DEVOLUTION

Part of our series on one of the least discussed issues in public
policy: at what level should we carry it out?

WIKIPEDIA - Spain's fifty provinces are grouped into seventeen
autonomous communities, in addition to two African autonomous cities.
Centralism, nationalism and separatism played an important role in the
Spanish transition. For fear that separatism would lead to instability
and a dictatorial backlash, a compromise was struck among the moderate
political parties taking part in the drafting of the Spanish
Constitution of 1978. The aim was to appease separatist forces and so
disarm the extreme right. A highly decentralized state was established,
compared both with the previous Francoist regime and with most modern
territorial arrangements in Western European nations.

The autonomous communities have wide legislative and executive autonomy,
with their own parliaments and regional governments. The distribution of
powers is different for every community, as laid out in the "autonomy
statute". There is a de facto distinction between "historic" communities
and the rest. The historic ones initially received more functions,
including the ability of the regional presidents to choose the timing of
the regional elections. As another example, the Basque Country and
Catalonia have full-range police forces of their own. . .

FIELD GUIDE TO DEVOLUTION
http://prorev.com/devolution.htm

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