A majority of current studies of decentralisation reforms start off by defining the normative goals of transferring power and resources to local level. It is assumed inter alia that decentralisation will increase public participation in decision making and enhance the downward accountability of government officials, thereby leading to a deepening of democracy and improved economic performance. They tend however to conclude that decentralisation is failing to produce the desired outcomes, essentially because of lack of proper implementation. Both the normative basis and the explanation of the decentralisation flop as a result of lack of implementation fail to link the absence of desired outcomes with the explorations of governments’ motivations for decentralisation. They conceal that decentralisation in most cases are implemented for a number of other, more pragmatic and strategic reasons – which are far from the normative goals. J. Tyler Dickovick's book Decentralization and Recentralization in the Developing World makes an important departure from this trend. He starts with the pragmatic assumption that presidents/ chief executives prefer not to decentralise. If they do, it is because of an electoral defeat or a general reduction in executive power. Based on O'Neill's argument that democratic decentralisation often is adopted as an electoral strategy in circumstances where weakened politicians seek to maximise control over political and fiscal resources, he argues that subnational autonomy varies inversely with the power of the chief executive. If an economic crisis takes place, however, the resolution of this crisis enables the executive to centralise power again. Changes in the national political economy thus explain recentralisation.

Dickovick looks into the processes of decentralisation and recentralisation in both Africa (Senegal and South Africa) and Latin America (Brazil and Peru). Although comparative, his book is organised thematically and not country by country. Such an approach allows for more complete investigation of key variables and facilitates the development of theories potentially valid across cases, in contrast to the majority of other edited volumes on decentralisation, which tend to be multi-country studies with side-by-side single country explorations. With Dickovick's approach, some of the context is nevertheless sacrificed. Decentralisation is measured by looking into fiscal aspects of the process: revenue, expenditure and contractual autonomy of the sub-national units. This does not account for other informal and non-institutional forms of distributing or restraining power, which have proved to be crucial in the actual workings of governance structures in Africa and Latin America.

His main assumption that ‘the weakening of executives lead to decentralisation’ may also prove to be less relevant in countries where executives initially have little control of the sub-national level. In such regimes, central governments may be unlikely to introduce decentralised governance, because this is all too risky, even if not properly implemented. The promotion of decentralised governance can be more hazardous for parties with less solid roots in society than for a dominant party with a strong organisation to rely on. Another challenge with Dickovick's analysis is the assumption that when states introduce decentralisation reforms, they are actually decentralising. To recentralise, there must have been a genuine decentralisation in the first place. On the African continent, there are plenty of examples of states which have introduced decentralisation reforms, but have remained highly centralised, or have even used decentralisation reforms to consolidate central power at local level. In the case of Senegal, this challenge is particularly evident. According to Dickovick's thesis, Senegal had no major economic crisis and did therefore not recentralise. He mentions that the Senegalese central state has institutionalised ways to withhold power from subnational governments, but ultimately, he does not question whether Senegal actually implemented genuine decentralisation in the first place. Despite these reservations, Dickovick's book is an important and useful contribution to the large literature on decentralisation in the developing world. It is refreshing to see an analysis which incorporates the pragmatic considerations behind decentralisation reforms rather than the normative framework so common in conventional literature.