The paper draws from empirical material of “Local Autonomy Index” project, completed by international team coordinated by Andreas Ladner. The index is based on a dozen of variables allowing to compare various dimensions of autonomy both across countries and between different periods (data cover 1991-2014 period). The data set includes 17 countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including all 11 new member states of EU and several other countries of the region (Albania, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine).
The paper tries to verify following research hypothesis:
1.) The change of values of an index in CEE countries have been throughout the 1991-2014 period considerably faster than in more stable local democracies of Western Europe. That reflects the dynamic social, economic and political transition in the region.
2.) The differences in the scope and pace of changes was especially big in 1990th, but has gradually decreased in more recent years, comparing to “early transformation” period.
3.) The trend towards more local autonomy has not been evenly spread across various dimensions of and index. In particular, countries of CEE region has been for a long time “lagging behind” in terms of financial autonomy.
4.) The scale of local autonomy was significantly increasing in the early stages of CEE countries transformation. But there were differences in the pace and models of decentralization between groups of countries. Some of them (especially countries joining EU in 2004) have experienced waves of decentralization earlier than others.
5.) The trend of increasing local autonomy has reversed in several countries I recent years, as a reaction to economic crisis demanding – according to some economists and politicians in the regions – more central control and steering of local governments.
