-1 (G15) or 30µg kg-1 (G30) of atracurium IV. Eyeball centralization time was measured; heart rate (HR), systolic (SAP), mean (MAP) and diastolic (DAP) arterial pressures, respiratory rate (RR), tidal volume (Vt) and minute volume (Vm) were determined every 5min, and pH, arterial CO2 pressure (PaCO2 ), arterial O2 pressure (PaO2 ), hemoglobin oxygen saturation (SaO2 ), bicarbonate (HCO3-) and base excess (BE) every 15min until 60min. Both doses of atracurium produced a similar period of eyeball centralization. Vt in groups treated with atracurium was lower than in CG up to 15min. Vm in G15 differed from CG up to 10min and in G30 up to 25min. No differences were observed for cardiovascular parameters, RR, SaO2, PaO2, HCO3- and BE. pH decreased in CG between 30 and 60min and in G15 and G30 at 15min. G30 differed from CG between 15 and 30min. PaCO2 in GC differed from baseline between 30 and 60min and in G15 differed at 15min. Atracurium at the dose of 15µg kg-1 is adequate for short corneal procedures in inhalant-anesthetized dogs under spontaneous breathing.

Organized Crime and Terrorism: From the Cells Towards Political Communication, A Case Study

During the first half of 2006 the city of Sao Paulo suffered three series of violent attacks against the security forces, civilians, and the government. The violent campaign also included a massive rebellion in prisons and culminated in the kidnapping of a journalist and the broadcast of a manifesto from the criminal organization PCC threatening the police and the government. Right after, the main device used to contain organized crime in the prisons was declared unconstitutional. This episode represents a prototypical example of the use of media-focused terrorism by organized crime for projection into the political communication arena.