Perils of Centralization

Download or read book Perils of Centralization written by Ken Kollman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-23 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative and wide-ranging book, Ken Kollman examines the histories of the US government, the Catholic Church, General Motors, and the European Union as examples of federated systems that centralized power over time. He shows how their institutions became locked-in to intensive power in the executive. The problem with these and other federated systems is that they often cannot decentralize even if it makes sense. The analysis leads Kollman to suggest some surprising changes in institutional design for these four cases and for federated institutions everywhere.