Recentralisation in Colombia

This book tackles the question of how to characterise and account forrecentralisation in Colombia between central and lower levels of governmentacross a 26-year period. Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has onceagain put the distribution of responsibilities, resources, and authority betweendifferent levels of government at the heart of political debate. This book bringsthis issue to light as a topic central to the study of public administration.Drawingon extensive fi eldwork with more than a hundred interviews with formerpresidents, ministers, members of congress, governors, local mayors andsubnational public offi cials, as well as documentary sources, it begins with ahistorical account of recentralisation processes in the world. It then proposes atheoretical framework to explain these processes, before tracing and carefullycomparing recentralisation episodes in Colombia using theory-guided processtracing.