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== History ==
[[File:Alexis de Tocqueville.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Alexis de Tocqueville]]]]
The word "''centralisation''" came into use in France in 1794 as the post-[[French Revolution|Revolution]] [[French Directory]] leadership created a new government structure. The word "''décentralisation''" came into usage in the 1820s.<ref>Vivien A. Schmidt, ''Democratizing France: The Political and Administrative History of Decentralization'', [[Cambridge University Press]], 2007, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZsltI4XKXTUC&pg=PA22 p. 22] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160505110712/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZsltI4XKXTUC&pg=PA22 |date=2016-05-05 }}, {{ISBN|978-0521036054}}</ref> "Centralization" entered written English in the first third of the 1800s;<ref>[[Barbara Levick]], ''Claudius'', Psychology Press, 2012, [https://books.google.com/books?id=rTDNNO4_IMAC&pg=PA81 p. 81] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160602225624/https://books.google.com/books?id=rTDNNO4_IMAC&pg=PA81 |date=2016-06-02 }}, {{ISBN|978-0415166195}}</ref> mentions of decentralization also first appear during those years. In the mid-1800s [[Alexis de Tocqueville|Tocqueville]] would write that the French Revolution began with "a push towards decentralization ... [but became,] in the end, an extension of centralization."<ref name=Schmidtpage10>Vivien A. Schmidt, ''Democratizing France: The Political and Administrative History of Decentralization'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZsltI4XKXTUC&pg=PA10 p. 10] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160520135541/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZsltI4XKXTUC&pg=PA10 |date=2016-05-20 }}.</ref> In 1863, retired French bureaucrat [[Maurice Block]] wrote an article called "Decentralization" for a French journal that reviewed the dynamics of government and bureaucratic centralization and recent French efforts at decentralization of government functions.<ref>Robert Leroux, ''French Liberalism in the 19th Century: An Anthology'', Chapter 6: Maurice Block on "Decentralization", Routledge, 2012, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Hhf1iGshBKEC&dq=19th+century+decentralization&pg=PA255 p. 255] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160529132740/https://books.google.com/books?id=Hhf1iGshBKEC&pg=PA255 |date=2016-05-29 }}, {{ISBN|978-1136313011}}</ref>
Ideas of liberty and decentralization were carried to their logical conclusions during the 19th and 20th centuries by anti-state political activists calling themselves "[[Anarchism|anarchists]]", "[[Libertarianism|libertarians]]", and even decentralists. [[Tocqueville]] was an advocate, writing: "Decentralization has, not only an administrative value but also a civic dimension since it increases the opportunities for citizens to take interest in public affairs; it makes them get accustomed to using freedom. And from the accumulation of these local, active, persnickety freedoms, is born the most efficient counterweight against the claims of the central government, even if it were supported by an impersonal, collective will."<ref name=EarthInstitute>[http://www.ciesin.org/decentralization/English/General/history_fao.html A History of Decentralization] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511000503/http://www.ciesin.org/decentralization/English/General/history_fao.html |date=2013-05-11 }}, [[Earth Institute]] of [[Columbia University]] website, ''accessed February 4, 2013''.</ref> [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]] (1809–1865), influential anarchist theorist<ref>{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia Americana |editor=George Edward Rines |year=1918 |publisher=Encyclopedia Americana Corp. |location=New York |oclc=7308909 |page=624 |title-link=Encyclopedia Americana }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Hamilton |first=Peter |title=Émile Durkheim |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |year=1995 |isbn = 978-0415110471 |page=79}}</ref> wrote: "All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization."<ref>"Du principe Fédératif" ("Principle of Federation"), 1863.</ref>
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