Decentralized Governance and Accountability

Jonathan A. Rodden is Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and founder of the Stanford Spatial Social Science Lab. He is author of an award-winning book, Hamilton's Paradox: The Promise and Peril of Fiscal Federalism (Cambridge, 2005), as well as a new book on political geography, Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide (forthcoming). Erik Wibbels is the Robert O. Keohane Professor of Political Science at Duke University, North Carolina, and the co-editor of the Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics series. His research focuses on development, redistribution, and political geography. He also works with bilateral and multilateral donors to improve the design and evaluation of governance programming and is a founding member of the DevLab@Duke.

• 1. Introduction Jonathan A. Rodden and Erik Wibbels; 2. The social underpinnings of decentralized governance: networks, technology and the future of social accountability Erik Wibbels; 3. Leadership selection rules and decentralized governance Guy Grossman; 4. Traditional leaders, service delivery and electoral accountability Kate Baldwin and Pia Raffler; 5. Decentralized rule and revenue Jonathan Rodden; 6. The proliferation of decentralized governing units Jan H. Pierskalla; 7. Decentralization and business performance Edmund Malesky; 8. Decentralization and urban governance in the developing world: experiences to-date and avenues for future research Christopher Carter and Alison E. Post; 9. Decentralization in post-conflict settings: assessing community-driven development in the wake of violence Fotini Christia; 10. Clientelism in decentralized states Gianmarco León and Leonard Wantchekon; 11. Decentralization and ethnic diversity Thad Dunning; 12. From decentralization research to policy and programs: a practical postscript Derick W. Brinkerhoff, Anna Wetterberg and Gary A. Bland; Index.

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