This dissertation asks the question: How do democracies improve in quality?
Building on previous scholarship, the author offers a theoretical framework that traces
democratic quality through equality of outcomes. The quality of democracy may be
conceptualized as a virtuous cycle where the procedural aspects of democracy
motivate politicians to expand equality. This broadening of substantive opportunities
outcomes, in turn, deepens democracy by developing individual-level political
participation. The theoretical framework is applied to the context of public services
with the expectation that quality democracies with high government capacity more
broadly distribute basic public services and that this pattern of provision cultivates
political participation.
The first empirical analysis tests if the quality of democracy and government
capacity are associated with reduced service inequalities for a sample of 75 countries.
It is found that while equalities of education and sanitation services are significantly
related to democratic quality, healthcare is not, nor is government capacity shown to play a significant role. To further explore this, the Mexican states are analyzed for the
years 2000 to 2004; the results show that capacity in terms of tax collection efforts is
associated with lower inequalities in education services in states with high electoral
competition.
The second empirical analysis turns to the local level of government - where
services are delivered. Using original data from interviews and government records of
four Mexican municipalities, the author examines the aspects of democracy and
government capacity that are correlated with lower inequalities of public services. The
findings highlight that intense electoral competition and institutionalized channels of
citizen input as well as capacity in terms of sound collection of municipal taxes and
innovations in municipal funding are characteristics of governments with broader
distribution of basic public services.
The third empirical analysis tests if public services are related to individual-level
political participation. Employing survey data from Latin America and Africa, the author
finds that “good” public service evaluations are associated with greater likelihoods of
voting in high quality democracies - those with intense electoral competition - but
limited government capacity. This offers evidence that in a developing context, public
services enable political participation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2010-08-8337 |
| Date | 2010 August 1900 |
| Creators | Ross, Ashley Dyan |
| Contributors | Escobar-Lemmon, Maria C. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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