Decentralization, Local Political Dynasties, and Governance Outcomes: A Literature Review of Causal Mechanisms, Institutional Moderators, and Local Democratic Performance

Abstrak

This article examines how decentralization shapes the emergence of local political dynasties and how dynastic dominance affects governance outcomes in subnational politics. Although decentralization is often expected to deepen accountability, participation, and service responsiveness, the literature shows that it can also create strategic opportunities for elite capture when local offices become politically and materially valuable. Using a structured literature review design, this study synthesizes 12 selected journal articles focusing mainly on Indonesia, with limited comparative evidence from India and broader developing-country contexts. The analysis identifies recurring mechanisms behind dynastic emergence, including weak party institutionalization, personalistic candidate recruitment, high campaign costs, patronage networks, incumbency advantage, and permissive legal arrangements. It also evaluates dynastic effects on governance outcomes, particularly service delivery, corruption risk, bureaucratic quality, accountability, and democratic competition. The review finds that dynastic politics is generally associated with weaker governance performance, higher corruption vulnerability, reduced bureaucratic neutrality, and narrower electoral competition. However, these effects are not uniform. Their severity depends on institutional moderators such as governance quality, oversight capacity, bureaucratic strength, monitoring systems, electoral competition, and regulatory constraints. The article concludes that local political dynasties should be understood not as merely familial phenomena, but as institutionally mediated outcomes of decentralized political and electoral systems.