In wealth and in poverty? The changing role of Spanish municipalities in implementing childcare policies
By: NAVARRO, Carmen
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Contributor(s): VELASCO, Francisco.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: Los Angeles : Sage, June 2016International Review of Administrative Sciences 82, 2, p. 315-334Abstract: In the context of more than a decade of economic expansion that ended in 2008, Spanish municipalities were active in expanding their functions through vigorous policy-making in numerous areas. The crisis meant that town halls had difficulty in providing these services and, in 2013, the central government approved a re-centralization policy driven by the belief that local governments had brought about unsustainable patterns of expenditure. Using a neo-institutionalist theoretical perspective, this article analyses the phenomena of expansion of municipal involvement in childcare policies and the impact of these processes on the functioning of local governments. We observe, as an unintended positive effect of the reallocation of tasks, that local governments have legitimized themselves through action in fields not initially foreseen in the formal decentralization arrangements, and are highly valued by citizens as welfare providers. However, they have not overcome the structural lack of autonomy in which the legal system places them and, so far, they have been able to meet citizens expectations only when economic conditions have been favourable
In the context of more than a decade of economic expansion that ended in 2008, Spanish municipalities were active in expanding their functions through vigorous policy-making in numerous areas. The crisis meant that town halls had difficulty in providing these services and, in 2013, the central government approved a re-centralization policy driven by the belief that local governments had brought about unsustainable patterns of expenditure. Using a neo-institutionalist theoretical perspective, this article analyses the phenomena of expansion of municipal involvement in childcare policies and the impact of these processes on the functioning of local governments. We observe, as an unintended positive effect of the reallocation of tasks, that local governments have legitimized themselves through action in fields not initially foreseen in the formal decentralization arrangements, and are highly valued by citizens as welfare providers. However, they have not overcome the structural lack of autonomy in which the legal system places them and, so far, they have been able to meet citizens expectations only when economic conditions have been favourable
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