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SpringerLink: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-81674-2

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“Based on scores of interviews with high-level offi cials across fi ve presidential administrations in Colombia, López-Murcia provides a compelling explanation of recentralisation as the result of interactions between economic performance and institutional context. This is a timely contribution to the literature on multilevel governance.”

Kent Eaton, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

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“Leveraging within-case variation in economic and institutional variables across fi ve presidencies, the book traces the emergence and success of recentralising coalitions in Colombia. In so doing, it generates important lessons for scholars interested in the determinants of institutional strength and stability, decentralisation and multilevel governance, and Latin American politics.”

Ezequiel González-Ocantos, University of Oxford, UK

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“This book will extend and reinvigorate scholarship on decentralization by adding an interactive framework to explain recentralization. Decentralization and intergovernmental relations scholars and practitioners should find this volume worth reading.”

Claudia Avellaneda, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA

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Review published in “ReVista – Harvard Review of Latin America”: https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/a-review-of-recentralisation-in-colombia/

“Overall, López-Murcia’s volume becomes an obligatory reference for those interested in subnational governance and intergovernmental relations in Latin America, as well as for those exploring the evolution of governance processes in the region. Moreover, the book offers readers a clear account of the different tools and bargaining strategies employed by the Colombian elites, beyond the formality of the policy process, to carry forward their agenda. These issues are far from settled, as demonstrated by the constant tensions between levels of government in the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic (which the book touches on in chapter nine). Therefore, counting on high-level research work such as López-Murcia’s book results very valuable to help us figure out the governance dynamics we will face in the near future.”

Ricardo A. Bello-Gómez, Texas Tech University, USA

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Review published in “LSE Review of Books”: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2022/02/15/book-review-recentralisation-in-colombia-by-julian-d-lopez-murcia/

“Recentralisation in Colombia by Julián D. López-Murcia is a timely book, decisively contributing to decentralisation theory in general, and specifically to the debate about governance and state-building in Latin America. In the author’s words, ‘the scholarship on recentralisation is almost entirely based on empirical literature. With [some] notable exceptions […] there are no big theoretical efforts regarding the notion and dimensions of recentralisation or any analysis beyond the case under study’. This work, based on López-Murcia’s doctoral dissertation at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, aims at addressing that academic gap.”

Juan D. Parra, Universidad del Norte, Colombia

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Review published in “Revista Derecho del Estado” – Universidad Externado de Colombia: https://blogrevistaderechoestado.uexternado.edu.co/2022/07/27/resena-sobre-el-librorecentralisation-in-colombia/

“En suma, se trata de un trabajo pionero, que aporta un nuevo lenguaje al derecho público colombiano y otras disciplinas de las ciencias sociales. Es una investigación que propone un nuevo aparato conceptual, una metodología de investigación con un análisis interdisciplinario soportado en una fuerte dosis empírica, con entrevistas a burocracias nacionales y locales que incidieron en la toma de estas decisiones.  El trabajo de López Murcia permite evidenciar que, a nombre de la descentralización, se ha realizado una política pública centralista que introduce una regresividad en el modelo territorial colombiano e interrumpe el proceso de construcción de nuevas formas de gobernanzas territoriales y relaciones con el centro de maneras más equilibradas. Un excelente trabajo, de estudio obligatorio para comprender la recentralización y poder así iniciar un proceso que la revierta.”

Vanessa Suelt, Universidad del Rosario, Colombia