The idea of decentralization, in its simplest expression, refers to the plurality of decision-making centers. As we are discussing Public Administration, such decision-making centers are public, in the sense that the word has in the public/private antinomy: private is what concerns the relationships between citizens, public is what concerns the relationships between citizens and those who exercise authority, the public powers.
There are two ways of conceiving public authority: the oldest is confused with the authority of the State, which has a monopoly on it.
It is the absolutely centralized State, usually with all public power embodied in a single individual (Louis XIV of France is the most common example, but centralism was born and grew in the great ancient empires: China, Mongolia, Persia, Rome).
The most common thing nowadays is for there to be some kind of sharing of public power, an expression that is even more often used in the plural. Public powers are then divided according to a material criterion (separation of powers): making laws, judging disputes, making decisions that promote public interests (legislative power, judiciary power, administrative power, respectively).
Any sharing of public powers is based on a decision center. Let us imagine that all public powers of an administrative nature (competences) were concentrated in the Government of the Republic. There were no autonomous regions, no municipalities, no parishes. All decisions were made by the Government. This would be the only decision center.
It turns out that there are already multiple decision-making centers, most of them for centuries. The parish corresponds to an old institution of the Catholic Church, the Parish. The municipality is also an ancient institution, of Roman origin, according to some, Visigoth, according to others. Autonomous regions were created by the 1976 Constitution.
These administrative decision centers are based in a portion of the national territory, called Administrative Circumscription. In my previous text on the subject, I anticipated the approximate number of these circumscriptions. At this point I will need:
– two autonomous regions, which coincide with the Azores and Madeira archipelagos;
– 278 municipalities (on the continent);
– 2882 parishes (on the mainland).
Leaving aside the Azores and Madeira – whose legal-constitutional status is closely linked to their archipelagic nature -, we will focus on municipalities and parishes.
Each of us has the name of two places written on our identity card: mine says, São Sebastião da Pedreira, Lisbon. Others will say, for example, Ramalde, Porto. We have a double naturalness, because the territory of each of the parishes is necessarily included in the territory of a municipality.
The existence of 3163 administrative decision centers in a continental territory with just over 89,000 square kilometers and around 9,800,000 inhabitants justifies reflection. I’ll do it next week.
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