The decentralization of political authority constitutes one of the most important sources of state transformation. This panel presents an inquiry into the causes of decentralization while also touching on some of the implications. The first set of papers offer competing explanations as to when decentralizations reforms occur. Marks and Hooghe conceptualize the choice over symmetry in jurisdictional design as a matter of contrasting approaches to government. They argue that an instrumentalist approach is associated with jurisdictions similar in population and area, whereas a community approach leads to regional authority without regard for symmetry. Röth and Kaiser’s sequential analysis of territorial reforms in 21 countries reveals two dynamics in asymmetrically decentralized countries: a catch-up dynamic which causes asymmetry to decrease over time and an identity-based dynamic which leads to even further increasing asymmetry. In a Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 45 territorial reforms in 10 European countries, Toubeau and Massetti explore the political impetus that leads to different types of reforms.

Using survey experiments, León and Orriols analyse the implications of asymmetric decentralization in the United Kingdom for responsibility attribution. They find that responsibility attribution is strongly influenced by the nexus of identity, partisanship and the distribution of authority in multilevel settings. In a time-series cross-section analysis of subnational spending in 14 OECD countries, Kleider explores whether decentralization is associated with a competition-induced convergence on spending levels or with an increased within-country variation. Her results suggest that decentralization increase inequality although fiscal equalization and policy coordination can moderate this centrifugal effect.