Decentralized Governance and Participatory Development: The Asian Experience

In the current epoch of crafting democratic governance in the newly democratizing polities (NPDs) in Asia under the impetus of both domestic demands and external intervention, decentralization and participation have gained critical significance as instruments of holistic development. The development paradigms of yesteryear became discredited because of their tilt, if by default, toward creating conditions that harbored bureaucratic domination, bred injustice, cause social and economic disparity, destroyed cultural values, produced public sector corruption and inefficiency, and damaged the environment (Goulet, 1992). The direction of development in today's globalized world cannot be divorced from the worldwide trend to create democratic opportunities for the people (Sen, 1999). Authoritarian regimes are making way for democratic governments, which are expected to establish institutions and processes to facilitate synergy between the state and citizens on the one hand, and between state institutions and civil society on the other. The time-honored hiatus between the state and the people, a corollary of over centralization in an authoritarian-bureaucratic framework, is challenged in the contemporary social-political makeover for democratic governance.