Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Social Networks and Public Goods: How the Type of Network Affects the Pattern of Government Expenditures

主要调查人员：David A.Leblang和Jessica C.Teets标题：博士论文研究：社会网络和公共产品：网络类型如何影响政府支出模式这项研究侧重于非民主国家社会团体表达利益和监督地方官员的非正式方式。与民主政体不同，独裁政体缺乏公民参与政策过程的正式体制机制。然而，这并不意味着，正如一些理论家所假设的那样，这些公民缺乏兴趣或表达的途径。通过商业协会、环保非政府组织、俱乐部和民族语言或世系团体等社会团体，公民非正式地表达对地方官员的偏好。社会团体嵌入和包围社区成员，包括地方官员，并为适当的行为设定标准。这些社会团体允许接触地方官员，并提供监督和执行社区偏好的社会机制。虽然研究人员认为，在某些情况下，这些非正式的社会团体可以替代正式的利益表达渠道，但这些社会机构并不一定比正式的机构更可取。事实上，这项研究试图展示不同类型的社会群体如何影响不同的政策结果(即不同类型的支出决定)，从一个群体夺取国家资源到向整个社区提供高水平的公共产品。为了展示社会群体的特征如何影响政策结果，研究人员使用混合方法测试了一种类型学，该方法包括对40个国家25年来公共支出的时间序列统计分析，以及一项自然实验。构建一个自然实验，使用当地政府的统计数据和对中国领导的云南省三个不同地区的采访，使研究人员能够保持正式的制度变量不变，并改变每个案例中普遍存在的社会群体类型，以显示每个变量的影响和权重。这项研究的更广泛影响是，它为学者提供了一个经验和理论起点，让他们了解社会网络如何在非民主国家运作，以取代对良好治理至关重要的公民表达和问责的正式机制。

Primary Investigators: David A. Leblang and Jessica C. TeetsTitle: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Social Networks and Public Goods: How the Type of Network Affects the Pattern of Government Expenditures0720405AbstractThis research focuses on the informal ways in which social groups articulate interests and monitor local officials in non-democracies. Unlike democracies, autocracies lack formal institutional mechanisms for citizen participation in the policy process. However, this does not mean, as some theorists have assumed, that these citizens lack interests or avenues of articulation. Through social groups such as business associations, environmental protection NGOs, clubs, and ethno-linguistic or lineage groups, citizens informally articulate preferences to local officials. Social groups embed and encircle members of a community, including local officials, and serve to set standards of appropriate behavior. These social groups allow access to local officials, as well as make available social mechanisms of monitoring and enforcing community preferences. While the researcher argues that in some cases these informal social groups can serve as substitutes for formal channels of interest articulation, these social institutions are not necessarily preferable to formal institutions. In fact, this research seeks to show how different types of social groups influence varied policy outcomes (i.e., different types of spending decisions), ranging from the capture of state resources by one group to the provision of high levels of public goods to the whole community. To show how the characteristics of social groups influence policy outcomes, the researcher tests a typology using a mixed methods approach consisting of time-series statistical analysis of public spending in 40 countries over 25 years, and a natural experiment. Constructing a natural experiment, using local government statistics and interviews from three different prefectures in China's Yunnan province, allows the researcher to hold formal institutional variables constant and vary the type of social group prevalent in each case to show the effect and weighting of each variable. The broader impact of this research is that it creates an empirical and theoretical starting point for scholars to understand how social networks operate in non-democracies as a substitute for formal mechanisms of citizen expression and accountability, which are essential for good governance.