DDRIG: Electorial Support and Resource Allocation

DDRIG：选举支持和资源分配

• 批准号: 0819446
• 负责人: Robert Bates
• 金额: $ 1.17万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-08-15 至 2009-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0819446&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DDRIG; Electorial; Support; Resource; Allocation

Much research has established that economic development in Africa is a political problem: governments choose policies that benefit a few constituents rather than many. While research shows how national politics affect economic development, systematic research exploring how local politics affects economic development remains scanty. This study fills that gap by examining "development politics" in Kenya: how the linkage between voters and local politicians leads to more (or less) effective local economic development strategies. This project accesses the local political landscape by focusing on parliamentary constituencies in Kenya. Over the past 15 years, the Kenyan central government has ceded resources and decision-making authority to lower levels of government. This process of "decentralization" has endowed members of parliament (MPs) with development funding to spend within their constituencies. While the funds appeared to be a boon for incumbent MPs, the 2007 elections proved that perception inaccurate. Many MPs with productive and transparent records of fund usage lost their seats, while others with less savory records won handily. By focusing on how MPs allocate development funds, and how constituents punish or reward their MP at the polls, the project traces how local political incentives may lead to poor development choices. To address these questions, this research traces both who benefits from the allocation of funds, as well as the quality of the projects implemented. This second focus-project quality-features centrally in the research. Politicians face many incentives to implement inefficient or poor-quality projects. For instance, such "white elephant" projects may create employment to constituents or revenue for local contractors, while doing little to improve public welfare in general. The research develops a flexible, low-cost approach to measuring project quality. By eliciting the opinions of construction and engineering experts, the method produces reliable estimates of the distribution of likely project costs, which are then compared with actual project costs. Using such data, the research will reveal the political conditions that make poor-quality projects a good political strategy. Both policy-makers and civil society organizations will benefit from the study of development politics. For policy makers, this research will indicate the kinds of political and administrative reforms may improve public welfare. In addition, the new method of project evaluation will drastically reduce the costs of monitoring the performance of elected officials. The new method of project evaluation developed for this research will benefit communities and civil society organizations by enabling them to effectively judge whether or not elected officials are delivering high or low quality development. With better information on politician performance, communities can judge more accurately which incumbents should (or should not) be returned to elected office.

许多研究已经证实，非洲的经济发展是一个政治问题：政府选择有利于少数选民而不是多数选民的政策。虽然有研究表明国家政治如何影响经济发展，但探索地方政治如何影响经济发展的系统研究仍然很少。这项研究通过考察肯尼亚的“发展政治”来填补这一空白：选民和地方政客之间的联系如何导致（或多或少）有效的地方经济发展战略。该项目通过关注肯尼亚的议会选区来接触当地的政治景观。在过去的15年里，肯尼亚中央政府把资源和决策权让给了下级政府。这种“权力下放”的过程赋予了国会议员在其选区内使用发展资金的权利。虽然这些资金似乎对现任议员有利，但2007年的选举证明，这种看法是不准确的。许多在资金使用方面记录富有成效和透明的议员失去了席位，而其他记录不那么令人满意的议员则轻松获胜。通过关注国会议员如何分配发展资金，以及选民如何在投票中惩罚或奖励他们的议员，该项目追踪了地方政治激励如何导致糟糕的发展选择。为了解决这些问题，本研究追踪了谁从资金分配中受益，以及所执行项目的质量。第二个重点——项目质量——是本研究的核心。政客们面临着实施低效率或低质量项目的诸多动机。例如，这些“白象”项目可能会为选民创造就业机会，或为当地承包商创造收入，但对改善公共福利总体上收效甚微。该研究开发了一种灵活、低成本的方法来衡量项目质量。通过征求建筑和工程专家的意见，该方法产生了可能的项目成本分布的可靠估计，然后将其与实际项目成本进行比较。利用这些数据，该研究将揭示使低质量项目成为良好政治策略的政治条件。政策制定者和民间社会组织都将从发展政治的研究中受益。对于政策制定者来说，这项研究将表明政治和行政改革的种类可能会改善公共福利。此外，新的项目评价方法将大大减少监测当选官员业绩的费用。为本研究开发的项目评估新方法将使社区和民间社会组织受益，使它们能够有效地判断民选官员的发展质量是高还是低。有了更好的关于政治家表现的信息，社区可以更准确地判断哪些现任者应该（或不应该）重新当选。