ABSTRACT
This chapter describes patterns of fragmentation in the Peruvian public sector before 1968. The remaining sections trace the evolution of regional development organizations in a changing political, economic, and administrative context. Since 1949 each successive presidential administration has sought to fill the organizational gap between the national and provincial/local levels by establishing multisectorial public entities with major developmental responsibilities at the departmental or regional levels. Departmental development corporations, a second and increasingly important type of regional development organization established during the 1956-1968 period, accelerated the trend toward political delegation. Since 1968, however, changes in the scale and spatial organization of the public sector, the political incentives for decentralization, and economic conditions have provided a less-hospitable context for governmental decentralization. The Velasco administration did not promote an alternative system of regional development organizations because it viewed sectorialization as critical to rapid completion of the structural reforms and a new strategy of public investment in selected growth poles.
