The problem of relations between the central state authorities and local administration is an important issue in the formation of the modern state. Excessive centralization of the state has shown a number of negative characteristics and the bad long-term effects on society. Therefore, the historical perspective can be helpful to understand the current problems in the relationship between state and society. The period of the Sixth of January dictatorship was selected as a theme of this doctoral thesis, because it is one of the turning points in the history of Croatia. Former self-governing tradition, inherited from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was completely nullified in favor of radical centralization of power in the hands of the highest state leadership, same as state Unitarianism annulled federalist traditions and national identities. The research was conducted on the Sava banovina, because it is a relevant political, economic, social, demographic example of how the regime at the time of the dictatorship (1929-35) and the gradual democratization that followed (1935-39), through administrative units of all levels, pursued its policy. The objective of this dissertation is to determine how the administration was organized on a larger area of today's Croatia (1929-1939) and how she operated in the interrelation between the intentions of the ruling regime and the needs of the people, i.e. state centralism and the basic principles of self-government. Doctoral thesis on administration in the Sava Banovina is largely based on archival material. Archival heritage of the administrative bodies of the Sava Banovina largely remained intact, and the biggest part of it is located in the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb. Additionally, we used materials held by the Provincial Archives in Maribor and the Archives of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. In addition, we used periodicals, primarily relevant professional, official publications and newspapers that were published between in 1929 and 1939. Besides numerous historiographic literature, we used legal, politological and other relevant titles and other published sources. These sources are based on a variety of legislative, statistical, cartographic and other similar publications issued at the time of the existence of the Sava Banovina, as well as in subsequent periods. In approaching the subject we used the interdisciplinary analytical methods, because we needed to incorporate to incorporate into this historiographical work the knowledges of law, administrative law, political sciences, economics and other related disciplines. With descriptive and analytical approach to the material we studied the phenomenon of administrations of that era, from their normative determinations to the perception of 8 professional and nonprofessional, wider and narrower groups of individuals on them. Because of the complexity of issues in certain segments were used both qualitative and quantitative methods in order to put the findings into appropriate social and the time context.