Decentralization reform has both advantages and risks. Bringing service delivery ‘closer to the people’ can improve information flows and strengthen accountability, but it may also leave systems vulnerable to elite capture and corruption by municipal government officials. While past research has acknowledged the possibility of corruption under decentralization, relatively little work has connected those risks to features of these reforms or specific local institutional arrangements. To explore the conditions that can help mitigate the risks of corruption under decentralization, we study the case of health sector reform in Honduras where municipal governments, associations, and NGOs each serve as intermediary managing organizations under a common decentralized health service delivery model. We argue that three types of institutional arrangements reflecting local accountability practices serve as checks on the authority granted through decentralization and can help guard against corruption: external supervision, civil society engagement, and public participation. Empirically, we draw on data from more than 600 street-level bureaucrats, valuable but under-utilized informants about municipal corruption, across a matched sample of 65 municipalities with contrasting forms of administration. We find that reported corruption is highest under decentralization led by municipal governments, as compared to association- or NGO-led varieties. Both external supervision and civil society engagement help attenuate the positive association between decentralization and corruption, but public participation does not. Overall, this research highlights the importance of considering reform features and local conditions when designing policies to help manage risks and support effective social sector decentralization.

中文翻译：

---

公共服务提供中的权力下放和腐败：有助于降低治理风险的地方制度安排

权力下放改革既有优势，也有风险。让服务提供“更贴近人民”可以改善信息流动并加强问责制，但也可能使系统容易受到精英捕获和市政府官员腐败的影响。虽然过去的研究承认权力下放下可能存在腐败，但相对较少的工作将这些风险与这些改革的特征或具体的地方制度安排联系起来。为了探索有助于减轻权力下放腐败风险的条件，我们研究了洪都拉斯卫生部门改革的案例，其中市政府、协会和非政府组织各自充当共同的权力下放医疗服务提供模式下的中介管理组织。我们认为，反映地方问责实践的三种制度安排可以作为对通过分权授予的权力的制衡，并有助于防止腐败：外部监督、公民社会参与和公众参与。根据经验，我们利用了 600 多名街头官僚的数据，这些官员是有关市政腐败的宝贵但未得到充分利用的线人，这些数据来自 65 个行政形式截然不同的城市的匹配样本。我们发现，与协会或非政府组织主导的腐败相比，市政府主导的权力下放中腐败现象最高。外部监督和民间社会参与都有助于削弱权力下放与腐败之间的正相关关系，但公众参与则不然。全面的，