In a systemic and structural analysis of centralization and de-centralization, these phenomena appear as different means of regulating social systems. The types of controls which the Centre maintains or concedes identify centralization and de-centralization. Seven types of stakes can be involved in the struggle over controls: objectives, positions occupied by actors, the organization and internal functioning of these posts, personalities, goods, information and the controls themselves. The first two stakes are more important than the others. In the “game” of centralization and de-centralization, one structural law of politics seems at least in part to determine the behaviour of the protagonists. Whether an actor is in a superior, equal, or inferior position in a structure characterized by control relations, the actor will seek to establish a “political” environment which maintains or augments his or her position. The debates regarding The Decentralization of Local Centres of Community Services in Quebec (C.L.S.C.) illustrate these theoretical propositions. Events unfolded as if there were a logical order between the stakes of controls, and as if in the struggle for controls the actors sought to establish power structures which would maintain or augment their original position.