Comparing the dynamics of centralisation/decentralisation in Belgium and South Africa has the advantage of revealing discrepancies between the public or official rationale for the (re) distribution of power and the probable or eventual effect of this (re)distribution on educational processes and learning outcomes. It can be seen that local empowerment which has been sometimes credited to decentralisation has tended to be rather spurious, for decentralisation instead appears actually to reinforce existing inequities. Using Foucault's notion of power as complexly relational by nature, the present study explores some of the assumptions underpinning the dynamics of centralisation/decentralisation and the way they are conceived in certain discursive practices. It does so by looking not only at the juridical and administrative distribution of power between the centre and the periphery in education systems, but also at matters of force and governmentality.