FW: Decentralization and Community Empowerment:Does community empowerment deepen democracy and improve service delivery?

Decentralization and Community Empowerment:

Does community empowerment deepen democracy and improve service delivery?

Derick W. Brinkerhoff, with Omar Azfar

October 2006

Paper prepared for:

U.S. Agency for International Development

Office of Democracy and Governance

Contract No. DFD-I-00-05-00128-00, Task Order No. 2

RTI International

701 13th Street NW, Suite 750

Washington, DC 20005

Derick W. Brinkerhoff is Senior Fellow in International Public Management at RTI

International, and an associate faculty member at George Washington University’s

School of Public Policy and Public Administration. Omar Azfar is Associate Professor,

Department of Public Management, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University

of New York. Helpful comments on earlier drafts are acknowledged from Edwin

Connerley, Robert Groelsema, Brian Levy, Janine Perfit, and Brian Wampler. The views

expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors.

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Table of Contents

I. Introduction................................................................................................................. 1

II. Decentralization ......................................................................................................... 2

Definitions.................................................................................................................. 2

Expected Outcomes .................................................................................................... 3

III. Community Empowerment ....................................................................................... 5

Definitions.................................................................................................................. 5

Mechanisms................................................................................................................ 7

IV. Community Empowerment and Decentralization .................................................... 13

V. Community Empowerment’s Contribution to Decentralization Outcomes ................ 15

VI. Considerations for Achieving Democratic Local Governance ................................. 26

VII. Conclusions........................................................................................................... 29

References .................................................................................................................... 32

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I. Introduction

Decentralization is frequently recommended as a means to enact and deepen democratic

governance and to improve administrative and service delivery effectiveness. While

decentralization is often regarded as a top-down process driven by the unitary or federal

state in which the center grants functions, authorities, and resources to subnational and

local levels, impulses for decentralization can also originate from these lower levels.

Closely associated with the bottom-up dynamic is local or community empowerment,

whereby local actors, capacities, and resources are mobilized for collective action to

achieve public purposes. Local governments and jurisdictions constitute the institutional

loci where these top-down and bottom-up drives meet, thus an important question for the

successful achievement of decentralization’s democratic and service delivery aims is

whether and how community empowerment interacts with local governments to further

these objectives.

At first glance, one might expect community empowerment to help whenever

decentralization does, because if decentralization moves government closer to the people,

community empowerment moves it closer still. However, precisely because

decentralization concerns politics and power as well as technocratic efficiency and

effectiveness, the assumption that empowerment automatically enhances democracy and

service delivery merits investigation. We explore the possibility that certain

empowerment mechanisms may be vulnerable to cooptation and domination by elites and

organized interests.

This paper focuses on community empowerment and explores its relationship to

democratic decentralized local government. Besides looking at community empowerment

as a contributor to the extent to which decentralization can strengthen democracy and

service delivery, the paper also addresses how various degrees of decentralization

influence opportunities for, and outcomes of, community empowerment. For example,

bottom-up, demand-driven pressures from communities on local government will be

successful only to the extent that decentralized institutional arrangements support an

effective supply response. Local public institutions and actors need to be receptive to,

and capable of accommodating, citizen engagement aimed at affecting policy decisions

and service delivery. The demand side of democratic local governance cannot function

effectively without the supply side. Critical to the supply and demand interplay between

citizens and local government is the constitutional and legal framework that establishes

citizens’ political and civil rights, and enables them to exercise those rights.

In the following section we review the meaning of decentralization and the arguments for

pursuing it. We discuss a set of expected outcomes that decentralization contributes to as

a first step in developing a framework for assessing community empowerment’s role in

deepening democracy and improving service delivery. Section III defines community

empowerment and examines the range of mechanisms employed to empower

communities in relation to local government. Section IV frames issues for community

empowerment that emerge as decentralization moves from deconcentration to democratic

devolution. In Section V we address the question: how does community empowerment

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improve the ability of decentralization to deepen democracy and provide better public

services? Section VI looks in more depth at community empowerment and democratic

local governance, and examines arguments that empowerment mechanisms may in some

situations weaken, rather than support, democratic local governance. The final section

offers conclusions.

II. Decentralization

Definitions

Decentralization deals with the allocation between center and periphery of power,

authority, and responsibility for political, fiscal, and administrative systems. The most

common definitions of decentralization distinguish variants along a continuum where at

one end the center maintains strong control with limited power and discretion at lower

levels (deconcentration) to progressively decreasing central control and increasing local

discretion at the other (devolution). The devolutionary end of the continuum is

associated with more democratic governance. Decentralization has a spatial aspect in

that authority and responsibility are moved to organizations and jurisdictions in different

physical locations, from the center to the local-level. And it has an institutional aspect in

that these transfers involve expanding roles and functions from one central agency/level

of government to multiple agencies and jurisdictions (from monopoly to

pluralism/federalism).

In principle, accompanying the transfer of authority and responsibility and the expanded

discretionary space to make decisions locally is a shift in accountability. Upward

accountability to the center is supplemented with, or in the case of devolution largely

superseded by, downward accountability. And indirect accountability, mediated by

higher level authorities—what has been referred to as the “long route” to accountability

(World Bank 2004)—is augmented with direct accountability, the “short route.” The

presence and the nature of decentralized accountability relationships are significant

factors in creating options and avenues for community empowerment. As Ribot (2004)

points out, an important question is whether or not decentralization choices, and the

accountability structures and incentives they put in place for local government and local

service delivery agencies, enfranchise communities.

Table 1 summarizes the different types of decentralization, and identifies the features that

characterize local government under each type. Clearly, the contents of the table are

stylized versions of local government’s administrative, financial, and political dimensions

under progressively more democratic decentralized governance systems. In reality, local

governments (LGs) are much more complex and nuanced blends of these characteristics.

The table illustrates that, in general, democratic local governance offers both a greater

range of decisions and more autonomous decision space within that range to local

government actors. However, the specific contours of that democratic space will be

strongly influenced by how authority is distributed at the local level. Strong mayor-weak

council systems create narrower space than systems that balance authority more evenly

between mayors and councils, and that provide for citizen input to council meetings. For

example, in Latin America, LGs are characterized by a strong executive who has both

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policy and administrative roles. The executive wields considerable power, much more

than the local legislature or council, both formally and informally. Mayors tend to fill

several roles, for instance, as influential political party members and community leaders.

Table 1. Types of Decentralization and Impacts on Local Government

Administrative Financial/fiscal Political

Deconcentration

LG follows central policies, plans

according to central norms. Form

& structure of LG centrally

determined.

LG staff are employees of central

ministries, accountable to center.

LG is service delivery arm of

center, little or no discretion in

service choice or mix, modes of

provision.

LG provides information upwards

to center.

LG is dependent on center for

funds; sectoral ministries and MOF

provide spending priorities &

budget envelope.

LG has no independent revenue

sources.

LG reports to center on

expenditure according to central

formulas and norms.

Center conducts LG audits.

No elected LG, officials appointed by

center, & serve central interests.

Civil society & citizens rely on remote

& weak links to central government

for exercising accountability.

Little political space for local civil

society, central elites control politics.

Delegation

LG follows central policies &

norms, has some discretion to

tailor to local needs, & to modify

form & structure.

LG staff may be mix of central and

LG employees; LG has authority

on hiring & placement; center

handles promotion & firing.

LG provides service menu set by

center, some discretion in mix to

fit local needs, & in modes of

provision.

LG provides most information

upwards to center & selected

information to local officials,

citizens.

LG is dependent on center for

funds; LG has some discretion on

spending priorities within budget

envelope. Block grants &

conditional transfers from center

offer some autonomy.

LG has no independent revenue

sources.

LG reports to center and local

officials on expenditure according

to central formulas and norms.

Center and LG conducts LG

audits.

LG may be a mix of elected and

centrally appointed officials.

Local officials often tied to national

party platforms, little discretion.

Some local accountability, but strong

central orientation.

Some political space for local civil

society.

Devolution

LG is subject to national norms,

but sets local policies & priorities,

plans autonomously in response

to local preferences & needs. LG

determines own form & structure.

LG staff are employees of LG,

which sets salaries, numbers,

assignments, & handles

hiring/firing.

LG determines service mix,

modes of provision, eligibility, &

allocation.

LG provides information to local

officials, citizens.

LG sets spending priorities, plans

how to meet service delivery

obligations given resource

availability.

LG has mix of own-source

revenues, revenue-sharing, central

transfers.

LG may have some authority for

debt financing, but is subject to a

hard budget constraint.

LG reports to local officials and

citizens on expenditure according

to central formulas and norms.

LG is responsible for audits,

reports results locally and to

center.

Locally elected officials lead LG, may

or may not be linked to national

parties, platforms respond to

constituent demands and needs.

Strong local accountability, LG

shapes budget priorities,

investments, service mix to fit local

preferences and needs.

Broad political space for local civil

society.

Source: From Brinkerhoff and Leighton (2002), Johnson (1995), World Bank (2004).

Expected Outcomes

Two broad categories of outcomes anticipated from decentralization are usually

identified: those related to deepening democracy and those concerning improved service

delivery. The distinction between these two categories is not hard and fast. In the list

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developed below, we acknowledge that there is overlap and positive feedback between

the democracy and service delivery outcomes; in actual fact many of these lie somewhere

along a continuum that might go from “pure” democratic deepening to “pure” service

delivery improvement.

The concept of democratic deepening emerged from the literature on democratic

transitions and waves. It generally refers to processes of consolidation and

institutionalization such that democracy becomes “the only game in town” (Diamond

1997: xvii) or a “meaningful way for diverse sectors of the populace to exercise

collective control over the public decisions that affect their lives” (Roberts 1998: 2).

Democratic deepening concerns not simply the structures and procedures by which

democratic governance is exercised, but its quality and substance (Gaventa 2005). For

example, in principle, the existence of formal representative structures provides for

political participation for all citizens. Yet in practice, if political parties and elections

function such that the interests of the poor, women, and/or minorities are consistently

excluded, then the quality of democracy is called into question. Along this vein,

subsequent debates emphasize issues of inclusiveness and participation, arguing that

deepening democracy requires the active engagement in public affairs of citizens from all

socioeconomic strata (see Fung and Wright 2003a). Decentralization, particularly its

devolutionary variant and the political dimension, is recognized in the democracy

literature as contributing importantly to democratic deepening, but with the caveat that

elite capture is a danger requiring explicit countervailing measures to avoid (e.g.,

Bardhan and Mookherjee 2000, UNDP 2002).

Central-local relations play an important role in influencing whether decentralization

achieves democratic outcomes, particularly the configuration of power relationships

between central and regional/local elites (Manor 1999, Crook 2003, Crook and

Sverrisson 1999). The existence of multiple layers of government in decentralized

democracies creates a separation of powers that can provide checks on actions at various

levels. Different levels of government can then discipline each other. As Das Gupta et

al. (2004) note, central governments can exercise their power over sub-national levels to

support the achievement of national development objectives, such as poverty reduction.

In Indonesia, a recent study (Olken 2005) found that increasing the likelihood of audits

by a central government agency reduces corruption in local governments.

Much of the decentralization literature focuses on the second outcome category, service

delivery. Major analytic threads focus on how decentralization improves allocative

efficiency through matching services with citizen preferences, increases service

production efficiency and cost recovery, and affects intergovernmental fiscal relations

(see, for example, Azfar et al. 2001, Shah and Thompson 2004, Oates 1999, Tiebout

1956). Related threads explore decentralization’s impacts on service providers’

incentives for accountability, innovation, and equitable distribution (e.g., Dillinger 1994).

For our purposes we select the following specific outcomes to explore in this paper. We

address three decentralization outcomes that deepen democracy and three that contribute

to improved service delivery. We recognize that this list is far from comprehensive;

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given the extensive literatures on democracy and decentralization, generating such a list

is beyond the scope of our endeavor.

Deepening Democracy

1. Improved accountability and responsiveness to a broad range of citizens.

2. Improved skills and capacity of citizens to participate effectively in public affairs.

3. New and expanded cadre of leaders with democratic skills that can transform the

contestability of political markets.

Improved Service Delivery

1. Better matching of public services to citizens’ needs and preferences.

2. Improved technical efficiency because of “a race to the top” as different

jurisdictions compete with each other for tax paying firms and residents by

providing more attractive service mixes and incentives.

3. Increased innovation as problems are solved at the local level and as successes are

disseminated.

III. Community Empowerment

Definitions

Conceptually, community empowerment is closely allied with citizen participation, and

shares with that literature the diversity of perspectives that range from normative and

prescriptive to empirical, and from a focus on community empowerment as a process or

an outcome (see, for example, Craig and Mayo 1995, Mansuri and Rao 2004). Just as

with participation, numerous analyses seek to parse empowerment in terms of whether it

is “real” or “genuine.” However, empowerment is more usefully viewed in instrumental

terms, as contributing to achieving particular purposes. This perspective, as opposed to a

normative stance, is the one we take here. There is a wide variety of analytic approaches

to empowerment (see Narayan 2005). All deal in one way or another with state-society

relations. As Uphoff (2005) notes, a core issue is the power dimension.

From its original meaning of to invest with decision-making power and authority,

definitions of empowerment have expanded to include: having access to information and

resources, having a range of choices beyond yes or no, exercise of “voice” and “exit,”

feeling an individual or group sense of efficacy, and mobilizing like-minded others for

common goals. These latter elements reflect a perspective on empowerment that

encompasses psychological capabilities, including belief in citizenship rights, and

aspirations to a better future (see Cornwall and Gaventa 2001, Diener and Biswas-Diener

2005, Appadurai 2004).

Combining community with empowerment emphasizes the essentiality of collective

action to the concept. Community empowerment concerns how members of a group are

able to act collectively in ways that enhance their influence on, or control over, decisions

that affect their interests. Although a community is often defined generically as a group

of people living in the same locality and under the same government, we employ a

working definition that focuses on the collective action dimension: a community is a

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group that shares a sufficient commonality of interests such that its members are

motivated to engage in collective action.

This definition does not mean that everyone agrees, or that there are no socio-economic

divisions or conflicts within a community. We do not subscribe to the view that equates

community with egalitarian harmony, a theme that Campfens (1997), for example,

identifies as one enduring intellectual tradition in the community development literature.

Particularly in countries with weak civil societies, or post-conflict situations where

societies exhibit deep socio-ethnic cleavages, collective action capacity within a

community is likely to be fragile and easily broken through internal distrust or external

efforts by state actors to exert control.

Further, this definition does not assume that all members of a community engage equally

in collective action. Communities are made up of individuals, and in practice

empowerment is most likely to emerge first among a small group of motivated

community members, before expanding to a broader base of citizens though constituency

building, education, and outreach. It is unrealistic to expect that large numbers of

individuals will necessarily be interested ex ante in collective action. Rather, it is more

reasonable to assume that small numbers of community representatives will engage

initially, acting on behalf of their communities. Empowered individuals can significantly

advance a collective agenda, even in some cases spurring an emboldened minority to

advocate on behalf of their community.

An extensive political economy literature addresses the possibilities and limits of

collective action, beginning with Olson’s classic work (1965), and in the international

development context pursued by—among others—Ostrom and her colleagues, who have

focused on community management of common pool resources (e.g., Ostrom 1990). This

literature has concentrated on self-governance at the community level and has tended to

downplay the connections between local self-governance institutions and the vertical

structures of state governance (Agrawal 2001). The state-community linkage is picked

up explicitly in the literature that addresses poverty-focused development and service

delivery for the poor. For example, the World Bank’s research on poverty reduction

highlights empowerment as key to meeting the needs and demands of the poor (Narayan

2002) and to enable accountability to the poor (World Bank 2004). Programmatically,

this research has informed the design of the Bank’s support to poverty reduction

strategies and community-driven development (see Binswanger and Aiyar 2003).

Drawing upon these analytic streams, we define community empowerment operationally

in terms of four elements. Communities are empowered if they: 1) have access to

information, 2) are included and participate in forums where issues are discussed and

decisions are made, 3) can hold decision-makers accountable for their choices and

actions, and 4) have the capacity and resources to organize to aggregate and express their

interests and/or to take on roles as partners with public service delivery agencies.

Information is essential to engaging communities in democratic governance and/or

service delivery; when citizens lack information about what local governments are doing

they are powerless to move beyond being passive recipients of whatever public officials

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provide them. Empowerment requires that communities are able to gain entrée to the

venues in which deliberation and decision-making take place, and that they have the

capacity to participate effectively. For example, public meetings on community school

issues need to be scheduled at times that parents are likely to be available with sufficient

advance notice that they can plan to attend; plus the presentation of the issues needs to be

accessible to non-specialists. Empowered communities can take steps to assure that

public officials adhere to their promises and plans through the exercise of accountability

mechanisms. Finally, empowerment calls for sufficient organizational capacity of local

groups to take on a variety of functions, depending upon particular situations. For

example, communities engaged in service co-production need management capacity to

plan, operate, and sustain service delivery in cooperation with public agencies. Local

groups engaged in lobbying for their interests and pushing for reforms need

organizational capacity to forge alliances with others, develop advocacy campaigns,

address technical policy issues, and mobilize political clout.

Mechanisms

This section identifies mechanisms to strengthen community empowerment. For

purposes of presentation, we categorize mechanisms according to the four constituent

elements of the definition of community empowerment discussed above. However, we

recognize that most of the mechanisms contribute to more than one of the empowerment

elements. For example, mechanisms that enhance access to information help

communities to participate more effectively and exercise accountability. Further, we

distinguish between: a) mechanisms that result from decisions taken by state actors and

where outcomes are determined in state-centered arenas (executive agencies, legislatures,

courts), and b) those mechanisms where the impetus comes from non-state actors and

outcomes are resolved in public arenas that in many cases are independent of the state.

These two arenas are both interconnected and, in some situations, overlapping, but this

distinction highlights the importance of empowerment as a source of countervailing

strength on the part of communities vis à vis the state. In a democracy, community

empowerment is less something that state actors bestow upon communities at their

discretion, than it is a right or a demand that communities exercise in their relations with

the state. Table 2 provides a summary of the mechanisms to be discussed.

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Table 2. Community Empowerment Mechanisms

Information Inclusion/participation Accountability Local organizational

capacity

Statecentered

arena

-Access to

information laws

(FIOA)

-Sunshine laws

-Open hearings

-Public expenditure

tracking surveys

-Participatory budgeting

-Quotas for women and

minorities

-Joint planning

-Laws on participation

-Question periods

-Citizen review boards

-Local councils

-Elections

-Litigation

-Parents’ associations

-School committees

-Health committees

-Natural resources comanagement

contracts

Societycentered

arena

-Citizen report

cards

-Media reporting

-Information/

Advocacy

campaigns

-Civic education

-Grassroots movements

-“Journées de réflexion”

-Referendums

-Recalls

-Watch-dog NGOs

-“Observatoires”

-CSOs/NGOs

-Social capital formation

-Church groups

Source: Adapted from Narayan (2002).

Access to information

As we noted, access to information is the basic foundation for empowerment, thus core

empowerment mechanisms that reside within the state’s legal and institutional structures

include laws and procedures that make information available and transparent. These

include freedom of information acts (FOIAs), so-called sunshine legislation that

mandates government to disseminate budget and program documents, and procedural

requirements for open hearings on matters of concern to communities. A donor-initiated

mechanism is the public expenditure tracking survey (PETS), which documents resource

flows between different levels of government from the central to the local with the aim of

giving information to local communities regarding funding for services, such as health or

education (see Reinikka and Svensson 2004). These surveys track leakage and time lag.

Originally applied to education expenditure in Uganda with support from the World

Bank, PETSs have spread to other countries and sectors. The information they provide

can be used by communities to hold service providers accountable, and to fight

corruption.

Empowerment mechanisms in this category that emanate from non-state actors include

citizen report cards, the investigations and reporting of independent media,

information/advocacy campaigns by civil society organizations (CSOs), and civic

education programs. Citizen reports cards have gained in popularity since their

introduction in India by the Public Affairs Centre (PAC), a civil society organization

established in 1994 in Bangalore. PAC developed a methodology to monitor citizen

satisfaction with public services and policies, based on perceptions of quality, efficiency,

adequacy, and extent of corruption. In 1999, PAC conducted a report card study in the

city of Bangalore as a follow-up to its initial study, undertaken in 1994 (Paul and Sekhar

2000). After conducting the study, PAC first presented report cards to four of the key

service providers (telecommunications, water, electricity, and the municipal government)

to solicit reactions. After these initial meetings, PAC circulated its report to all public

agencies, senior state government officials, and held a press conference for the media,

which gave the results wide coverage. The World Bank and other international agencies

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have helped to spread report cards to other countries, and PAC now offers assistance to

other organizations to conduct the surveys.

An example of a civil society-initiated information campaign is the South Africa

Women’s Budget Initiative (WBI). Started in 1995 by the South African advocacy NGO,

IDASA, the WBI has analyzed the impacts of the government budget on different groups.

It relied on researchers from NGOs and academic institutions, but also included

parliamentarians and civil servants. The initiative influenced policy makers as they

prepared South Africa’s budget (Budlender 1998). The WBI’s members organized a

number of conferences and workshops that served as forums to foster an exchange of

views and to generate consensus. In most instances, the media were included in

recognition of their important role in educating the public on economic issues.

Civic education programs seek both to inform communities and to mobilize citizen action

regarding democratic governance. Such efforts frequently include topics such as

democratic values, the structure and processes of democratic systems, political party

functioning, elections and voting, and citizen rights and responsibilities. For example,

USAID supported numerous civic education programs in countries of the former Soviet

Union, in South Africa, and more recently in Iraq (Blair 2003, Finkel 2003, Brinkerhoff

and Mayfield 2005).

Inclusion/participation

Mechanisms to foster inclusion and community participation range from legally

mandated measures such as Bolivia’s law on participation and India’s quotas for women

and minorities in local legislatures (see Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2003), to procedural

routines in public agencies, such as joint planning exercises with communities and

service providers or question and notice periods for pending regulations and laws. These

latter offer communities the opportunity to give public officials their views before laws

are promulgated in final form. Probably the most widely recognized procedural

empowerment mechanism is participatory budgeting. The now famous case of the

Brazilian municipality of Porto Alegre is the source of this increasingly popular

mechanism for citizen and community participation.

In the 1980s, the city of Porto Alegre faced two problems: increased demand for services

and severe budget shortfalls. This made the distribution of resources contentious and

problematic. The city’s newly elected leadership from the workers’ party addressed these

problems by designing a participatory budget in 1989. By 1995, the city’s regional

meetings, which were coordinated by the municipal government, drew over fourteen

thousand participants. Adding these individual participants to the local associations and

popular organizations that participated, Porto Alegre’s mayor estimated that over 100,000

people were engaged in the creation of the city budget. These processes led to the

prioritization of problems that people agreed were most worthy of attention, and to the

selection of practicable solutions to them (see Baiocchi 2003, Heller 2001). The

experience of Porto Alegre has led to widespread dissemination of similar participatory

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budgeting exercises both in other Brazilian cities and other countries (see Brautigam

2004, McNulty 2006).

Grassroots movements are an example of a community empowerment mechanism that

originates outside of local or national government structures. Landless peasant

movements pushing for agrarian land reform are an example, such as the “Movimiento

dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra,” formed in 1984 in Brazil, which used techniques

of mass peaceful land occupations to pressure state governments to change land policies

(Wright and Wolford 2003). Grassroots movements bring into relief the political nature

of empowerment mechanisms when they are used to challenge state power and the

dominance of local elites, in the Brazilian example, large landholders.

Another society-centered example of an empowerment mechanism that fosters inclusion

is civil society dialogue forums or “journées de réflexion” (reflection days), as they are

called in francophone Africa. These mechanisms were often used to facilitate citizen

consultations as input to Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). The case of

Bolivia illustrates a situation where CSOs’ negative experience with a governmentinitiated

participatory process, the First National Dialogue in 1997, led to a second

exercise in which civil society groups, under the umbrella of the Catholic church,

organized the dialogue. The First Dialogue gave insufficient time to CSOs to access

information and develop policy positions. There was little follow-up, fueling suspicion

and skepticism within civil society about the official approach to national debates on

macroeconomic management (Coventry 1999). Civil society groups overcame their

disappointment and responded to the government’s call for participation in the Second

National Dialogue in the spring of 2000 to launch a new discussion of growth and equity

issues under the aegis of the PRSP. The church-led forum extended participation to the

municipal level whereas the first effort consulted only national-level CSOs. The

meetings generated a number of proposals for the use of PRSP funds, many of them

critical of the government’s existing macroeconomic policy framework.

Accountability

Accountability is defined as a relationship where one party has the obligation to answer

questions regarding decisions and/or actions posed by another party, and the accountable

party is subject to sanctions for failures or transgressions (see Schedler 1999). Horizontal

accountability concerns the classic separation of powers, but also includes a variety of

oversight entities, such as audit offices, ombudsmen, courts of accounts, electoral

commissions, and so on. Vertical accountability refers to actors located outside the state

that play a role in holding state actors accountable.

Community empowerment mechanisms figure largely in regard to this latter type of

accountability. In democracies, the classic empowerment mechanism that addresses

vertical accountability is voting, either in general elections or referendums. Whether or

not elections actually serve to empower local communities to exercise accountability is a

question that is the topic of a large literature (see the summary in Schroeder 2003, see

also Brinkerhoff 2005). Clearly, much depends upon the rules in place that govern

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elections. For example, in Indonesia even though new laws establish direct voting for

regional parliament members and mayors, the impact on local accountability is blunted

by existing laws that preclude the possibility of independent (non-partisan) candidates for

regional office, which means that officials’ loyalties are oriented to national political

parties rather than to local citizens (DEMOS 2005).

Local councils, which may or may not consist of elected members, are another

community empowerment mechanism. As with elections, the extent to which councils

can and do empower communities depends heavily upon the rules by which they operate.

For example, the shift from a weak to a strong mayor system in Zimbabwean cities in the

mid-1990s increased the accountability of local public officials to elected representatives

of the municipalities (Olowu 2003). Uganda has a local council system with reserved

places for women, youth, and persons with disabilities (Devas and Grant 2003). In postwar

Iraq, for example, USAID assistance for local governance put in place local councils

as mechanisms to introduce accountability for service delivery and responsiveness to

community needs at the local level (Brinkerhoff and Mayfield 2005). Peru’s recent

reform efforts seek to incorporate community groups into local and regional planning, but

the success of these efforts is strongly influenced by the political will of regional

governors and by communities’ belief in the potential effectiveness of the participatory

planning structures (McNulty 2006).

Citizen review boards are another type of accountability-focused empowerment

mechanism. For example, Bolivia’s popular participation law established oversight

committees (“comites de viligancia”) made up of elected community organization leaders

to review local government investment plans for conformity with community priorities

and municipal council decisions (Faguet 2001). A similar structure can be found in

several francophone African countries called “observatoires,” or observatories. These are

legally mandated but independent organizations charged with oversight of particular

sectoral activities. For example, Madagascar passed a law in 2001 to set up a Forest

Sector Observatory to serve as an external oversight and monitoring body for forest

management and exploitation in response to problems of corruption. Such entities often

straddle the border between horizontal and vertical accountability; they have formal legal

standing to perform their oversight function, and thus are part of a state system of checks

and balances, but they depend upon non-state actors for their functioning.

Related to observatories, but established apart from a governmental initiative, are NGO

“watchdog” groups that take on a monitoring and reporting function, often taking

government plans and then comparing the extent to which those plans are respected.

Their vertical accountability power comes from publicizing their findings, publicly

exposing cases of failure to deliver services as mandated or of malfeasance, mobilizing

citizens to pressure decision-makers for redress and correction, and in some situations

pursuing litigation. Smulovitz and Peruzzoti (2000) label this variant of vertical

accountability, societal accountability, to distinguish it from elections and to highlight the

importance of civil society and NGOs in exercising this form of empowerment (see also

Goetz and Jenkins 2004).

12

In the Indian state of Gujarat, for example, a local NGO, DISHA (Developing Initiatives

for Social and Human Action) illustrates empowerment through societal accountability.

DISHA decided to monitor the state’s budget to determine whether funds allocated to

provide services for the poor and tribal were actually spent on them. After a struggle to

obtain the documents, DISHA issued its first budget analysis in 1993, revealing a large

gap between stated and actual pro-poor expenditure. DISHA expanded its analytic

program to disseminate information about the budget and budgetary process, as well as

its analysis, to policy makers, members of the community and the press. It also organized

training programs to teach other NGOs about how the state government budgetary

process works. DISHA has contacted many NGOs within the state and in other states to

share this information and the skills it has developed. DISHA’s founder went on to

establish a populist political movement (Buhl 1997).

Local organizational capacity

There are numerous examples of organizational mechanisms that empower communities

both to engage with public agencies in service delivery partnerships and to undertake

autonomous collective action. In the education sector, parents’ associations and school

committees serve to incorporate the views and desires of communities into decisions

related to their children’s education. In some cases, these organizations give community

members management and oversight authority. Such mechanisms become, in effect,

learning laboratories for the participants, enhancing communities’ organizational

capabilities over time.

For example, Madagascar has two community organizations in the education sector. The

FRAM is the association of parents of students. It is supported by voluntary contributions

from its members; in communities whose schools do not have enough teachers, FRAMs

have hired teachers on a contract basis, paying them with a combination of money, bags

of rice, and donated agricultural labor and land. FRAM members also provide in-kind

support to school operations and rehabilitation, volunteering to carry materials and

supplies to remote schools where vehicles cannot reach, and contributing labor to school

projects as needed. FRAM leaders are elected by the community. The FAF, a

government-community partnership organization for school development (known by its

Malagasy acronym), was created by a ministerial decree in 2002, in response to the need

for a formal organization to receive World Bank funds. Its partnership structure

combines civil servants (school directors) with elected community members to manage

resources devoted to support schools through a fund whose transactions are publicly

posted to assure transparency (Brinkerhoff 2004).

Self-governing irrigation associations in Asia are another example, well documented by

Ostrom (1990) and Tang (1992). They analyzed how farmers in countries such as Nepal,

Bangladesh, and the Philippines have organized themselves to handle water distribution

and canal maintenance, to devise and enforce monitoring systems and rules, and to

interact with officials of public irrigation agencies. They identified the importance of

trust and communication to self-governance, factors that play a role in the creation of

social capital, a resource identified in the literature on empowerment as important to local

13

organizational capacity (see Narayan 2005). Other organizational forms linked with

community empowerment capacity include village health committees (Cornwall et al.

2000), forestry co-management organizations (Ribot 2004), microcredit networks

(Narayan 2002), and faith-based groups such as the Catholic church that organized the

citizen dialogues for input to the PRSP in Bolivia.

IV. Community Empowerment and Decentralization

Table 3 adds the community empowerment dimension to the previously developed

picture of local government under different types of decentralization presented in Table

1. As with the previous table, this one presents an idealized view for purposes of

illustration. The table here reveals several core points. First, the more decentralization

moves toward democratic devolution, the greater: a) the space for communities and

citizens to exercise voice with local officials, and b) the space for local officials to

exercise discretion in response to citizen preferences. As noted above, the distribution of

LG authorities has an impact on how this space can be exploited. Without such space,

though, community empowerment mechanisms will have difficulty functioning. Second,

delegation and devolution call for higher levels of LG capacity, and thus capacity deficits

may constrain the chances that LGs can respond to citizens’ preferences. Third,

increasingly democratic forms of decentralization do not necessarily reduce the

incentives for poor and marginalized groups to seek clientelist relationships.

These findings confirm that as the potential for positive democratizing synergies between

decentralization and community empowerment expands, so too does the need for local

government capacity. The necessary capabilities involve skills that may not be strong

among local officials. They will be called upon to conduct town or neighborhood

meetings, explain policies and options, mediate conflicts, and work toward consensus.

LG capacity alone cannot ensure that local discretion will result in choices that are

citizen-responsive or democratic. It may simply enhance the power of local elites

without checks and balances across levels of government. The triangles of

accommodation discussed by Migdal (1988) often link local officials, politicians and

strongmen in tight networks, limiting citizen access through the formal mechanisms of

government. In some cases, the local penetration of the central state is so weak that

strongmen can predominate with little outside interference. In others, political elites at

the center who maintain their power through hierarchical connections with local officials

act as a check on local discretion to respond to the demands of other interests, such as the

poor (Crook 2003). In still other situations, for example, the Mexican municipalities

Grindle (2007) studied, citizens petition for services from power-holders at the center

when LG officials prove unresponsive. Hence, clientelist relationships and patronage

persist despite de jure democratic local governance (Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith 2004).

It is clear that the interests and strategies of political parties, politicians, bureaucrats, and

community activists will influence prospects for community empowerment. Some

governments may pursue efforts to increase empowerment and decentralization because

they believe that it is in their interest to do so, and that as a result they will be

strengthened. Conversely, however, governments that perceive little to gain from

14

increased openness, transparency, and direct citizen involvement will be less likely to

support empowerment efforts. As with any reform, entrenched interests that benefit from

the current institutional environment will resist changes, for example, to expand the set of

rights available to citizens and to establish mechanisms to empower communities.

Dealing with resistance at the local level calls for political will and proactive intervention

from the center.

However, the effectiveness of checks and balances exercised by higher levels of

government, as Crook’s (2003) cautionary article warns, depends upon the relationship

between local and national elites. Whether community empowerment at the LG level can

achieve its potential is related to the existence of commitment at those higher levels to

engaging local citizens in the business of service delivery. Among the best-known

examples, is Tendler’s (1997) widely cited study of participatory health service delivery

in the Brazilian state of Ceará, where state health officials set and enforced the standards

for hiring and performance of community health workers (which avoided clientelism in

hiring), while establishing local structures and procedures that engaged local health

service users as active participants in assessing health worker performance.

Table 3. Decentralization, Local Government, and Issues for Community Empowerment

Administrative Financial/fiscal Political Community

empowerment issues

Deconcentration

LG follows central policies,

plans according to central

norms. Form & structure of

LG centrally determined.

LG staff are employees of

central ministries,

accountable to center.

LG is service delivery arm

of center, little or no

discretion in service choice

or mix, modes of provision.

LG provides information

upwards to center.

LG is dependent on center

for funds; sectoral

ministries and MOF

provide spending priorities

& budget envelope.

LG has no independent

revenue sources.

LG reports to center on

expenditure according to

central formulas and

norms.

Center conducts LG audits.

No elected LG, officials

appointed by center, &

serve central interests.

Civil society & citizens

rely on remote & weak

links to central

government for

exercising

accountability.

Little political space for

local civil society, central

elites control politics.

LG has little capacity &

few incentives to seek

community input or be

responsive to local needs.

No incorporation of local

preferences in service

mix.

Local communities & poor

seek clientelist &

patronage relationships

with elites at center.

Delegation

LG follows central policies

& norms, has some

discretion to tailor to local

needs, & to modify form &

structure.

LG staff may be mix of

central and LG employees;

LG has authority on hiring

& placement; center

handles promotion & firing.

LG provides service menu

set by center, some

discretion in mix to fit local

needs, & in modes of

provision.

LG provides most

information upwards to

center & selected

information to local

officials, citizens.

LG is dependent on center

for funds; LG has some

discretion on spending

priorities within budget

envelope. Block grants &

conditional transfers from

center offer some

autonomy.

LG has no independent

revenue sources.

LG reports to center and

local officials on

expenditure according to

central formulas and

norms.

Center and LG conducts

LG audits.

LG may be a mix of

elected and centrally

appointed officials.

Local officials often tied

to national party

platforms, little

discretion.

Some local

accountability, but

strong central

orientation.

Some political space for

local civil society.

Citizens have some local

voice & accountability

links, but center remains

able to override local

decisions.

Some incorporation of

local preferences.

Blended center-local

accountability offers some

limited options for

community

empowerment.

Local officials have

relatively weak incentives

to respond to citizen

demands.

Poor retain clientelist links

to center for some

services.

15

Administrative Financial/fiscal Political Community

empowerment issues

Devolution

LG is subject to national

norms, but sets local

policies & priorities, plans

autonomously in response

to local preferences &

needs. LG determines own

form & structure.

LG staff are employees of

LG, which sets salaries,

numbers, assignments, &

handles hiring/firing.

LG determines service

mix, modes of provision,

eligibility, & allocation.

LG provides information to

local officials, citizens.

LG sets spending priorities,

plans how to meet service

delivery obligations given

resource availability.

LG has mix of own-source

revenues, revenuesharing,

central transfers.

LG may have some

authority for debt financing,

but is subject to a hard

budget constraint.

LG reports to local officials

and citizens on

expenditure according to

central formulas and

norms.

LG is responsible for

audits, reports results

locally and to center.

Locally elected officials

lead LG, may or may not

be linked to national

parties, platforms

respond to constituent

demands and needs.

Strong local

accountability, LG

shapes budget priorities,

investments, service mix

to fit local preferences

and needs.

Broad political space for

local civil society.

Civil society & citizens

have strong links to LG for

expressing voice,

exercising accountability.

Local officials have strong

incentives & capacity to

be responsive to citizen

preferences & demands.

Risk of local elite capture

of LG.

Poor develop clientelist

and patronage

relationships with local

elites, as well as maintain

those with center.

Source: Adapted from Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith (2004), Brinkerhoff and Leighton

(2002), Johnson (1995), World Bank (2004).

V. Community Empowerment’s Contribution to Decentralization

Outcomes

We now turn to the question: how does community empowerment help in attaining the

benefits that decentralized, democratic local government is conjectured to produce? We

consider decentralization’s expected outcomes, associated with deepening democracy and

improving service delivery, and the role community empowerment may play in

contributing to them.

Improved accountability and responsiveness

A core democratic outcome expected from decentralization is improved accountability

and responsiveness to increased numbers of citizens through the creation of sub-national

jurisdictions. Local governments with delegated and devolved powers and authorities

deal with issues and services of direct concern to their constituents, and through

elections, referenda, and open governmental processes and procedures (e.g., town hall

meetings, council hearings and committees, “one-stop shop” service centers,

ombudsmen) face pressures to respond to citizen concerns and to be accountable for

decisions taken. These sub-national jurisdictions create in essence multiple versions of

the long route to accountability, and shorter ones when compared with citizen

connections to national government (World Bank 2004). In principal-agent terms,

citizen/principals exercise voice through their agents, elected local officials, who then in

their role as principals create service delivery compacts with service providers (agents) to

furnish citizens with the public goods and services they need and want. These principalagent

links are nourished with information, which allows the principals to determine

whether their agents are in fact acting according to their wishes. Decentralization is said

16

to provide better information flows at the local level than at the national level due to

proximity between principals and agents.

Regarding the extent to which this expected outcome of decentralization is found in

practice in developing countries, much of the literature reveals negative or highly

circumscribed findings. Crook (2003), for example, looking at African decentralization

and responsiveness to local citizens for poverty reduction, finds few traces of a

relationship. In a comparative study of Uganda and the Philippines, Azfar et al. (2001)

find little evidence of local election voting being driven by service-delivery concerns.

Further, this study revealed that citizens tended to obtain information on local

government performance from community leaders, rather than independent sources. As a

result, their potential to hold officials accountable was constrained by an inability to form

accurate judgments of the results of local officials’ actions since community leaders

showed a positive bias in the opinions they expressed about local governments.

How might community empowerment help increase the accountability and

responsiveness of local governments? Information is a prerequisite for any effective

exercise of accountability, thus mechanisms to provide information—such as FIOAs,

PETSs, and citizen report cards—to the extent that they offer community members

information on government intentions, plans, activities, and results, provide fundamental

input to accountability and responsiveness. Community empowerment mechanisms that

increase participation and inclusiveness, such as participatory budgeting, also improve

information flows about government performance. In addition, they bring community

members into the budgetary process itself, strengthening the responsiveness of

government by influencing spending priorities. Other community empowerment

mechanisms are explicitly designed to increase vertical accountability, such as citizen

review boards, local councils, and watchdog NGOs. Local organizations, such as school

or health committees, can increase responsiveness through their membership of

community service users, which creates a structure where providers interact with users on

a regular basis.

Some evidence points toward the effectiveness of community empowerment in vertical

accountability and oversight, particularly in cases where service delivery is easily

observable by communities. Olken (2005), in a randomized comparative study of

Indonesian municipalities, found that community participation in anti-corruption

monitoring was effective in cases where residents had access to information and a direct

interest in reducing theft, such as subsidies for food, health care, or education. Jimenez

and Sawada (1999) found that decentralized community-managed schools in El Salvador,

where associations with locally elected leadership from parents were involved in hiring

and monitoring teachers and in managing school supplies and facilities, had lower teacher

and student absenteeism, and improved educational outcomes. The case studies in

Cornwall et al. (2000) provide examples of village health committees and local health

councils where communities played an integral role in accountability of public health

service providers to community needs.

17

Numerous studies of these mechanisms reveal that their effectiveness in empowering the

poor and marginalized is mediated strongly by political power. Regarding FOIA, for

example, a set of studies in six states in India (Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra,

Rajasthan, and Tamil Nadu) documents the struggles of local civil society groups to use

right-to-information provisions to obtain information on pro-poor state spending and

corruption in the face of bureaucratic stonewalling and elite hostility, and this in one of

the most democratic nations in the developing world (Jenkins and Goetz 1999, Goetz and

Jenkins 2001, Goetz and Jenkins 2004). PETSs have had the benefit of having been

supported by the power of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which

have employed them as analytic input to poverty-focused loan packages. Porto Alegre’s

experiment with participatory budgeting was launched in the wake of the electoral victory

of the workers’ party. Thus, without the motivation of politicians to create a base of

political support, the acclaimed community empowerment results would not have been

achieved, a factor that some enthusiasts for participatory budgeting have overlooked.

Regarding citizen committees, Rao and Ibanez’s (2003) quantitative study of

beneficiaries of the Jamaica social investment fund found that local elites, the better

educated and better connected, dominated decision-making for the fund. Shatkin’s

(2000) study of community empowerment in municipal government in Manila revealed

that civil society organizations faced competition from powerful business interests in

their often unsuccessful efforts to influence public officials to respond to their needs. A

study of community involvement in hospitals in South Africa found that community

members serving on hospital boards, ostensibly to increase hospital responsiveness to

community needs, were at a disadvantage in the face of the superior technical authority

and political clout of the medical profession (NPPHCN 1998).

The evidence on community empowerment’s role in enhancing democratic local

government through increased vertical accountability is mixed. As the various studies

cited above indicate, the effectiveness of empowerment mechanisms for accountability

purposes is muted by existing distributions of social and political power, both nationally

and at the local level. Community participation in local government does not lead to more

accountability absent: a) local political support for such involvement, as in the case of the

newly elected workers’ party in Porto Alegre; and b) discipline imposed by higher levels

of government. Regarding this latter point, Olken (2005) found that community

monitoring, while increasing local participation in oversight, had little effect on local

government corruption in infrastructure spending; on the other hand, accountability to the

national government, in the form of an increased probability of an audit, proved more

effective. Similarly, Grindle (2007) finds in a number of the Mexican municipalities she

studied that decentralization did not increase accountability. Brautigam (2004) also

echoes this view, noting that horizontal accountability institutions of central government

are more effective in curbing local government corruption than community monitoring.

Improved skills and capacity to participate effectively in public affairs

Democratic decentralization that devolves decision-making authority, accompanied by

resources to implement decisions (combined revenue-raising capacity with

18

intergovernmental transfers), creates the conditions for local governments to become

institutional arenas where citizens learn democratic skills and how to exercise their rights.

Deepening democracy requires expanding the numbers of citizens who are able to

participate effectively in public affairs, and democratic local government offers potential

participatory possibilities to large numbers of citizens. However, to take advantage of

those participatory options, citizens need skills along with motivation. As Gaventa says,

writing about Appalachia, that part of the US that has sometimes been compared to a

developing country, “citizen participation does not just happen, even when the political

space and opportunities emerge for it to do so. Developing effective citizenship and

building democratic institutions take effort, skill, and attention” (1999: 50). The

experience of deliberating in public forums and voting on issues close to home, such as

education, street lights and garbage collection; making tax and budget choices and

monitoring the results can expand citizens’ skills. Positive experiences with local

government can lead to citizens who have a deeper faith in the democratic process, are

more willing to participate in it, and are more willing to defend it. These experiences

help citizens to learn how government works, to gain confidence in interacting with local

officials, and to understand how to protect and pursue their political and civil rights.

How does community empowerment help to build these skills among citizens?

Community empowerment mechanisms like participatory budgeting, citizen oversight

committees, service delivery report cards, information campaigns, notice and comment,

and direct elections, referendums and recalls all offer avenues for citizens to engage with

local governments in a variety of voice-related activities. To the extent that communities

pursue these various options, their members have the potential to build democratic

participation skills. Not all these mechanisms are equal in terms of such skills. Voting is

often thought of as a relatively passive activity, without much skill involved. Yet when

we think about voting as an act of voice that connects candidates for office with issues,

policies, and outcomes, then the element of democratic skills becomes more evident.

Communities that understand these connections will be better able to vote in ways that

help them advance their interests, subject to the constraints imposed by the rules

governing elections (e.g., party-list systems). However, Azfar et al. (2001) found that

local voters tended not to make electoral choices based on issues, which lends a

cautionary note to such interpretations. Patterns of personality-based politics are wellrecognized

in developing countries, with voters casting their ballots based on who is

running for office, not what they stand for. We should remember, however, that in

societies where policy decisions are dominated by patronage, such voting behavior may

in fact demonstrate a savvy degree of democratic skills (Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith 2004,

2005). As Grindle (2007) demonstrates in Mexico, communities are often well-informed

about the personal interests and backgrounds of elected and appointed officials, and are

able to use that knowledge to extract benefits from the state.

The more active empowerment mechanisms, cited in the literature on local organizational

capacity building and on social capital formation, are credited with skills development in

areas such as joint planning and budgeting, monitoring government performance,

preparing advocacy campaigns, and so on (see the chapters in Narayan 2002, 2005). The

DISHA case, mentioned above, illustrates how the budget analysis skills the organization

19

developed provided DISHA members with an analytic capacity that surpassed that of

many legislators. DISHA employed that capacity to advocate for the rights of

disempowered tribal groups. The case of the Self-Employed Women’s Association

(SEWA), also from India, is a well-known example of how efforts to empower poor,

marginalized women in the informal sector have led not just to economic benefits for

women, but have built their leadership capacity, self-confidence, and ability to interact

with government officials and policy-makers (Blaxall 2004).

The literature on community-driven development and social capital notes that, among the

outcomes of community empowerment, are skills and capacity for collective action (see

the summary in Mansuri and Rao 2004). These skills are instrumental for citizens’

abilities to mobilize to express their interests, advocate for their rights, and exercise

democratic governance functions. Donor-supported programs, such as the World Bank’s

Kecamatan Development Program in Indonesia, engage communities in large-scale

participatory planning and management schemes for local service delivery. Through

involvement in the process of implementation, villagers acquire skills and capacity for

collective action that can enhance prospects for continued progress with democratic

decentralization (Guggenheim et al. 2004). These capacities can extend democratic

governance beyond the program sites through demonstration effects, constituency

mobilization, and confidence building.

However, these skill and capacity gains are mediated by local and national power

structures. As the study of the Jamaica social investment fund showed, the better-off

community members were the ones who gained (Rao and Ibanez 2003). Das Gupta et al.

(2004) discuss cases where local clientelist social relations limited communities’ abilities

to apply their new collective action skills. A sobering finding emerges from a study in

Indonesia of participation in village-level government (Alatas et al. 2003). Households

with high involvement in village government organizations had greater capacity to access

information, participate in decision-making, and obtain responsive services. These gains

were offset by their aggregate effect on less engaged households, which was negative,

resulting in reduced capacity to obtain information, exercise voice and influence

responsiveness.

New and expanded cadre of leaders with democratic skills

The previous section’s discussion of citizenship skills for communities also applies to

local leaders. Through the expanded political space afforded by devolutionary democratic

decentralization, local residents have opportunities to develop democratic leadership

skills. In some cases, these individuals pursue local political office, and thus contribute

to an expanded pool of local government leaders. In addition, there can be a trickle-up

effect in cases where leaders who have gained democratic skills and experience in

decentralized local government seek elected office at higher levels of government. This

outcome of democratic decentralization has increased the contestability of political

markets. Leaders of local governments build experience in managing public affairs and in

running a campaign. Hence they acquire skills and credibility that can assist when

running for higher office. Mayors of small towns can run for provincial governor, and

20

more importantly mayors of large cities and provinces can run for president. This

expansion of the cadre of political leadership can have a significant impact on the

contestability of political markets, and hence deepen democracy.

Decentralization also allows opposition leaders to remain in government at the local

level. This feature can contribute to political stability in post-conflict societies where the

multiplication of arenas of political power avoids the zero-sum, winner-take-all dynamics

that can destabilize a new government if control of the center is the sole arena for

political contestation. Bland (2007) explores this dynamic in El Salvador, Colombia, and

Guatemala, for example. Democratic decentralization can also provide a check on

centralized, single-party dominance (and possibly increased authoritarianism) if

opposition leaders are able to maintain a power base from where they can challenge the

central government. In Latin America, where large capital cities contain a significant

percentage of the population in most countries, the emergence of democratic local

government in these cities has transformed the national political landscape by allowing

increasingly credible challenges to incumbent leaders and their parties (Campbell 2003).

Grindle (2007) notes that, in Mexico, democratic alternation started at the local level,

then graduated to the state level, and finally took place at the national level.

How does community empowerment, when combined with democratic local government,

help to build democratic leadership skills and increase the contestability of political

markets? Community empowerment mechanisms such as participatory budgeting, open

hearings, joint planning, and local councils all provide community leaders and elected

officials with opportunities to build their skills and experience in public speaking and

debate, managing public meetings, dealing with constituents’ demands, mobilizing

coalitions, and compromising to achieve results. These are all vital skills for election to

both local and national positions. In addition the visibility of these participatory

processes helps leaders in their runs for local or national office. Other community

empowerment mechanisms, such as citizen report cards, can give nationwide attention to

well-run local governments and their leaders and help them jump into national politics.

These mechanisms also accustom public officials to accountability and transparency in

their dealings with citizens.

Community empowerment, through watchdog NGOs, grassroots movements, and

advocacy campaigns, serves to create citizen leaders who have the skills and motivation

to confront public officials, demand accountability, and mount pressure to make elected

and/or appointed officials respond. Several of the most striking examples of this outcome

are from India. The advocacy NGOs involved in uncovering corruption in public works

and in public distribution of basic foodstuffs and commodities built the leadership

capacities of their staff through their programmatic activities. For example, the Action

Committee for Rationing in Mumbai, through its investigation of the Public Distribution

System, established vigilance committees and trained illiterate women to monitor

distribution at ration shops, collected the data from the women, prepared reports, and

organized their own hearings to disseminate results and pressure politicians for

accountability (Goetz and Jenkins 2001). DISHA, the Gujarat-based NGO mentioned

above, is another example. In this case the staff of DISHA built on their successful skills

21

and experience with budget analysis to launch a political movement to support the rights

of tribal groups that has spread beyond Gujarat to other parts of the country (see

www.disha-india.org).

Better matching of public services to citizen needs and preferences

A classic argument for decentralization is that decentralization leads to better allocative

efficiency by the matching of public services to the demands for these services. Local

governments are conjectured to gain more access to information about the preferences of

local citizens, greater political incentives to provide preferred services, and greater

flexibility and imagination to do so than a central government (see Azfar 2006). Though

the center may have some knowledge about differences in demands, in a democracy

national governments are required to treat all their citizens relatively equally; and they

cannot provide different sets of services to different localities without appealing to some

sort of general principle. Local governments, on the other hand, are free to decide what

to provide to their citizens often within quite wide parameters. Hence, according to the

argument, government as a whole is more flexible if decisions are decentralized.

In practice in developing countries, this outcome cannot automatically be presumed.

Azfar et al. (2001) found that public officials at the intermediate level (districts in

Uganda and provinces in the Philippines) showed no evidence of having better

knowledge of the preferences of local inhabitants, and local officials at lower levels of

government (subcounties in Uganda and municipalities in the Philippines) have only

weak knowledge of preferences. As Manor (2006) states, there appears to be a lot of

distance between local officials and citizens, and only imperfect knowledge transmission.

How does community empowerment help local governments improve allocative

efficiency? Experience with participatory budgeting, such as in Porto Alegre, suggests

that it may improve the match between what people want and what is provided. There

are few rigorous evaluations of the impact of participatory budgeting or any other form of

community empowerment on preference matching, although Pozzoni and Kumar (2005)

note that the Porto Alegre case itself is an exception, having been extensively studied.

The Jamaica study cited above is another example. Rao and Ibanez (2004), in a matched

community econometric analysis, find that the participatory processes introduced in

Jamaica led to elite domination of decisions on the allocation of social fund investments,

but also that the decisions taken by the elite were ex post popular. They call this

phenomenon “benevolent capture:” elites decide what is best, and after the fact (perhaps

because things turn out well) the decision is popular. The study highlights the

importance of preference formation as well as elicitation. These outcomes may reflect

much of what happens in a participatory process. Before the process begins, citizens may

be scarcely aware of what budgets are, what can be achieved by various sums in various

sectors, how important these achievements would be in terms of outcomes that ultimately

mattered, and what everybody else wants. Thus in some fundamental presumptive sense

a participatory process is valuable – not only would public officials not know what

people want in its absence, but people themselves may not know what they want.

22

Further, the existence of the right and the opportunity to participate, even when not acted

upon, may incline citizens to be relatively more satisfied with the results.

Manor (2006) describes how the introduction of a demand-driven education program led

public officials to realize that villages lacked schools. The chief minister and his aides –

all well qualified and smart officials – started a program whereby local councils could ask

for a school if they did not have one, expecting the scheme to be small but useful. They

found there was a massive demand for the program as half the villages did not have

schools. Absent the demand-led program, the officials would not have known that half

the village lacked schools.

Experience from the Kecamatan Development Program in Indonesia suggests that

participation may have helped align supply with demand, though the data are

impressionistic (Guggenheim et al. 2004). In the Indian state of Kerala, for instance,

local governments instituted a participatory planning process that engaged service

delivery departments with “panchayats” and their task forces in priority setting and

project design. Examining the results, Heller (2001: 143) states that, “the effect of

autonomous local decision making is most evident in the shift in allocative priorities.

There have thus been notable increases over the past in allocations for housing schemes,

sanitation, and drinking water,” though he does not offer corroborative statistical

evidence.

The community empowerment mechanisms in the local organizational capacity category

are well-recognized means to match service delivery to local needs and preferences.

Parents associations, health committees, and community-based natural resources

contracts bring communities into partnership with public providers precisely for the

purpose of assuring that services meet user needs. The literature on state-society

synergies for co-production of services highlights this outcome, as well as the benefits for

efficiency and effectiveness (see, for example, Evans 1996). The empowerment aspect of

these co-production partnerships emerges most strongly when the information provision

on needs and preferences that feeds into matching is joined with oversight and

accountability. For example, a regional development program in Pakistan’s Northwest

Frontier Province that linked village organizations with local government and sectoral

departments established village-level conferences as an information exchange and

coordination mechanism to engage local citizens with the government. Over time,

however, “they evolved into a mechanism for village activists to hold line departments

accountable for promises made and quality and timely implementation” (J. Brinkerhoff

2002: 103).

Citizen report cards are another mechanism that can serve to generate information on

what kinds of services communities want, and what quality levels they expect. These and

the other empowerment mechanisms discussed here can often lead to valuable

information flows to public officials about, and cognitive realization of, demands.

Information alone, however, does not assure that local officials will use that information

to provide more tailored and/or higher quality services. Accountability and enforcement

are needed.

23

Improved technical efficiency

Another outcome posited for decentralization is improved service delivery resulting from

inter-jurisdictional competition and the race to the top (Tiebout 1956). Interjurisdictional

competition may work by one of two mechanisms or their combination.

First, governments may vie with each other for a tax base and compete to attract labor

and capital to their jurisdiction. Second, governments may compete with their neighbors

through yardstick competition by providing better services to get reelected – presuming

that voters are more likely to reward governments that do better than their neighbors.

Combinations of these two mechanisms may also work. For instance, government that

can attract tax bases to their locality may then be able to provide better services than their

neighbors, which in turn may get them reelected.

It is not clear in developing countries whether citizens are sufficiently mobile to achieve

these gains, nor how strongly the possibility of mobility might motivate local

governments to provide better services. Azfar et al. (2001) find that in Uganda and the

Philippines mobility is very rarely driven by concerns about service delivery. Conflict

situations, however, demonstrate that concerns about basic security can indeed induce

citizens to move from less secure to more secure localities, but in such cases local

governments usually have limited ability to enhance security. Shatkin’s (2000) study of

Metro Manila in the Philippines suggests that municipal governments are likely to be

more interested in responding to private sector interests than worried about citizens

moving away because their needs were not met. Thus in developing countries, and

arguably in some developed ones as well, the race to the top argument may apply more to

competing to attract private investment than to providing services for citizens.

There are some examples, however, of competition among muncipalities that creates

incentives for efficiency and improvement. A possible incentive is the provision of prizes

to localities that do well. In Bulgaria, the Foundation for Local Government Reform, a

local NGO, promotes innovative practices with its Innovative Municipality Annual

Award, which recognizes path-breaking local governments’ efforts to provide services

and improve performance (Goldsmith and Brinkerhoff 2004).

How would community empowerment sharpen the incentives provided by interjurisdictional

competition? Citizen report cards, or service satisfaction surveys, which

measure and compare performance, can strengthen incentives by publicizing information

on the relative performance of local governments. Especially if such information were

disseminated prior to nationwide – or statewide – local elections, it could influence

political incentives to provide better services, or at least to promise them (Khemani

2006). The media are likely to publicize such information because of a general human

interest in competitions – witness the vast amount of attention given to Transparency

International’s Corruption Perceptions Index by the media every year.

There are a number of technical barriers to using service satisfaction surveys on a broad

scale. First, information must be collected on a wide range of outcome variables

24

otherwise local governments may give inordinate amounts of attention to the variables

being measured – a problem known as the multi-tasking problem in the incentives

literature (e.g., Holmstrom and Milgrom 1991). Second, the outcome variables would

have to be designed in such a way that they are difficult to manipulate. Third, if surveys

were to be used to collect this information, a vast number of households would have to be

surveyed, using sophisticated sampling techniques to ensure representativeness in each

jurisdiction. Several hundred respondents would be needed in each locality. Thus

collecting data in the dozens of Romanian ‘judets,” Pakistani districts, or Bolivian

municipalities, would require interviewing tens of thousands of households, and

processing large amounts of information.

PETSs and related analytic methodologies have demonstrated that such analyses can be

undertaken and can yield useful results. However, these have been undertaken with

support from the World Bank and as part of loan project preparation. This situation

creates capacity and incentives to undertake the analyses that are unlikely to exist absent

the Bank’s resources. To institutionalize such analytic exercises in developing countries

on the scale that would enable them to serve as a credible basis for competitive

comparisons across local governments would stretch the capacities and budgets of local

governments, ministries, and/or most survey firms even if the political will to conduct

them were present.

In sum, community empowerment mechanisms that focus on the systematic collection of

information on the performance of local governments may sharpen the incentives to

provide better services in the specific jurisdictions where those surveys have taken place,

as PAC’s report cards in Bangalore have shown (Paul and Sekhar 2000). The resource

and technical challenges to expanding their application to where they would fulfill the

Tieboutian function of spurring local government competition are immense and unlikely

to be met. Local citizens tend to be more interested in the availability (or lack) of

specific services than in more diffuse and abstract notions of government performance

(e.g., Grindle 2007). Community empowerment mechanisms that connect performance

information directly to accountability for service delivery are more likely to contribute to

technical efficiency than information provision and reporting alone. As Goetz and

Jenkins (2001) argue, the assumption that public officials lack information on what

citizens want and what services are provided may not always be warranted; often what is

lacking are incentives for them to respond and be accountable.

Increased innovation

Decentralization is expected to improve service delivery through the opportunities it

provides for greater innovation at the local level, and through the demonstration effect,

whereby other jurisdictions imitate the innovations and spread better practices to other

localities. The concept of experimental federalism states that decentralization encourages

a few brave municipalities to adopt reforms and then successful reforms are adopted by

other localities (Oates 1999). The Welfare Reform Act in the United States, which was

tried in some states before being widely adopted, is one example of experimental

federalism. As noted above, participatory budgeting is an innovation that originated in

25

Porto Alegre and has subsequently been widely adopted by other municipalities (see

Brautigam 2004).

Another example of innovation diffusion among municipalities comes from Bulgaria.

There, one-stop shops (city licensing and service centers) have spread throughout the

country. After witnessing these one-stop shops in the United States and Poland, five

Bulgarian municipal mayors decided to replicate the idea at home. These early adopters

formed a team that introduced one-stop shops to other municipalities, with support from

the Foundation for Local Government Reform (FLGR). The concept spread very quickly,

and currently more than 70 Bulgarian municipalities have set up one-stop shops in their

town halls, with a combination of USAID grants (provided through the FLGR) and their

own funds (Goldsmith and Brinkerhoff 2004).

How does community empowerment help the process of innovation? In terms of helping

bring fresh ideas into national government, empowerment mechanisms can make fresh

ideas more likely, and also subject to critical public debate so they are more likely to be

accepted at the central level and in other local jurisdictions. The story of participatory

budgeting itself helps to tell this story. Participatory budgeting was introduced in Porto

Alegre by the workers’ party, and its success combined with the election victory of the

party helped in disseminating participatory budgeting across Brazil and eventually to

other countries as well. Many authors note that there is greater innovation at the local

government level, especially when combined with empowered community participation

(see Grindle 2007, Campbell and Fuhr 2004, Nelson 2006, Manor 2006).

Adoption of innovation requires dissemination, and information campaigns organized by

NGOs can help spread new ideas. To return to the Bulgaria example cited above, the

FLGR organizes policy forums, training courses, and seminars, covering such topics as

customer-friendly service delivery, citizens’ participation, municipal property

management and business activities of municipalities. Through its regular “innovative

practices bulletins,” the FLGR makes available case studies of resourceful new ideas

from municipalities (Goldsmith and Brinkerhoff 2004).

Community participation may also make innovation more difficult. The processes may

disproportionately empower groups that want to block reform, who are usually better

organized than proponents. Turnout by the general public at a participatory meeting can

be very low and a sizeable showing by organized opposition groups can dominate the

discussion and block reform. Local officials may need to take proactive steps to assure

attendance of the poor and marginalized at meetings. Procedures such as targeting

excluded groups for invitation to meetings, and feeding or paying participants may

encourage attendance and mitigate capture. In the decentralization reform in Peru, for

example, one of the obstacles to improved local government-civil society relations

identified by McNulty (2006) was the lack of travel support for community organization

representatives to attend meetings.

26

VI. Considerations for Achieving Democratic Local Governance

Throughout the discussion we have noted that almost all analyses have signaled the

political dimension of community empowerment. Politics clearly influences the potential

for creating the anticipated synergies between community empowerment and democratic

decentralization. Other important influencing factors include the institutional dimension

and, specifically, the balance between LG capacity to supply democratic governance and

community capacity for demand. The political and institutional dimensions strongly

mediate the prospects for elite capture. Further, interpretation of whether such capture

constitutes a failure of community empowerment depends upon the time horizon one is

considering. This section explores these issues and their implications for community

empowerment’s contribution to democratic local governance. It also more directly

addresses critics of community empowerment approaches to democratic local

governance. These arguments rest largely on analyses of the experience of donorsupported

empowerment efforts, such as community-driven development.

As noted, a recurring theme in both the decentralization and community empowerment

literatures is the potential for elite capture of local governments, empowerment

mechanisms, and the benefits they produce for citizens (e.g., Reinikka and Svensson

2004). Assessment of community empowerment in this regard needs to be placed in the

broader context of the politics of democracies in general. Around the world, mature

democracies, following the rules of universal suffrage, secret ballots and multiparty

elections, tend to produce outcomes that are very roughly representative of their citizens’

preferences. We say very roughly because representative democracy can result in

outcomes that may favor elites, the better organized, or simply those more likely to vote.

Olson (1982), for example, describes how democracies become more prone to cooptation

by organized interests with the passage of time. The issue of which groups in a society

have the power to influence public officials to respond to their particular concerns and

desires, endemic to any governance system, plays out in democracies through the chains

of vertical accountability that connect citizens to elected officials and to executive

agencies.

Our review has identified a variety of analyses that highlight problems of elite capture of

community empowerment mechanisms; for example, local committees where the betteroff

members dominate decision-making, or local elections where strongmen use

patronage to buy the votes of the poor. Even mechanisms widely acknowledged as

successfully empowering previously excluded groups, such as participatory budgeting,

are imperfect in preventing already mobilized and advantaged communities from

engaging and benefiting more than those not so positively endowed. Pozzoni and Kumar

(2005) review a number of experiences which show that participatory budgeting, and

more generally forms of community-driven development, are prone to such capture (see

also Nylen 2002, Rao and Mansuri 2003, Brautigam 2004, Nelson 2006).

As the above discussion reveals, effective decentralization and community empowerment

require attention to both the supply and demand sides of democratic governance.

Regarding supply, appropriate public institutions and rules, and their attendant incentives,

are needed to link citizens with the state, connect sub-national governments to higher

27

levels, and govern public officials’ behaviors (e.g., Azfar et al. 1999, Crook and Manor

1998, Silverman 2004). Regarding demand, capacity-building is needed for community

groups to exploit the access that empowerment mechanisms create and inject their views

and needs into the policy-making and service delivery process. A clear lesson from

decentralization experience is that disadvantaged or marginalized groups will not have

greater access or command increased responsiveness solely as a function of

decentralization’s ability to bring them closer to government absent measures to counter

cooptation by local elites and to make community empowerment politically advantageous

for elected officials (Fung and Wright 2003a). Silverman (2004), for example, discusses

the need for incentives in terms of institutional structures that can create what he calls,

“mutual dependencies between the poor and the state” that will support poverty

reduction.

On occasion, lack of community capacity is assumed to be the culprit when expected

results of participatory empowered governance do not emerge. However, Evans (1996:

1125) nuances this view in his comparison of cases of the positive role of

government/community interaction in service delivery with other less successful ones,

and argues that, “if synergy fails to occur, it is probably not because the relevant

neighborhoods and communities were too fissiparous and mistrusting but because some

other crucial ingredient was lacking. The most obvious candidate for the missing

ingredient is a competent, engaging set of public institutions.” Heller (2001: 148)

identifies the interplay between supply and demand in his analysis of Kerala, South

Africa, and Porto Alegre, noting that the capacities of citizens to engage the state,

…are constructed both from below—through particular patterns and

trajectories of mobilization—and from above, in the artifactuality of group

formation, that is, the ways in which states create and structure channels,

opportunities, and incentives (or disincentives) for collective action.

Citizen capacities are as such highly malleable and forged in and through

state-society engagements.

Heller’s characterization of the dynamic and emergent nature of empowerment capacity

indicates the need to look beyond one-time assessments of experience with community

empowerment. If elites capture the mechanisms and the benefits of community

empowerment at a particular point in time, it does not necessarily mean that it will

happen all the time. The basic dynamic here is that citizens’ empowerment experience

can generate positive spillover effects. Successful experience, and even failure as

Hirschman (1984) has documented, can provide the basis for the application of

empowered democratic governance, including the social capital it can generate, from one

time to another, and from one area to others. Empowering a community is a long-term

process that takes place over years, building on the collective experience and skills of

gradually expanding groups of citizens. For example, Ostrom (1996: 1083) reports that,

The experience of success in coproduction also encourages citizens to

develop other horizontal relationships and social capital. Those working

with condominial systems [of an urban sewerage system] report that local

28

activism through coproduction rapidly spills over to other areas. Alert

citizens are able to increase the quality of services they obtain from

multiple government agencies and not just the initial project.

Another spillover is that once the forces of community empowerment are set in motion

through particular activities, the broadened demand for transparency and accountability

makes it more difficult for public officials to revert to former behaviors. The Indian

right-to-information movement is a good example, illustrating the tenacity and

persistence of local groups in carving out empowered space and forcing a response from

power-holders (Jenkins and Goetz 1999, Goetz and Jenkins 2001, Ackerman 2004).

Further, community empowerment experience also increases the opportunities for

citizens to develop new expectations of government, which can include expectations of

respect for rights and equity, and inclusion of the interests of the poor relative to elites.

In situations where local governments have been captured by elites, and local public

institutions and structures exclude poor and marginalized communities, empowerment

mechanisms—largely supported by international donors—have been employed to

establish alternative paths for citizen engagement to achieve service delivery

responsiveness and poverty reduction. Binswanger and Aiyar (2003), for example,

present a sample of community-driven development projects that used decentralized

participatory planning, citizen committees, service satisfaction surveys, and social funds

to empower communities for pro-poor service delivery. Some observers express concern

that these approaches to community empowerment may weaken democratic local

governance (e.g., Manor 2004a and 2004b, Czajkowska et al. 2005).

Several arguments are advanced. First, social funds and decentralized sector service

delivery programs inject resources at the local level that bypass local governments,

thereby intruding upon what are—or should be—classic LG functions (such as

infrastructure provision), and weakening local authorities’ effectiveness and legitimacy in

the eyes of citizens. Second, the participatory planning processes and citizen committees

that are put in place to implement community-driven development privilege a set of

unelected community members, which may result in services that are not representative

of majority preferences and/or which may usurp the role of local elected officials. Third,

empowerment mechanisms that encourage citizens to engage in joint planning and

municipal decision-making may limit their participation to lobbying and one-shot efforts

to influence decision-makers, which may come at the expense of fostering democratic

accountability, where citizens understand and demand their rights to good governance.

Fourth, by virtue of their reliance on donor support, such empowerment approaches are

inherently unsustainable unless their structures and procedures are incorporated into LGs

as standard operating procedures; and because of the tendency to bypass LGs this

institutionalization is unlikely to take place.

Our review suggests that some of these critiques may be justified, but the empowerment

strategies pursued are undertaken precisely to address the elite capture plus the demand

and supply deficits discussed previously. In some cases, the problems identified with

empowerment strategies and mechanisms are artifacts of deficiencies in the design and

29

implementation of decentralization and local democracy. For example, social funds can

end up substituting for the lack of LG resources to fund service provision that

decentralization policies mandate. Many local governments have extremely limited

revenue-raising capacity and are highly dependent on transfers from higher levels of

government. Efforts to transfer service-delivery responsibility to local governments can

create equity problems and reduce access by the poor. In the health sector, for example,

systems of community-based health-financing organizations can help to fill these gaps

while also contributing to community empowerment (e.g., Franco et al. 2004). Citizen

committees and participatory planning may compensate for failures of representativeness

in local elected bodies. Blair (2000), for instance, discusses how Indian women, elected

to “panchayats” following passage of a law authorizing set-asides for women and

minorities, voted according to their husbands’ and tribal elders’ wishes, and thus did not

fulfill the democratic intent of their reserved council seats.

The concern that empowerment mechanisms may orient communities to focus on

extracting resources from local government rather than on demanding broader

accountability from public officials strikes us as something that has more to do with the

stage of a country’s economic development than with “defective” empowerment

mechanisms. As Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith (2005) point out, the kinds of machine

politics and patronage that democracy promoters worry about characterized governance

in the United States for an extended period of history. The shift to citizen concern for

accountability and good governance occurred with the emergence of a strong middle

class. The Indian right-to-information examples previously cited offer encouragement

that such transitions are possible in developing countries.

The sustainability question, raised by critics of community empowerment strategies, is an

enduring one for any effort to introduce reform, whether to deepen democracy or improve

service access and delivery. Donor resources and programs can help with empowerment,

but cannot substitute for home-grown collective action that translates into political clout.

Efforts to “move the state,” as Heller (2001) calls it, depend upon a mix of motivation

and political muscle, along with supportive institutions, that engage citizens and public

officials in a long-term renegotiation of state-society relations. From the standpoint of a

donor’s particular project, the sustainability issue looms large, but seen against the backdrop

of this extended timeframe, what matters is not necessarily that one individual

community empowerment mechanism, such as a school or health committee, outlasts its

external funding, but more whether the community’s and the local government’s

experience gained through participation in that committee contributes at some later time

to reinforcing the building blocks of democratic local governance.

VII. Conclusions

As this review of community empowerment in the context of decentralization reveals, the

multiple meanings of empowerment and the relative lack of systematic studies across a

range of cases limit our ability to make precise conclusive statements regarding the

relationship between community empowerment, decentralization, and outcomes relating

to democratic deepening and service delivery effectiveness. The literatures on these

30

topics are vast, and our review has been necessarily selective. Nonetheless, we are able

to draw some conclusions, all of which could be the focus of further research.

1. This review reveals the key role of central government in supporting

decentralization and local community empowerment. First, there is the well

recognized lesson from numerous analyses of decentralization that centrally

devolved responsibilities must be accompanied by sufficient authority and

resources to carry them out. Second, central authorities can provide incentives

and sanctions that will encourage lower levels of government to be responsive and

accountable to local needs and preferences, particularly when those needs and

preferences serve to accomplish national socio-economic goals, such as poverty

reduction and pro-poor service delivery. Third, central authorities can potentially

sidestep local special interests in support of marginalized and disadvantaged

communities (e.g., Das Gupta et al. 2004), and can be a counterbalance for the

poor and minorities to local elite domination of local government (see Bardhan

2002).

2. While it is clear that the potential for community empowerment to contribute to

democratization and service delivery effectiveness at the local level depends upon

the extent to which a country’s governance structure tends toward the

devolutionary end of the decentralization continuum, the existence of a legal and

institutional framework, in and of itself, is insufficient. As many studies of

decentralization conclude, in a substantial number of countries, existing

decentralization laws, institutions, and procedures are incompletely and often

weakly implemented, creating an institutional “limbo” where decentralized local

government suffers from incoherence, hazy accountability, and poor performance

(e.g., McNulty 2006, Crook 2003). The gap between what exists “on paper” and

in practice can be wide, with deleterious effects on community empowerment. As

Manor (2004b) points out, donor efforts to circumvent weak local governments by

empowering project-based user committees can exacerbate this institutional

“limbo,” thus impeding prospects for full implementation of decentralization and

for more formalized community empowerment.

3. In light of this gap, both the implementation and the effectiveness of the

community empowerment mechanisms presented in the upper row of Table 2,

those that are state-centered, may be limited. They may exist, but communities

may be unaware of them and/or insufficiently organized to take advantage of

them. The implication is that a strong civil society, mobilizing the mechanisms in

the lower, society-centered row of the table, is needed to fully exploit the other

mechanisms. Among the clearest examples of this dynamic is the fierce campaign

of Indian civil society organizations to gain access to public budget and

expenditure data using right-to-information laws in six states, which later

culminated in the passage of a national FOIA (Goetz and Jenkins 2004). In

countries where civil society is weak, and where certain social groups have been

marginalized over extended periods of time, their ability to engage in effective

collective action is likely to be highly circumscribed and fragile.

31

4. An important driver of the effectiveness of community empowerment lies with

community members themselves. Communities need the capacities and resources

to engage in collective action, including belief in their own agency, for

empowerment mechanisms to achieve their intended effects (Narayan 2002, 2005,

Kakarala 2004). These capacities take time to develop, and evolve from learning

from both success and failure. The role of incentives for citizens to use

empowerment mechanisms to engage with the state is critical. Donor

expectations regarding community interest in better governance are often out of

touch with citizens’ desires to get the state to provide resources and services

through recourse to clientelist connections if necessary (Brinkerhoff and

Goldsmith 2004, 2005, Grindle 2007). Democratic decentralization depends upon

sufficient discretion of local authorities and upon space for communities to

organize for interest aggregation and voice; and—as a variety of studies note—

better-off and better-endowed community members will have an advantage in

exploiting that space. As we conclude below, rather than ignoring the differential

power and access realities, it may be best to pay the price of a bit of elite capture

in order to provide opportunities and incentives for less well-resourced

community members to become engaged, while seeking to assure that a

supportive legal and institutional framework for democratic local governance is in

place or can be built.

5. Building on the previous conclusion, besides the legal and institutional framework

and the nature of central-local relationships, our review highlights the mediating

impacts of social relations, especially elites of various types (social, political,

economic, ethnic), on community empowerment’s potential contribution to both

democratic and service delivery outcomes. Both decentralization and

empowerment concern at their core redistributions of power and access, which in

any country are challenges to someone or other’s vested interests (e.g., Nijenhuis

2003). Some donor-funded initiatives that seek to use community empowerment

mechanisms—for example, school committees or natural resource management

associations—are on occasion able, because of their financial clout and convening

authority, to bypass or temporarily mitigate the influence of politics and elites.

However, such approaches are not sustainable; often the local organizations

wither away with the termination of donor funding, or they are coopted as

outreach arms of public service providers, tasked with responsibilities but not

given any rights (Ribot 2004). Such approaches may also inadvertently do

damage to existing democratic structures, for example when donor-funded

participatory efforts ignore locally elected councils, an issue raised regarding the

PRSP process in many countries (McGee with Norton 2000) and social fund

management (Manor 2004a, 2004b). Sustainability of community empowerment,

however, needs to be considered within a longer timeframe than a single donor

project, with attention to cumulative gains in capacity and learning over time.

6. Wishing politics away is not a viable strategy for enabling community

empowerment or democratic decentralization. We draw from our review the

32

conclusion that what is required are policies, structures, and mechanisms that

reduce or neutralize the advantages and dominance of powerful actors, rather than

seek to avoid or eliminate elite domination or capture (see Fung and Wright

2003a, Pozzoni and Kumar 2005). This means bringing politics into community

empowerment; Fung and Wright (2003b) suggest that there are two ways to do

this: top-down adversarial strategies, and participatory collaboration. Support for

community empowerment in the context of decentralization will arise from

stakeholders who view it as good politics and a means to build political support

and legitimacy. What Goetz and Jenkins (2004) call the “new accountability

agenda” is a manifestation of bringing politics and community empowerment

together in ways that can reinforce political incentives (see also Ackerman 2004).

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