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| Title: | The travails of the unitary State system and post-conflict peacebuilding in Liberia |
| Author: | Kieh, Jr., George Klay |
| Year: | 2010 |
| Periodical: | Liberian Studies Journal (ISSN 0024-1989) |
| Volume: | 35 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Pages: | 1-27 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Liberia |
| Subjects: | central-local government relations decentralization peacebuilding |
| External link: | https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/lsj/issue/view/512 |
| Abstract: | One of the major challenges that has confronted postconflict States is the imperative of designing and implementing the modalities for the restructuring of the power relations betwen the centre (the national government) and the periphery (the local levels). Given the specificities of Liberia's predicament, including two civil wars, the restructuring of centre-periphery relations would need to transcend traditional decentralization or a federal solution. The central argument of the present paper is that devolution is the appropriate trajectory to restructure Liberia's centre-periphery power relations. Devolution is conceptualized as a hybrid model of centre-periphery power relations that combines features of unitary and federal systems in which the centre transfers specific functions, with the corresponding authority, to the periphery. Such a trajectory would promote, among others, local participation and initiative, and the broader processes of democracy and development based on the centrality of social citizenship. The paper advocates a constitutionally and statutorily-based foundation for the devolution of functions, and each function should be accompanied by the corresponding authority. Bibliogr. [ASC Leiden abstract] |