Decentraliserade litenheter - en kartläggning och en förklaring

Abstract

Mapping and Explaining Decentralized Diminutive Entities.

Decentralization and power devolution are usually associated with territorially large states, and federalism is often said to be particularly common in large countries. This study of the 43 microstates in the world (2006) shows, however, that decentralization and the creation of federal and autonomous units are not foreign to small countries. Indeed, in the microstate population are four federal cases and another six cases that have introduced evident decentralizing features. When developing a frame of reference for the understanding of this disposition of small units to decentralize, the guiding hypothesis is that whereas small size may in itself discourage decentralization, this relation is tamed by a non-contiguous geography which creates predispositions to autonomy and power devolution. Nine out of the ten above devolution cases being archipelagos, the findings strongly support the belief that territorial non-contiguity fosters decentralization. The findings also survive controls that investigate the impact of several contesting factors.