Political Accountability and Public Service Provision in Africa

非洲的政治问责和公共服务提供

• 批准号: 0617151
• 负责人: Clark Gibson
• 金额: $ 28万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-08-01 至 2009-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0617151&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Political; Accountability; Public; Service; Provision

How do citizens hold their governments accountable? One way is though political institutions such as electoral and party systems. But in many countries, the level of public services provided to citizens ranges enormously at the sub national level. This means that even with identical electoral and party structures, some local governments do more for their citizens than others. Why do some of these governments fund more education, more health, and more infrastructure projects than others? Since much of economic development hinges on public services, understanding how citizens hold their governments accountable for their provision is central to the task of understanding economic development itself.This research explores the determinants of political accountability in sub Saharan Africa by examining the incentives of local-level politicians in over 750 districts in six African countries. Development policy over the past two decades has changed radically from a narrow concentration on economic issues to a broad concern with political institutions and accountability. But while practitioners may now believe the importance of accountability to development, we did not have a good understanding of the causes of that accountability.By using sub national level data, I tease out two important non-institutional types of factors that enhance or impede accountability. First, I explore the effects of social and structural factors -- such as wealth, social capital, and ethnicity -- that explain public service provision. For Africa especially, the effect of ethnicity on government performance has received an enormous amount of attention, but has not been tested systematically. Second, I examine how the fiscal links between citizens and their government helps determine accountability. In my previous work using sub national data from Tanzania and Zambia, I have found strong support for the idea that the source of government revenue affects political accountability: the more local taxes a district government collects from its own constituents, the more public services it provides; the more donor or central government money it collects, the fewer services it supplies. Where politicians get their money affects what they do.Africa is the poorest continent and currently the object of great attention for its plight. Understanding the causes of political accountability increases the possibility that willing African governments can design their policies so as to increase the public services they provide. For willing and unwilling African countries, this study increases the chances that donors can create aid packages that work better. Bilateral and multilateral donor organizations are creating new policies at this very moment to increase accountability as a condition on continued assistance.No one has compiled or used complete sets of sub national African data to explore the effects of government revenue, ethnicity, and aid on public service provision. Accurate tests to tease out what causes governments to provide crucial public services are also virtually unknown. My early research has already been discussed by officials at the US Agency for International Development, the UK's Department for International Development, and the World Bank. This project provides students and scholars of development policy with better theoretical approaches and valuable, previously unused data. It also supplies policymakers with tools for designing more effective development policies for the only geographical region in the world where poverty is still increasing.

公民如何让他们的政府承担责任？一种方法是通过选举和政党制度等政治制度。但在许多国家，向公民提供的公共服务水平在国家以下一级差别很大。这意味着，即使有相同的选举和政党结构，一些地方政府为公民做的事情也比其他地方政府多。为什么其中一些政府比其他政府投资更多的教育、更多的医疗保健和更多的基础设施项目？由于经济发展在很大程度上依赖于公共服务，因此了解公民如何让政府对其提供的公共服务负责是理解经济发展本身的核心任务。这项研究通过调查6个非洲国家750多个地区的地方政客的激励措施，探讨了撒哈拉以南非洲政治问责的决定因素。过去二十年来，发展政策从狭隘地关注经济问题，转变为对政治体制和问责制的广泛关注。但是，尽管实践者现在可能相信问责制对发展的重要性，但我们对这种问责制的原因并没有很好的理解。通过使用国家以下一级的数据，我梳理出了加强或阻碍问责制的两种重要的非体制因素。首先，我探讨了解释公共服务提供的社会和结构性因素--如财富、社会资本和种族--的影响。特别是在非洲，族裔对政府绩效的影响受到了极大的关注，但还没有得到系统的检验。其次，我考察了公民和政府之间的财政联系如何有助于确定责任。在我之前使用坦桑尼亚和赞比亚的地方政府数据进行的研究中，我发现政府收入来源影响政治问责的观点得到了强有力的支持：一个地区政府从自己的选民那里征收的地方税越多，它提供的公共服务就越多；它收取的捐赠者或中央政府的资金越多，它提供的服务就越少。政客们从哪里拿到钱会影响他们的行动。非洲是最贫穷的大陆，目前因其困境而备受关注。了解政治问责的原因增加了有意愿的非洲政府制定政策以增加其提供的公共服务的可能性。对于愿意和不愿意的非洲国家，这项研究增加了捐赠者创建更有效的一揽子援助计划的机会。双边和多边捐助组织此时此刻正在制定新的政策，以加强问责制，作为继续提供援助的条件。还没有人汇编或使用完整的非洲次国家数据来探索政府收入、族裔和援助对公共服务提供的影响。找出是什么导致政府提供关键公共服务的准确测试也几乎是未知的。我的早期研究已经被美国国际开发署、英国国际发展部和世界银行的官员讨论过。这个项目为发展政策的学生和学者提供了更好的理论方法和有价值的、以前没有使用过的数据。它还为政策制定者提供了工具，以便为世界上唯一贫困仍在增加的地理区域制定更有效的发展政策。