Clients or Constituents?

2019 ◽  
pp. 95-133
Author(s):  
Jennifer Bussell
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Distributive Politics ◽  
Constituency Service ◽  
Empirical Implications

Chapter 4 offers a theoretical explanation for why we should expect to see constituency service in patronage democracies, despite existing expectations to the contrary. It discusses in greater detail the book’s argument for why constituency service constitutes a key element of distributive politics, alongside forms of locally brokered clientelism and contingent allocation of group-oriented goods. The chapter elaborates the sources of demand for, and supply of, constituency service in a patronage democracy. It then considers the limitations of more widely studied forms of distributive politics and outlines the ways in which constituency service offers a compelling alternative to politicians for pursuing their desired electoral ends. This discussion suggests a number of empirical implications, laid out in detail at the end of the chapter, which guide the analyses in subsequent chapters.

Clients and Constituents

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Bussell
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Distributive Politics ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Access To Services ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Partisan Bias ◽  
Constituency Service ◽  
High Level

This book provides a theoretical and empirical examination of constituency service in developing countries. The predominant view of distributive politics in “patronage democracies” emphasizes the partisan targeting of pork and clientelism. In contrast, this book demonstrates that high-level legislators in India and other contexts often provide direct, nonpartisan assistance to individual constituents. Under what conditions do they provide constituency service, rather than engage in partisan bias? The book shows that the uneven character of access to services at the local level—often because of biased allocation on the part of local intermediaries—generates demand for help from higher-level officials, and also creates incentives for those politicians to bypass intermediaries by providing direct assistance. It draws on elite and citizen surveys, interviews, qualitative shadowing, and experiments to explore the dynamics of both the demand for constituency service and its supply. The book’s findings highlight the potential for an underappreciated form of democratic accountability, one that is however rooted in the character of patronage-based politics.

Constituency Service in Comparative Perspective

2019 ◽  
pp. 295-314
Author(s):  
Jennifer Bussell
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Politics ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Public Benefits ◽  
Common Trend ◽  
The World ◽  
Contextual Characteristics ◽  
Constituency Service ◽  
High Level ◽  
Local Levels

Chapter 11 considers the extent to which we should expect to observe similar dynamics of distributive politics in other parts of the world. It draws on a range of cross-national data to show that the contextual characteristics supporting constituency service—the dynamics of patronage democracy, difficulty in access to public benefits, and partisan allocation of benefits at local levels, accompanied by the presence of high-level representatives with little ability to monitor individual electoral behavior—coexist across a range of democracies around the world. It offers evidence to suggest that high-level politicians in countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America also engage in individual-level distribution to build a personal vote, rather than support for their party, and that highly partisan distribution by local operatives may ironically heighten their incentives to assist constituents in a nonpartisan manner. Thus, India is an exemplar of a common trend, rather than a global outlier.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-37
Author(s):  
Jennifer Bussell
Keyword(s):  
Data Sources ◽  
Distributive Politics ◽  
Partisan Bias ◽  
Constituency Service ◽  
High Level

The introduction to the book presents an overview of the puzzle constituency service presents to our understanding of distributive politics in patronage democracies. It then offers an overview of the book’s argument for why citizens demand assistance from their high-level representatives—individuals with substantially large constituencies such that they cannot know most of their voters personally—and why these politicians respond to such requests in a largely nonpartisan and noncontingent manner. The chapter places this constituency service conceptually within nonprogrammatic politics, alongside more well-studied forms of allocation: clientelism and partisan bias. It then offers an outline of the book’s contents and contributions, including a summary of the data sources used throughout the text.

Access to Services in a Patronage Democracy

2019 ◽  
pp. 134-167
Author(s):  
Jennifer Bussell
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Distributive Politics ◽  
National State ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Constituency Service ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Local Levels

This chapter presents a discussion of service provision in India, to set the context for an analysis of distributive politics and, in particular, constituency service, in a patronage democracy. It lays out the features of India’s political economy that continue to lead us to describe it as a patronage democracy. It then outlines the characteristics of India’s primary political, bureaucratic, and social institutions, considering the formal roles and responsibilities of key actors at all levels of government with regard to distributive politics and their informal powers over distribution, at the national, state, and local levels. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the potential for constituency service in India from the perspective of prevailing theories, considering in particular the character of political institutions, the nature of electoral and party politics, and the dynamics that may—or may not—encourage politicians to build personal reputations for responsiveness.

The Incumbency Curse: Weak Parties, Term Limits, and Unfulfilled Accountability

2017 ◽  
Vol 111 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARKO KLAŠNJA ◽  
ROCÍO TITIUNIK
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Additional Data ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Term Limits ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Incumbent Party ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Empirical Implications

We study how representation works in a context where accountability to voters is restricted because of term limits and accountability to parties is limited because of party weakness. Analyzing all Brazilian mayoral elections between 1996 and 2012 using a regression discontinuity design, we show that becoming the incumbent party results in large subsequent electoral losses. We theorize that the presence of term limits, combined with political parties to which politicians are only weakly attached, affects the incentives and behavior of individual politicians in such a way that their parties’ suffer systematic losses. A descriptive analysis of an original dataset on the career paths of Brazilian mayors suggests that our assumptions are an accurate description of Brazil’s political context, and we find support for three central empirical implications of our theoretical explanation. Moreover, based on an analysis of additional data from Mexico, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, and Colombia, we show that the negative effects found in Brazil also exist in other democracies.

Sequential Difficulty Effects During Strategy Execution

2012 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 295-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Uittenhove ◽  
Patrick Lemaire
Keyword(s):  
Computational Models ◽  
Preceding Trial ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Strategy Execution ◽  
Strategy Performance ◽  
Empirical Implications

In two experiments, we tested the hypothesis that strategy performance on a given trial is influenced by the difficulty of the strategy executed on the immediately preceding trial, an effect that we call strategy sequential difficulty effect. Participants’ task was to provide approximate sums to two-digit addition problems by using cued rounding strategies. Results showed that performance was poorer after a difficult strategy than after an easy strategy. Our results have important theoretical and empirical implications for computational models of strategy choices and for furthering our understanding of strategic variations in arithmetic as well as in human cognition in general.

Increasing Cases of Prison Break in Nigeria: A Theoretical Explanation

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. p9413
Author(s):  
Onah Oliver Onyekaneze ◽  
Adenyi Okechukwu Theophilus ◽  
Eneh Maximus Ikenna
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Explanation

Polarization in the U.S. Congress 1952-2008: A Theoretical Explanation

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Elaine Macdonald ◽  
Nicholas Pyeatt ◽  
George Rabinowitz
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
The U.S
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