MEXICO CITY'S BOROUGHS: NOT YET LOCAL GOVERNMENTS 1

The present article analyzes recent decentralization and recentralization processes in some countries and the trends observed in Mexico, where Mexico City, the national capital, was recently recognized as a federal state, and after 90 years without municipal governments, the city's territorial divisions were established as boroughs. In this context, the powers of the Mexican municipalities are compared with those of the boroughs (formerly called delegations) to determine the requisites that they still lack to be a true local government with full political, fiscal, and administrative powers. The new government shall demonstrate its decentralizing vocation.

1 Previous versions of sections in the present article were presented at the XXIII CLAD International Congress in Guadalajara (Mexico) in November 2018 and in the XXXVI LASA 2018 International Congress in Barcelona (Spain), in May 2018. 2 rofesor-investigador del Centro de Investigaciones Económicas Administrativas y Sociales (CIECAS) del Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) (http://www.ciecas.ipn.mx/). Doctor en Planificación Territorial y Desarrollo Regional (Universidad de Barcelona, España). Miembro del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI) nivel I. Profesor en el Doctorado en Innovación en Ambientes Locales y en la Maestría en Economía y Gestión Municipal. bmendezb@hotmail.com y bmendez@ipn.mx. Línea de investigación: gestión pública en temas relacionados con el desarrollo urbano, regional y local. Culebro Jorge, Méndez Benjamín y Cruz Pablo (2019). Coordination and regulation in crisis management. Response of the health sector to disasters. Decentralization and power: a current topic Decentralization is the transfer of functions from an entity high in the political structure, usually the national government in federal countries, to an entity in a lower hierarchy, which can be subnational or local. It responds to the federalist principle of subsidiarity establishing that tasks must be carried out at the lowest possible political level to place them closer to the citizens, hoping to stimulate local development (Olsen, 2007). The transferred competences can belong to one or more political, fiscal, or administrative domains (Olsen, 2007;Falleti, 2010;Tulchin, 2012;Aalen & Muriaas, 2017).
It is a formally or informally organized process involving various political actors, which is why it can take place suddenly or gradually; it can be weak when irrelevant functions are transferred or strong if they are substantial and endow real autonomy and power. Despite such agreement, the process can develop further than planned as an expression of a struggle for power among the different political actors in each country, which is reflected by the outcome of electoral processes and the use of conjunctural phenomena, as in the case of Colombia (Tulchin, 2012), or the way in which a group attains power, or due to the influence of external phenomena such as guidelines issued by multilateral organizations.
The decentralization of functions involves the transfer of power; therefore, actors who lose their privileges often express disagreement. The opposition of displaced public officials, economic groups, and political leaders is expressed by different actions, which can be small individual acts or generalized efforts using all available sources and forms of power, including political and economic strategies; discursive and symbolic threats; coded threats; bribes and intimidation; actual violence, or the use of communication media, that is, a repertoire of domination intended to eliminate or decrease the effects of decentralization (Poteete & Ribot, 2010).
Decentralization can also encounter setbacks, a phenomenon known as recentralization (Olmeda & Armesto, 2017;Riedl & Dickovick, 2014) that consists in the return of certain functions to the national government. This can take the form of an explicit recentralization, involving normative changes to be legalized, or a subtle recentralization, in which the power balance changes as a result of small measures enacted during execution that do not entail modifying the normative instruments. 59 Dickovick and Eaton (2013:1454) identified four subtle recentralization strategies: a) policy strategies involving the implementation of national social programs that bypass state-level authorities by directly linking the national government with the programs' beneficiaries to obtain political revenue; b) bureaucratic strategies in which national bureaucracies are manipulated to advance recentralization objectives; c) use of national organizations such as the electoral institution or the army to limit subnational or local autonomy; d) 'societal strategies' intended to mobilize actors who support recentralization.
A decentralization process does not always translate into increased power at the subnational and local levels, and the redistribution of authority can also change due to political action by actors in these levels and their allies (Falleti, 2010). However, subnational governments can sometimes refrain from resisting or even support recentralization processes. This occurs when government income is low and the involved functions are administrative, for example, when tasked with the collection of an unpopular tax, provided that the national government increases transfers. This position is comfortable because the act of collecting the tax tends to result in a loss of supporters.
They support the recentralization of the tax in exchange for decentralized spending. On the other hand, they are not willing to lose political prerogatives (Olmeda & Armesto, 2017).
In the light of the foregoing, the present discussion assumes that the scope of decentralization, as proposed by national governments, responds to appraisals concerning the maintenance of the regime and partisan power made by both the ruling party and the opposition.
These appraisals are focused on each party's knowledge and expectations of penetration into the different regions of a country, and they involve not taking actions that would support the opponent, but also estimating one's alternatives (Aalen & Muriaas, 2017). Under this rationale, a ruling party promotes decentralization processes when it considers that doing so will strengthen its position at the subnational level, but it inhibits the processes if its dominance is considerable (Aalen & Muriaas, 2017;Riedl & Dickovick, 2014).
We also share Falleti's (2010) thesis in that the evolution of intergovernmental power balance is determined by the sequence in which political, fiscal, and administrative responsibilities are transferred. When political decentralization takes place first, subnational or local actors become empowered and will try to negotiate increased powers in the fiscal and administrative spheres.
However, when administrative decentralization takes the lead, the national government retains bargaining power when the time comes to examine the fiscal and political environments, although subnational or local governments may try to obtain a little more.

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During the 1960s and 1970s, a number of African and Asian countries underwent "decentralization" processes; these processes failed because in reality they were limited to a deconcentration of functions toward regional offices reporting to the central government and they lacked clear objectives, sufficient resources, and opposition from the high bureaucracy (Olsen, 2007).
Subsequently, during the 1980s and 1990s, the decentralization of functions from national to subnational or municipal governments became a global trend, motivated by the principle of subsidiarity and the need for greater efficiency. Among the instruments used in these processes are vertical and horizontal specialization methods (Culebro, 2014). The results of decentralization in regions with different levels of development and political systems have been heterogeneous; therefore, a closer look at multidisciplinary and comparative studies to differentiate positive and unexpected effects is today a necessity (Montecinos, 2005). For example, research needs to address the consequences of the absence of basic conditions to implement reforms in many countries, such as a solid administrative capacity, a developed competitive market, strong ethical capital in the public sector, or clear boundaries between the public and private sectors (Christensen & Laegreid, 2005). In certain countries, such as Colombia and Brazil, the process has made significant progress, although results are far from optimal; in Argentina, these processes are very limited, and in Mexico, they are moderate but relevant (Falleti, 2010).
In view of the meager results, the policies used in certain countries show that decentralization can move forward or backward when the national government yields or recovers functions because the process is ultimately an expression of political struggle (Dardanelli, 2018;Aalen & Muriaas, 2017). Evidence of recentralization processes has emerged recently in different parts of the world, which has been documented by Leonard, Nazarov, and Vakulenko (2016) (2014) pointed out that the degree of decentralization achieved depends to a large extent on the type of political party system in the country.
The history of Latin America during the nineteenth century was characterized by the predominance of strong centralist governments, and military coups and authoritarian governments were frequent during the twentieth century. Four recent experiences in the region are remarkable; this paper will focus on the case of Mexico City. In Uruguay, a decentralization process initiated in 1996 created municipalities whose authorities were elected for the first time in 2010, and there is currently much debate on the extent of the fiscal and administrative decentralization (Ruiz & Selios, 2018). In Uruguay, the progress of decentralization has been slow, and the most important measures are less than a decade old (González, 2015). In October 2020, Regional Governors will be elected for the first time in Chile. They will serve for four years and will replace the Intendants, appointed by the These studies highlight the preponderance of the governing party's program and the ideology adopted by the government in the design and management of institutional and policy models, in contrast with their low budgetary allocation and weight of citizen valuation.
In a complex multinational exercise, Dardanelli, et. al. (2018) have advanced in the design of a conceptual, methodological, and conceptual framework to examine long-term stability in the distribution of responsibility by level of government in six federations, considered by the authors as constitutionally stable and democratic for more than six decades: Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Switzerland, and the United States.

Decentralization and municipal powers in Mexico
Between 1950 and 1970, the 'Mexican Miracle,' or stabilizing development policy, achieved high rates of economic growth, low inflation, and a strong currency, which increased consumption levels among large segments of the population. The exhaustion of this model triggered a deep political and economic crisis that made the need to decentralize functions evident. However, the resistance presented by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) delayed the process.
By law, Mexico is a federal country 5 . However, for more than three decades, the country has been subjected to various administrative reforms promoted by a political class driven by a centralizing vocation. After analyzing the trajectories of change of these reforms, Cejudo & Pardo (2016) conclude that their design was the result of competing, segmented logics guided by short-term phenomena instead of the product of straightforward public management decisions. Three trends can be currently observed. The first is the emergence of a centralizing turn characterized by unfinished procedures, which are reversed, resulting in conflicting trajectories, confusion among public servants, and conflict at all levels of government. Its expression has been the emergence of new norms and institutions that return to the federation administrative processes previously transferred to subnational entities, such as teachers' payroll, acquisition of drugs, elections, the right to information, and citizen security. A second trend consists in the growing autonomy of the executive branch, which is motivated by mistrust in the impartiality of top-level public officials in matters of potential conflict of interest, such as the assessment of the education system, social development programs, or the http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/organismos/igualdadypoliticassociales/areas/dependencia/ leydependencia.html. 5 "... a representative, democratic, secular, and federal Republic composed of free and sovereign states in all matters concerning its internal regime, in addition to Mexico City, united in a federation ..." (Congress, 2017 art 40). Cabrero (2010) examines three emblematic cases of relocation of powers to states and municipalities. The first concerns the health sector, which began in 1983, the second refers to the education sector in 1992, and the third is the process of decentralization of anti-poverty programs in 1994. Different processes reveal improvisation in all three cases. The problems that arose during the implementation of this decentralization process were addressed using centralizing measures.
The PRI's loss of majority status in Congress' lower chamber in 1997 was one of the central drivers of the 1999 reform, which gave municipalities a wide range of competencies but was ineffective in terms of local development because the capacity to undertake these prerogatives failed to be reflected on local growth; nevertheless, it should be pointed out that this outcome was beneficial for the main political actors.
Thus, the federal government is currently responsible for defense and national security, foreign relations, fiscal coordination, foreign trade, monetary policy, education, environment, health care, and regional development. Its sources of financing are taxes on income (ISR), added value (VAT), capital, fuels, and emissions, in addition to those derived from the customs offices. The responsibilities of subnational governments are education, health care, social security, support to and supervision of municipal governments, regional development programs, industrial and agricultural development, and the management of natural resources, the environment, and interstate communication routes; their financing consists of taxes on income, production, inheritance, added value (optional), alcohol, tobacco, and pasta, as well as part of the taxes on fuel and emissions, vehicle licenses and other taxes, business property, and urban megaprojects. Table 1 systematizes the responsibilities of municipal governments, including those derived from the 2014 reform 6 . As can be appreciated, the municipality is recognized as a government entity and has the power to manage its own resources and issue regulations. It is required to provide public services and has four sources of financing, in addition to the prerogatives of regulating land use and participating in planning. Many of these functions are not carried out, and numerous municipal governments are utterly unprepared to conduct them. 6 . A senator can now be re-elected for two consecutive periods, a total of 12 years in office; federal congresspeople, for four successive periods, or a total of 16 years (Article 59). Municipal presidents can be elected on one consecutive occasion if they are nominated by the same party or cease to be members before halfway through the term. Governors were given authority to assume the responsibility of public security.   Notes. * (DOF, 2014c).
Signs of a centralizing trend emerged in several areas of public administration (Blancas, 2014). In December 2013, teacher payroll management was re-centralized as a result of a reform to taxes (Martínez & Carrera, 2015).
A similar process permeates the government system from top to bottom, that is, from the federal to the state level, from the state to the municipality and, in many cases, from the latter to its municipalities. Frequently, the main population in the municipality holds most of its resources and has the best services and infrastructure, and it attracts most of the investment, whereas the poorest municipalities are allocated meager amounts of the budget to develop remote populations, quite conspicuously in the more poverty-stricken areas of Oaxaca (Velasco & Méndez, 2016).

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One of the common traits of this long and eventful decentralization process has been the lack of an institutional design model to guide the process from the diagnostic phase to the gradual creation of the skills required by the states and municipalities to take on the role of decentralizing; such model should also analyze the problems derived from differences in sociopolitical and economic conditions at subnational and local levels. This electoral trend showed not only the presence of political turnover in the country, represented by the change of governing party, but the possibility of political transition understood as the interval between the dissolution of an authoritarian political regime and the emergence of some form of democracy; during a period of this type, the different political actors will harshly dispute over and define the rules and procedures that will allow for the installation of democratic institutions (Mellado, 2001: 28-29).
The transition has come into being so slowly that an exceptional regime, politically and administratively unlike the rest of the country, prevailed in the Federal District even after the Political Reform of 1996. Five issues stand out in this regard. The first refers to the lack of a local constitution; the second, to the scope and limits of the powers of the local legislative body; the third, to the concurrence of federal and local legislative attributions in the issuance of Laws for the Federal This section explores the fourth issue: the political peculiarity resulting from an incomplete reform that allowed for the election of the Head of Government, delegation heads, and assembly members, but all of them had limited powers (Gaceta, 1994). Thus, in the 1990s, a federal entity  68 was assigned to the state-level government: the GDF (Article 95 of the Government Statute).
Delegations were, therefore, subordinated to the state-level government because their largest possible source of income was unavailable, and they had to request financial resources from different levels of government to implement their government program.
Thirdly, delegations lacked a cabildo or councilor body to allow for proportional participation in government tasks and citizen administration of political parties other than the winner in the election.
Finally, citizen security was also beyond the delegations' attributions. In this area, municipalities are responsible for the prevention of crime and have an ad hoc police corporation, but the investigative role is an attribution of the Public Prosecutor's Office, which responds to the state or federal government depending on the type of crime. Municipalities also lack the power to punish crime since, again, this is an attribution of the federal-or state-level judicial system. However, the Federal District's delegations lacked a 'municipal' police force because the Statute mandated the existence of a unified preventive police force for the whole entity (articles 34 and 35).  were appointed by the low chamber of congress (transitory article seven, section C); six were appointed by the President of the Republic (transitory article seven, fraction D), and six were appointed by the Head of Government (transitory article seven, fraction E). This composition overrepresented some political parties and underrepresented others.  The range of questionings reflects the issues most debated during the preparation of the CPCDMX.
These challenges were associated with the positions of the main political actors on the degree of decentralization that Mexico City should or should not have as a government 9 , but none concerned the fundamental powers of the boroughs (Orozco, 2017). The SCJN completed the analysis of these controversies on September 10, 2019 10 . A particular characteristic of the CPCDMX (art 12) is its rightsbased approach (Abramovich & Courtis, 2006;Abramovich & Pautassi, 2009   77 Table 3 Percentage  Defense Institute will also be created, among other bodies. Some of these laws will likely motivate the review of the powers of local governments. The process was still incomplete in November 2019.
Under the new legislation, the borough is recognized as the local government, its authorities are elected by the citizenry, it has a legal personality, and its budget and administration are autonomous; the mayor and council are elected by universal, free, secret, and direct vote for a three- year term (article 53 CPCDMX). The boroughs will administer labor relations in all areas except public security, which will be under the authority of the Mexico City government (Article 53, Section B, number 3, fraction c, subsection iv LOA) (ALDF, 2017). In terms of citizen security, instead of a separate police corporation for each borough, a single force will be responsible for the entire city.   Journal of the Federation. The initial draft of this proposal was created by the governments of these two states and Mexico City's. Boroughs will yield some of their powers to other levels of government when this law is approved; however, such transfer is not necessarily an expression of recentralization, but rather an intergovernmental relations agreement aimed at higher efficiency.

Conclusions
Theoretical analyses and case studies focused on top-down decentralization of political, fiscal, and administrative functions toward local governments are still a valid approach to public administration. At present, different local governments throughout the world are recentralizing powers to the federal level, but decentralizing processes can also be observed in different countries.
These two opposite processes are an expression of the political struggle in each nation, and the most appropriate placement of certain government functions and actions are debated. Efficiency and the principle of subsidiarity are at the core of this issue, and the positions assumed by the political actors in power, but also by their opponents, can be explained by each's strategies in terms of regime maintenance and partisan power. As part of that rationale, they propose either to deepen or to retract powers, to support them or to resist their implementation. This logic also defines the sequence in which administrative, fiscal, or political functions are bestowed upon a level of government and the scope of such functions.
Although recentralization currently seems to be the predominant trend in the planet and in Latin America, decentralization processes are underway in Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
Within the context of decentralization inertia that begun more than three decades ago in Mexico, 83 which has been at odds with a recentralizing trend over the last decade, Mexico City was recognized and given full rights as one of the 32 federal entities that make up the Mexican federation. The current boroughs, which replaced the delegations, are also a product of this reform.
In the midst of controversies and resistance among different groups, a constituent congress was established, and the complex process of giving birth to a new entity began. The Constitution of Mexico City and the Boroughs Act are already in place, and the institutional design of the Attorney General's Office is in progress, but the rest of the public administration needs to be built, including the absolutely indispensable metropolitan-level instruments needed by a 21-million inhabitant megalopolis, whose law is being created by the Congresses of three entities. This process will have a clear impact on the prerogatives that local authorities will eventually have, so their functions are still, to some extent, uncertain.
At this point, the boroughs have acquired important responsibilities, closer to those of municipalities. But the most important progress is their existence as a level of government. At present, two important limitations stand out: The first, and undoubtedly the most significant, is that they lack sufficient funding sources to prepare their own budget instead of requesting it from the Mexico City Congress. The second concerns responsibilities associated with the provision of services, an area still to be fully defined.
Therefore, it can be stated that the current decentralization process in Mexico City, which is the opposite of what can be observed in the rest of the country, has not yet produced a true local government with full powers in the political, fiscal, and administrative spheres. As boroughs, the former delegations have come closer to such status, but they still lack powers comparable to those granted to Mexican municipalities. This is yet another chapter in the endless history of decentralization in Mexico.
The 2018 elections created a new political map. Andrés Manuel López Obrador was the overwhelming winner of the Presidency of the Republic. His party also won majority status in both the lower and higher chambers. Mexico City's political structure followed the same trend. The decentralizing vocation of the current government, as well as Morena's, the new hegemonic party in the capital and throughout the country, will be put to the test in the following months.