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

这项研究调查的说法，民主增加了撒哈拉以南非洲地区的农村公共产品的提供。这一说法是根据一种理论论点提出的，即非洲的竞争性选举促使政治家将资源用于农村多数群体，以赢得选票。公共产品的分配取决于选举激励措施的说法与文献中普遍认为的民主在非洲无关的观点形成了鲜明对比。而不是仅仅由腐败，或裙带关系，或种族投票决定，本论文项目断言，选举确实很重要，因为它们使政治家对选民的偏好作出反应。根据跨国统计分析的证据，调查员建议在一个国家（加纳）内进行定量和定性研究。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、教育和基础设施等公共产品的指标相结合;（2）收集一系列丰富的、基于背景的关于这些公共产品的分配和分布的定性证据。这就需要收集和整理加纳选举委员会各办公室以及财政部和支线公路部的数据。将从档案工作和对加纳各地政治精英的访谈中收集定性证据。从这项研究中得到的证据将使选举和公共产品之间的预测关系的评估，并检查这种关系的因果关系的建议路径。拟议的研究将为我们理解民主如何影响公共产品的提供做出至关重要的贡献。关于这一主题的现有文献表明了积极的影响，但尚无定论。通过提供一个新的理论论据，为什么民主影响公共产品的提供，拟议的研究提出了一个主张，何时以及如何民主的效果应该感到。这为比以往更准确、更有力地评估民主对公共利益的影响铺平了道路。所提议的混合方法研究的互补方面的设计是为了能够对理论论证的预测和内部运作进行全面调查。除了促进对民主效果的理解外，该项目还将通过认识到农村居民与城市居民不同的利益来扩大调查的重点。这样做，它将把分析重点放在一个经常被忽视和代表性不足的群体上。此外，通过关注政治偏好和公共产品提供方面的城乡差异，该研究直接解决了影响当今世界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的性质;这项研究将产生城乡分裂如何影响政治的知识，这对于理解城市化的影响至关重要。快速城市化也影响到贫穷的性质，因为贫穷日益成为一种城市现象。该项目将重点关注非洲政治的城乡层面，将对当代关于发展和减贫的辩论作出重大贡献。

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.