Attribution of Regional Responsibilities for Public Services and Citizen Support of Decentralisation: Evidence from Spain

Abstract

Probit/logit techniques are applied to the data from Barometer No.
2,829 published by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas to
examine three problems related with public sector decentralisation. The
paper concludes, first, that citizens’ perception of efficiency gains from
decentralisation have a positive effect on their support for decentralised
government. Second, that citizens are more likely to perceive the
efficiency gains from decentralisation if they correctly ascribe
responsibility for education and health services to regions. And third,
that citizens who most accurately identify regional responsibility for the
provision of those services tend to be better educated, older, engaged
in paid work or public employment, concerned about regional politics
and resident in one region with higher initial level of devolved powers.