Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Electoral Competition and the Provision of Rural Public Goods in Sub-Saharan Africa

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This research investigates the claim that democracy increases the provision of rural public goods in sub-Saharan Africa. This assertion follows the theoretical argument that competitive elections in Africa create incentives for politicians to target resources towards the rural majority in order to win votes. The claim that public goods distribution is responsive to electoral incentives contrasts with the prevailing wisdom in the literature, that democracy is irrelevant in Africa. Rather than being solely determined by corruption, or clientelism, or ethnic voting, this dissertation project asserts that elections do matter, in that they make politicians responsive to the preferences of voters. Building on evidence from cross-national statistical analyses, the investigator proposes to carry out a program of quantitative and qualitative research within a single country (Ghana). The primary objectives of this research are: (1) to construct an original spatial dataset combining election results and indicators of public goods such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure; and (2) to collect a body of rich, contextually-based qualitative evidence regarding the allocation and distribution of these public goods. This necessitates the collection and collation of data from various offices of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, as well as the Ministry of Finance and the Department of Feeder Roads. Qualitative evidence will be garnered from archival work and interviews with political elites throughout Ghana. The evidence resulting from this research will enable evaluation of the predicted relationship between elections and public goods, and examination of the suggested causal pathways underlying this relationship. The proposed research will make a crucial contribution to our understanding of how democracy affects the provision of public goods. Existing literature on this topic suggests a positive effect, but is inconclusive. By offering a novel theoretical argument for why democracy affects public goods provision, the proposed research makes a claim about when and how the effect of democracy should be felt. This paves the way for a more precise and robust evaluation of the effect of democracy on public goods than has previously been undertaken. The complementary aspects of the proposed mixed-methods research have been designed so as to make possible a full investigation of both the predictions and internal workings of the theoretical argument. As well as advancing the understanding of the effect of democracy, the project will broaden the focus of inquiry by recognizing the interests of rural as distinct from urban citizens. In so doing, it will bring into analytical focus an often overlooked and underrepresented group. Moreover, by focusing on urban-rural differences in political preferences and public goods provision, the research directly addresses a crucial issue affecting social relations across the world today: urbanization. The growth of urban populations is rapidly changing the nature of global demography; this research will generate knowledge of how urban-rural cleavages affect politics, which is critical for understanding the effects of urbanization. Rapid urbanization is also affecting the nature of poverty, as it becomes an increasingly urban phenomenon. By focusing on the urban-rural dimension of politics in Africa, the project will make a vital contribution to contemporary debates about development and poverty reduction.