In the other view, concluding module two, we had highlighted the interdisciplinary nature of this course. We seek a holistic understanding of both concepts. And indeed, a holistic understanding of the broader politic economic and social context. This means that we should not lock our analytical targets on decentralization reforms and reduce all factors that are not explicitly part of this to the background. In order to understand the workings of decentralization, we have to study more than decentralization. In this video lecture we look at some of the unintended consequences of decentralization within this broad perspective. Decentralized institutions, introduced to Africa in the 1990s, have not always delivered the exact intended outcomes. Through interaction with the broader historic, political, social, and economic context, decentralization reforms have engendered political consequences beyond decentralization itself. There's a distance between what was in the constitutional institutional blueprints, introducing large scale, top down decentralist reforms, and the facts on the ground 20 years later. In some places decentralization reforms slowly gave way to recentralization, because none of the new sub-national entities were politically and economically strong enough to balance off the center. 20 years after the reforms, decentralized institutions remain in pro forma terms, but the workings of politics have reverted back to nationwide terms. One reflection of this phenomenon is the recentralization of de facto political power that comes with large-scale national infrastructural projects. The developmental state is often the facilitator towards recentralization. Patrimonial development programs and grant infrastructural projects, more often than not, target national goals. Nationwide policies subsequently bringing in the central government into policy areas that formally belong to regional and local governments. Thereby affecting the day-to-day workings of the decentralization. And yet others, inherent deficiencies in infrastructure and personnel that the subnational level brought the central government back in, simply because the local governments were incapable of fulfilling their new responsibilities. Furthermore, in places where federal societies exist, the functioning of symmetrical local government units came to reflect the underlying uncodified factors. When there is territorially based ethnic, religious, economic, geographic and demographic diversity, this has often reflected itself in the asymmetry across local governments, even while the decentralization blueprint follows a pro forma symmetrical format. Different local governments ended up working differently in practice, due to the difference in the underlying demographic and social factors. Now, not only in Africa, but also in established federations of the developed world do we see factors exogenous to the institutional design influencing and determining the workings of decentralization. For the comparative federalism and decentralization scholarship, the most interesting unintended consequence has been how decentralization blew new life into long dormant traditional forms of authority, often at the expense of modern political parties' movements and causes. 20 is after the introduction of decentralization reforms, and now withstanding the regional variations. We see the resurgence of traditional authority structures through out most African states, especially in the less urban, more rural, paraphrases of these states. But it is not only traditional leaders and authorities that have found themselves reaping the unintended and unanticipated consequences. Decentralization has also blown new life into customary law. In particular to indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms for managing disputes between ethnic groups. However, this has not been a straightforward process. Two decades after the reforms, the pattern is uneven and diffused, suggesting a complex mix of factors behind the processes of when and how traditional authority and customary law sweep into the workings of local governments. Before looking at the decentralist reforms of the mid 1990s, we would have to go back to the first post-colonial constitutions in order to make sense of the informal path towards legal pluralism. That is, the coexistence of modern constitutional law and local customary law. Influenced by the prevailing modernization theories of the time, most post-colonial constitutions throughout Africa had rejected legal pluralism. The decentralist reform projects of the 1990s did not undo this. Nowhere in Africa did indigenous legal traditions in managing diversity and settling disputes find their way into the formal design of decentralized institutions. The institutional blueprint was often carbon copied from the West. Now, be that as it may, the very creation of local government has made it possible for traditional chiefs and paramount chiefs to exert their uncodified form of political authority in these smaller settings. Formal recognition of their authority will not be a smooth process. A number of factors complicate the formal recognition of traditional authority structures and customary law. The first is how such structures were used by former colonial powers as a shortcut to establish control over wide swath of territory with a small contingent of soldiers, and officials. Throughout Africa, chiefs and elders had become partners to the colonial system of indirect rule, or they were loosely co-opted into colonial administrations. Add to this the fact that many among the post colonial African elite, view traditional authority structures and customary law as illiberal and backwards. The influence of modernization theories and trusting the central state with a developmental vanguard role further underpins this rejection of legal pluralism. That being said, the informal recognition and application of customary law is in fact a lot more widespread than what the formal picture suggests. There's a visible distance between the pro forma letter of the law and the practice on the ground, which tends to be more inclusive towards legal pluralism. Especially in more peripheral regions, beyond the reach of much of the modern infrastructure. Officials often informally consult with traditional chiefs and incorporate customary practices of conflict resolution, in order to settle disputes between groups. Afro barometer survey of citizen attitudes consistently display high levels of influence traditional kings, queens and paramount chief's hold over local affairs, in many African countries. But please note that the progressive and democratic track record of traditional authorities, especially when it comes to women's rights, has not been stellar. Traditional customary remains a controversial question in many African countries, as many women's organizations fear that its former recognition would undermine the rights of rural women. The ins and out of this debate requires more space than this introductory course, but suffice to say that traditional authorities do not enjoy much support from the more progressive segments of various African societies. At the end of the day, this does not change the fact that these are important questions influencing the workings of decentralization. Some of the consequences might have been unintended, but were they really unanticipated? The discussion continues in the next video. Don't miss it.
