A Critical Survey of Subnational Autonomy in African States Yonatan Fessha* and Coel Kirkby † This article examines the quiet yet pervasive transfer of power from central governments to subna- tional units in Africa since the early 1990s. Central governments have justified this trend by arguing it promotes one or more of three goods: democracy, development, and accommodating diversity. The authors survey six selected countries representing federal-unitary and regional differences to evaluate their degree of formal and substantive political, administrative, and financial autonomy. Transfer of powers to subnational units, the authors conclude, is a real and nearly universal trend. However, many central governments have clawed back this grant of power in numerous ways, which led to an informal recentralization of power. Moreover, central governments of federations have deliberately strengthened local government at the expense of regional autonomy. A ‘‘third wave’’ of democracy rolled over sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s, washing away ossified single-party autocracies and ‘‘big man’’ dictatorships (Prempeh 2007). The new democratically elected governments carried many changes in their wake. One understudied but critical reform was the transfer of power to existing or new subnational political units. While countries like Nigeria had autonomous subnational units for decades, this new trend was continent wide, and supported by powerful regional and international institutions. Few states have resisted the pressure to extend democratic institutions to subnational levels. Central governments have justified these reforms as enhancing democracy, development, and accommodating diversity. Despite their professed goals, most central governments have failed to create truly autonomous subnational government. Reforms have focused on creating elected councils with delineated legislative and executive powers. Yet, central authorities have often ignored or deliberately undermined crucial corresponding regional or local control over administration and finances. Although an ostensible break from a half century of centralized autocracy, subnational autonomy in many African states has paradoxically reinforced central authority at the expense of democracy, development, and managing diversity. This article explores the reasons for this hypocritical result by first analyzing the three main justifications for subnational units: democracy, *University of the Western Cape À McGill University; E-mail: coel.kirkby@gmail.com Publius:The Journal of Federalism volume 38 number 2, pp. 248^271 doi:10.1093/publius/pjm040 Advance Access publication18 January 2008 ß The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CSF Associates: Publius, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/publius/article/38/2/248/1868127 by KIM Hohenheim user on 24 April 2022