Democracy’s Rural Dividend
This chapter evaluates the second and third hypotheses identified in Chapter 2, that the distribution of benefits resulting from the introduction of democratic electoral competition should be targeted primarily towards rural areas, and that the extent of any such urban–rural differences should be conditional on levels of urbanization. This is done using quantitative cross-national analysis of data from the Demographic and Health Survey Series. These household surveys provide incredibly detailed individual-level data on a range of essential education and health outcomes, across thirty African countries. This enables investigation of the extent to which these outcomes are affected by the introduction of electoral competition, and importantly, how these effects vary across urban and rural areas. Robust estimates demonstrate that democratic elections significantly increase access to primary education and reduce infant mortality rates, but only for children in rural areas. Moreover, these effects are conditional on the level of urbanization. The analysis provides no support for a series of alternative explanations, thereby strengthening confidence in the validity of the theoretical argument.