User:Mgt10196/sandbox

Article Evaluation Practice
Edited the article "History of Democracy" by citing a claim about the US having assisted Iraq in the process of establishing a new constitution and holding the first free elections after deposing Saddam Hussein during its 2003 invasion.

Peer Review
I provided feedback on the article, 'Participatory Justice,' edited by my peer, SanguineState. I agreed with her idea that the article could be overall strengthened by a restructuring of its sections. Rather than being comprised of two sections with somewhat vague bullet points, "Advantages" and "Disadvantages," S decided that it a "Theoretical Origins" section and a "Common Criticisms" section in place of these two might make for a better article. In my feedback, I asked whether S planned on maintaining the bullet point format in this article, or if she planned on fleshing these sections out into paragraphs. Since many of the bullet points are quotes from cited academic articles in the references, I suggested that she contextualize these quotes if she plans on keeping those bullet points and their respective sources. I also noticed that there was an opportunity for her to link to the Wikipedia article on the NBC Dateline television special, "To Catch a Predator," which the original contributor did not link properly in the introductory paragraph.

Article Improvement - Decentralization (Original)
Decentralization is the process of distributing or dispersing functions, powers, people or things away from a central location or authority. While centralization, especially in the governmental sphere, is widely studied and practiced, there is no common definition or understanding of decentralization. The meaning of decentralization may vary in part because of the different ways it is applied. Concepts of decentralization have been applied to group dynamics and management science in private businesses and organizations, political science, law and public administration, economics and technology.

Political
Decentralisation is looked at as an important component for a participatory democracy. Political decentralisation represents a significant reduction in the authority of national governments over economic policies. Political decentralization aims to give citizens or their elected representatives more power. It may be associated with pluralistic politics and representative government, but it also means giving citizens, or their representatives, more influence in the formulation and implementation of laws and policies. Depending on the country, this may require constitutional or statutory reforms, the development of new political parties, increased power for legislatures, the creation of local political units, and encouragement of advocacy groups.

The European Union follows the principle of subsidiarity, which holds that decision-making should be made by the most local competent authority. The EU should decide only on enumerated issues that a local or member state authority cannot address themselves. Furthermore, enforcement is exclusively the domain of member states.

In Finland, the Centre Party explicitly supports decentralization. For example, government departments have been moved from the capital Helsinki to the provinces. The Centre supports substantial subsidies that limit potential economic and political centralization to Helsinki.

In his paper on Political Decentralisation, Pranab Bardhan reviews data on the relationship between decentralisation, measures of corruption and government performance. A report by Estache and Sinha (1995) found a positive relationship between the share of budget of the state level government and per capita infrastructural development. The data set comprised 20 countries and the data was collected during 1970-1992. Fisherman & Gatti report a negative relationship between state government’s expenditure and measure of corruption. The data set looked at 59 countries over the period 1980-1995. It was observed that states which had direct election for important state level positions exhibit no significant relation with corruption. Fan et al (2009) conclude that there is an increase in corruption when there are more vertical tiers in the government and when local government are larger. Therefore, the data cannot definitively argue in favour or against decentralisation.

There are a few shortcomings in the methods used in identifying the success or failure of political decentralisation. Most of the literature on political decentralisation studies the short term affects of it. However, there is a possibility that political decentralisation will affect the same dependent variables differently in the long term. This is because in the long term there might be a change in the political participation and competition.

Improvement Plan

 * Make the intro paragraph more succinct, clear; improve the definition based on more research
 * Find more peer-reviewed, vetted knowledge
 * Synthesize across case studies of different countries, cities

Article Improvement - Decentralization (In Progress)
Decentralization is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group. Concepts of decentralization have been applied to group dynamics and management science in private businesses and organizations, political science, law and public administration, economics and technology.

Political
Political decentralization signifies a reduction in the authority of national governments over policymaking by endowing citizens or their elected representatives more power. It may be associated with pluralistic politics and representative government, but it also means giving citizens, or their representatives, more influence in the formulation and implementation of laws and policies. This process is accomplished by the institution of reforms that either delegate a certain degree of meaningful decision-making autonomy to subnational tiers of government, or grant citizens the right to elect lower-level officials, like local or regional representatives. Depending on the country, this may require constitutional or statutory reforms, the development of new political parties, increased power for legislatures, the creation of local political units, and encouragement of advocacy groups.

A national government may decide to decentralize its authority and responsibilities for a variety of reasons. Decentralization reforms may occur for administrative reasons, when government officials decide that certain responsibilities and decisions would be handled best at the regional or local level. In democracies, traditionally conservative parties include political decentralization as a directive in their platforms because rightist parties tend to advocate for a decrease in the role of central government. There is also strong evidence to support the idea that government stability increases the probability of political decentralization, since instability brought on by gridlock between opposing parties in legislatures often impedes a government's overall ability to enact sweeping reforms.

The rise of regional ethnic parties in the national politics of parliamentary democracies is also heavily associated with the implementation of decentralization reforms. Ethnic parties may endeavor to transfer more autonomy to their respective regions, and as a partisan strategy, ruling parties within the central government may cooperate by establishing regional assemblies in order to curb the rise of ethnic parties in national elections. This phenomenon famously occurred in 1999, when the United Kingdom's Labour Party appealed to Scottish constituents by creating a semi-autonomous Scottish Parliament in order to neutralize the threat from the increasingly popular Scottish National Party at the national level.

In addition to increasing the administrative efficacy of government and endowing citizens with more power, there are many projected advantages to political decentralization. Individuals who take advantage of their right to elect local and regional authorities have been shown to have more positive attitudes toward politics, and increased opportunities for civic decision-making through participatory democracy mechanisms like public consultations and participatory budgeting are believed to help legitimize government institutions in the eyes of marginalized groups. Moreover, political decentralization is perceived as a valid means of protecting marginalized communities at a local level from the detrimental aspects of development and globalization driven by the state, like the degradation of local customs, codes, and beliefs. In his 2013 book, Democracy and Political Ignorance, George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin argued that political decentralization in a federal democracy confronts the widespread issue of political ignorance by allowing citizens to engage in foot voting, or moving to other jurisdictions with more favorable laws. He cites the mass migration of over one million southern-born African Americans to the North or the West to evade discriminatory Jim Crow laws in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

The European Union follows the principle of subsidiarity, which holds that decision-making should be made by the most local competent authority. The EU should decide only on enumerated issues that a local or member state authority cannot address themselves. Furthermore, enforcement is exclusively the domain of member states. In Finland, the Centre Party explicitly supports decentralization. For example, government departments have been moved from the capital Helsinki to the provinces. The Centre supports substantial subsidies that limit potential economic and political centralization to Helsinki.

Political decentralization does not come without its drawbacks. A study by Simon Fan concludes that there is an increase in corruption and rent-seeking when there are more vertical tiers in the government, as well as when there are higher levels of subnational government employment. Other studies warn of high-level politicians that may intentionally deprive regional and local authorities of power and resources when conflicts arise. In order to combat these negative forces, experts believe that political decentralization should be supplemented with other conflict management mechanisms like power-sharing, particularly in regions with ethnic tensions.