“Heaven Can Wait”... But Can Portuguese Regionalization? Brief Assessment of the Outcomes of Portuguese Decentralization Strategies Over the Last 20 Years
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59072/rper.vi59.93Keywords:
Decentralization, de-concentration, regionalization, Regional Authority Index, Federalism, PortugalAbstract
The current paper stands as a comparative inquire to the consequences of Portugal rejecting the creation of an intermediate level of governance between the central and the local - the regional. It analyses if such rejection meant the stagnation of decentralization, and whether it prevented Portugal from catching up with remaining EU member states in this regard. We also look to the consequences of rejecting regionalization in terms of the inequalities between regions. Again, this is done also in relative terms, observing the trends in the rest of the EU member states. As a last axis of research, this paper concludes that there is low level of association between decentralization strategies and reduction of inequalities among regions. Trade openness is identified as a much more significant variable to be associated with negative impact in terms of the inequalities among regions within the same country.
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