ABSTRACT
According to Thane Gustafson (1999), a new way of sharing responsibilities between the centre and the regions evolved during the 1990s. Regional government became responsible for health, welfare, basic education, housing, transportation and public utilities, and shares of revenues were assigned accordingly. In theory the regional government receives a corresponding share of tax revenue to cover the expenses. The problem, as Gustafson remarks, is that the responsibilities are continuously subject to renegotiation, whereby ‘the centre tries to recapture revenues’ (p. 207) and reassign expenditure to the regional level. And a report from the World Bank concludes: ‘The system is not a system, but a collection of ad hoc, negotiated, nontransparent agreements whose effects are not well understood’ (Bahl and Wallich 1995: 337). The debate on privatisation of state responsibilities has even brought in a new source of financing: the single citizen. Although the sharing of responsibilities is confusing we know even less about the elite’s attitudes regarding which level of government should bear the burden for financing which public services.
