Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Sciences: Enforcement Politics and Social Policy in Urban Latin America

为什么政府容忍违法行为，他们什么时候执行法律？传统观点认为，执法不力反映了一个软弱的国家由于预算和能力限制而无法执行其法律。但是，强制执行也有分配和政治后果。特别是在穷人违反财产法的情况下，容忍违法行为可以分配大量资源并赢得选票。然而，执法决定很少被纳入对社会政策或选举政治的分析。相比之下，本项目考察了选举激励如何影响行政执法决策。该项目开发了有关违法行为和执法行动的原始数据，以测试地方选举的结构和竞争力如何影响三个拉丁美洲城市的执法。它的重点是执法打击两种违法行为，即土地入侵和无照街头贩卖，因为它们对城市穷人的生活造成了影响。通过研究执法在空间、时间和部门之间的差异，本文表明，选区和社会计划的设计有助于解释为什么一些政府容忍对穷人的侵犯，而另一些政府则不容忍。该项目涉及收集两个互补的数据：1)关于执法态度和社会政策的个人层面数据，用于测试所观察到的城市执法模式背后的机制；2)哥伦比亚境内针对街头贩卖和土地入侵的执法情况的次国家层面数据，以检验所开发的理论是否准确地预测了理论所基于的案例之外的执法情况的地理和时间分布。该项目的知识价值在于它能够促进对中低收入国家另一种重要的分配形式的理解。拉丁美洲被认为是世界上最不平等的地区，但该地区政府的支出效率却不如发达的民主国家。本文提出对财产法违法行为的容忍可以作为再分配的一种替代形式和政治家赢得穷人选票的一种方式。理解执法的政治是至关重要的，因为它有助于解释为什么某些法律没有得到执行，以及为什么政府援助穷人的正式项目滞后。该项目还通过收集和传播有关阶层对执法和社会政策态度的新颖调查和实验数据，做出了实证贡献。更广泛的影响来自对法治薄弱的理解。政策制定者经常寻求改进法律法规的执行。热带地区的森林砍伐、危险棚户的激增和手工汞采矿只是国内和国际行动者希望改善监管实施的几个例子。在解释执行的差异时，这项研究提供了对鼓励地方政治家应用州规范的条件的洞察，即使这些规范与分配要求相冲突。明确执法的障碍可以为政策制定者提供工具和信息，以制定更有效的社会方案，取代非正式的转移支付，并考虑行政重组，以协调执法激励措施。

Why do governments tolerate the violation of the law and when do they enforce the law? The conventional wisdom is that weak enforcement reflects a weak state unable to implement its laws due to budget and capacity constraints. But, enforcement also has distributive and political consequences. Particularly in cases where the poor violate property laws, tolerance of legal violations can distribute substantial resources and win votes. Yet rarely are enforcement decisions incorporated into analyses of social policy or electoral politics. In contrast, this project examines how electoral incentives shape administrative law enforcement decisions. This project develops original data on legal violations and enforcement operations to test how the structure and competitiveness of local elections impacts law enforcement in three Latin American cities. It focuses on enforcement against a pair of legal violations, land invasions and unlicensed street vending, due to their consequences for the lives of the urban poor. By examining how enforcement varies across space, time, and sector, this dissertation shows that the design of electoral districts and social programs helps explain why some governments tolerate violations of the poor and others do not. The project involves the collection of two complementary pieces of data: 1) individual-level data on attitudes toward enforcement and social policy, to test the mechanisms behind the observed urban enforcement patterns, and 2) subnational data on enforcement against street vending and land invasions within Colombia, to see whether the theory developed accurately predicts the geographic and temporal distribution of enforcement outside of the cases on which the theory was developed.The intellectual merit of the project lies in its ability to advance understanding of an alternative and consequential form of distribution in low and middle-income countries. Latin America is considered the most unequal region in the world, yet the region's governments spend less effectively than advanced democracies. This dissertation proposes that tolerance of property law violations can act as a substitute form of redistribution and a way for politicians to win the poor's vote. Understanding the politics of law enforcement is critical because it helps to explain both why certain laws go unenforced and why formal government programs to aid the poor lag. This project also makes an empirical contribution through the collection and dissemination of novel survey and experimental data on class attitudes toward enforcement and social policy. The broader impact comes in understanding the weak rule of law. Policymakers often seek to improve the implementation of legal regulations. The deforestation of the tropics, the proliferation of precarious shantytowns, and artisanal mining with mercury are just a few examples where domestic and international actors hope to improve regulatory implementation. In explaining variation in enforcement, this research provides insight into the conditions that encourage subnational politicians to apply state norms, even when they conflict with distributive claims. Pinpointing the obstacles to enforcement may provide policymakers the tools and information to craft more effective social programs that substitute for informal transfers and to consider administrative reorganizations that align enforcement incentives.