Political competition is widely recognized as a mediator of public
goods provision through its salutary effect on incumbents’ electoral
incentives. We argue that political competition
additionally mediates public goods provision by
reducing the efficiency of legislative bargaining. These
countervailing forces may produce a net negative effect in places
with weak parties and low transparency—typical of many young
democracies. We provide evidence of a robust negative relationship
between political competition and local public goods using panel
data from Mali. Tests of mechanisms corroborate our interpretation
of this relationship as evidence of legislative bargaining
inefficiencies. To explore the generalizability of these findings,
we analyze cross-country panel data and show that political
competition leads to better (worse) public goods provision under
high (low) levels of party system institutionalization. The paper
sheds light on why political competition is only selectively
beneficial, and underscores the importance of considering both the
electoral and legislative arenas.
Ancestral kinship patterns substantially reduce the negative effect of increasing group size on incentives for public goods provision
