Experimental Work on Citizen Engagement & Participation in the Developing World

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Citizen-state relations are of central concern to political scientists, either through the direct participation of citizens in government or through state provision of services to citizens. When governments provide services to citizens, how do individuals perceive and react to such efforts? When governments open spaces for citizens to engage directly in decision-making, what effects does it have on both decision outcomes and on citizens themselves? These questions are of particular importance in the developing country context, where weak governance often strains such citizen-state relationships. While the use of experimental methods in international development work is increasingly common, there remains a paucity of experimental evidence about citizen engagement and participation. This panel comprises four papers which use experimental methods to gain a deeper understanding of citizen engagement and participation.

Each of the four papers on this panel use experimental methods to gain a deeper understanding of citizen engagement and participation, as both inputs and outputs of the political process. The first paper uses a controlled laboratory experiment conducted with Kenyan citizens in Nairobi to examine the effect of different decision-making processes (externally assigned, group vote, or deliberative consensus-based process) on willingness to invest in a related public good. The second paper examines a participatory budgeting initiative throughout several Kenyan counties. It employs a survey experiment with randomly assigned vignettes about different aspects of the participatory budgeting process to test impact and citizen receptiveness. Paper number three examines discretionary benefits in two states of Mexico. It uses a list experiment to understand citizen views of government benefits with levels of civic engagement as explanatory variables. The final paper examines Bolsa Familia, a conditional cash transfer program in Brazil. It uses a list experiment to assess how to improve performance of the program and citizen compliance with requirements.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 51: Experimental Research

Chair

• Tara Grillos Purdue University

Discussants

• Brigitte Seim University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

• Matthew S. Winters University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Individual Presentations

• Deliberation and Public Good Provision: A Behavioral Lab Experiment in Kenya - Tara Grillos, Purdue University

• Governance in Translation: A Survey Experiment in Kenyan Participatory Budgeting - Michael Touchton, University of Miami; Brian Wampler, Boise State University

• How Citizens Perceive Access to Social Benefits in Mexico - Brian Palmer-Rubin, Marquette University; Candelaria Garay, Harvard University; Mathias Poertner, Texas A&M University

• Conditional Cash Transfers and Clientelism: Evidence from a Survey Experiment - Amanda Driscoll; Gabriel Cepaluni, Sao Paulo State University; Michael Touchton, University of Miami