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

这项研究调查了这样一种说法，即民主增加了撒哈拉以南非洲农村公共产品的提供。这一论断遵循的是理论上的论点，即非洲竞争激烈的选举产生了激励，促使政客们将资源集中在农村多数人身上，以赢得选票。关于公共产品分配是对选举激励做出反应的说法，与文献中普遍存在的观点形成了鲜明对比，即民主在非洲无关紧要。这篇论文不是完全由腐败、裙带关系或种族投票决定的，而是断言选举确实很重要，因为它们让政治家对选民的偏好做出反应。根据跨国统计分析的证据，调查员建议在一个国家(加纳)内开展定量和定性研究方案。本研究的主要目标是：(1)构建一个原始的空间数据集，将选举结果与医疗保健、教育和基础设施等公共产品的指标相结合；(2)收集大量关于这些公共产品的分配和分配的丰富的、基于背景的定性证据。这就需要收集和整理加纳选举委员会各办事处以及财政部和支线公路局的数据。定性证据将从档案工作和对加纳各地政治精英的采访中获得。这项研究产生的证据将使人们能够评估选举和公共产品之间的预测关系，并检查这种关系所暗示的因果关系。拟议的研究将对我们理解民主如何影响公共产品的提供做出重要贡献。关于这一主题的现有文献表明，这是一种积极的影响，但尚不确定。通过为民主为什么影响公共产品提供提供一个新颖的理论论证，拟议中的研究提出了民主的影响应该在何时以及如何感受到的主张。这为比以往更准确和有力地评估民主对公共产品的影响铺平了道路。对拟议的混合方法研究的补充方面进行了设计，以便能够对理论论证的预测和内部运作进行充分调查。除了促进对民主影响的理解之外，该项目还将通过承认农村公民的利益有别于城市公民来扩大调查的重点。通过这样做，它将使一个经常被忽视和代表不足的群体成为分析焦点。此外，通过关注城乡在政治偏好和公共产品提供方面的差异，这项研究直接解决了当今影响世界各地社会关系的一个关键问题：城市化。城市人口的增长正在迅速改变全球人口结构的性质；这项研究将产生关于城乡鸿沟如何影响政治的知识，这对于理解城市化的影响至关重要。快速的城市化也影响着贫困的性质，因为它越来越成为一种城市现象。通过关注非洲政治的城乡层面，该项目将对当代关于发展和减贫的辩论作出重要贡献。

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.