The word "consolidation" makes a difference. Each of the colonies had its own government and bureaucracy, consolidated under British rule. We of course didn't like the policies of the British Parliament, both temporal and ecclesiastical. When we formed our own national government we first tried to minimize consolidation, via the Articles of Confederation, and then when that proved unwieldy we formed the current national government, which started the consolidation.
I know less about the European democracies. Did the French revolution, and return of democracy after Napolean, keep the existing bureaucracies in place? What about after the German Revolution of 1918–1919? I'm pretty sure that they did not devolve power but instead transferred control from the aristocratic regime to the democratic one.
(Post WW2 separation and latter reunification of Germany might be a counter-example. Iceland had local control, then control by the Norway and by Denmark, so might be another counter-example. Perhaps Belgium as well.)
I know less about the European democracies. Did the French revolution, and return of democracy after Napolean, keep the existing bureaucracies in place? What about after the German Revolution of 1918–1919? I'm pretty sure that they did not devolve power but instead transferred control from the aristocratic regime to the democratic one.
(Post WW2 separation and latter reunification of Germany might be a counter-example. Iceland had local control, then control by the Norway and by Denmark, so might be another counter-example. Perhaps Belgium as well.)