Fiscal Decentralisation, Local Government and Policy Reversals in Southeastern Europe

This edited collection provides a comprehensive geographic and chronological overview of the decentralisation processes in the successor states of former Yugoslavia and Albania during their transition and EU integration years, from 1990 until 2016. These countries present a unique laboratory for the analysis of economic, social and political change, having traversed armed conflicts, dramatic economic and political changes, and EU pre-accession processes involving deep institutional reform. They have also endured the Eurozone crisis, which has led to high levels of unemployment, wide fiscal gaps and dangerously high levels of indebtedness.

Observing the quarter century-long transition from socialism to capitalism through the prism of decentralisation sheds new light on studying the political economy of the region and the current status of the individual countries in terms of economic development and their EU integration progress. The contributors enrich the wider literature on fiscal decentralisation in transition countries by exploring several broad questions on democratisation, the political economy of post-communist transition, the role of external actors in policy transfer and the issue of financial stability in the post-crisis period.

Builds on the so-called 'second generation theory' of fiscal decentralisation Addresses the issues of how the countries of former Yugoslavia and Albania evolved in the post-conflict period and how they responded to the global financial/Eurozone crisis Explores 4 major sub-themes of decentralisation: political, administrative, functional and fiscal

Autorentext
William Bartlett is Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. He is coordinator of the LSEE Research Network on Social Cohesion in South East Europe and has carried out numerous research and consultancy projects, including those for the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the European Training Foundation, UNDP and UNICEF.

Sanja Kmezi is Lecturer at the Karl Franzens University of Graz, Austria. Kmezi is a co-founder of the non-profit think tank European Research Academy Belgrade (EURAK), Serbia and has worked as an advisor on various international development programmes aimed at local government and public administration reform.

Katarina uli is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics, Finance and Administration in Belgrade, Serbia. She is also a co-founder of EURAK and has carried out numerous consultancy projects for the International Finance Corporation, USAID and SECO aimed at governance and public financial management reform.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: The Political Economy of Decentralisation and Local Government Finance: An Overview.- Part I: Europeanisation and the Political Economy of Decentralisation.- Chapter 2: Slovenia: Vertical Imbalance in Local Government Financing.- Chapter 3: Croatia: Instruments of Fiscal Equalisation.- Part II: Crisis, Policy Reversals and Local Government Debt.- Chapter 4: Serbia: Local Government Financing and Non-Transparency of Fiscal Data.- Chapter 5. Montenegro: Volatile Municipal Revenues.- Chapter 6: Bosnia and Herzegovina: Local Government Debt.- Part III: Local Governments in Transition and the Political Economy of Ethnicity.- Chapter 7: Macedonia: Local Government Efficiency and Ethnic Fragmentation.- Chapter 8: Kosovo: Can Decentralisation Resolve Ethnic Conflict?.- Part IV: Albania: Struggling with the Legacy of Extreme Centralisation.- Chapter 9: Albania: Aligning Territorial and Fiscal Decentralisation.- Part V: Conclusions.- Chapter 10: Comparative Conclusions: Decentralisation and Policy Reversals in Southeastern Europe. <p