Pitfalls of power to the people: Decentralization,local government performance,and system support in Bolivia |
| |
Authors: | Jonathan T Hiskey Mitchell A Seligson |
| |
Abstract: | Across the developing world, many governments have implemented political reforms—heavily promoted by international donors—designed
to transfer greater power to subnational levels of government and to provide a more substantial policymaking and oversight
role to citizens. Although economic analyses have frequently argued that such decentralization programs improve the efficiency
of public expenditures, far less is known about their political impact. Based on an analysis of two large national public-opinion
surveys from Bolivia, a country that has recently implemented one of the most comprehensive decentralization reforms yet attempted
in Latin America, we analyze the role decentralized local institutions are playing in shaping citizen attitudes toward their
political system. Our findings support the contention that decentralization can bolster citizen levels of system support at
the national level. Equally important, however, we also demonstrate that the renewed emphasis on local government can have
the opposite effect of producingmore negative views of the political system when the performance of local institutions falters.
Jonathan T. Hiskey is assistant professor of political science at the Univeristy of California, Riverside. His most recent
research focuses on subnational processes of political and economic development taking place across Latin America.
Mitchell A. Seligson is Daniel H. Wallace Professor of Political Science, research professor of international studies, and
professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. His research centers
on surveys of democratic values and behaviors in Latin America. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|