The Social Bureaucrat: How Local Ethnic Geography Affects Bureaucratic Efficiency

• In Event: Local Politicians and Public Goods Provision

Abstract

  Recent research on service delivery in developing countries has focused on the role of electoral mobilization and accountability. Departing from these accounts, I advance a theory centered on bureaucratic efficiency and bureaucrats' local informal connections. I argue that bureaucratic efficiency increases with the social integration of bureaucrats. Two local-level factors in particular affect bureaucrats’ integration: ethnic and sectarian cleavages and the network structure of the community. I examine the roots of bureaucratic efficiency in a Muslim setting characterized by salient ethnic and sectarian divisions, with a focus on the health, education, and e-government sectors in Turkey. My theory draws on qualitative data from roughly 200 interviews. I test my hypotheses using quasi-experimental designs and novel data that include a number of indicators from over 30,000 villages, 80,000 schools, and 970 districts in Turkey, geospatial indicators constructed using spatial analysis tools, and antenna-level mobile call detail records (CDR).

Author

• Tugba Bozcaga, MIT