Abstract

This article explains why legislators in a centralized polity support decentralizing laws. Using Chile as a case study, it assesses two standard explanations for this support: party nomination procedures, which is disregarded; and electoral strategies, which is accepted. A novel finding is that party ideology is also a predictor of support for decentralization, with parties of the Right less likely to offer it. The author also argues that a legislator with a sub-national rather than national background is more likely to back such reforms in an attempt to enhance his or her reputation within the constituency. The author tests these and other hypotheses by combining qualitative arguments and regression analysis. The latter is performed on an original database of legislator biographical information, party electoral performance, regional GDP figures, and individual legislator support for 46 decentralizing laws approved in Chile between 1990 and 2006. © 2007 Sage Publications.