The Determinants of the Subnational Implementation of Costly Reforms

• In Event: How the State Shapes Society: Comparative Education Politics

Abstract

There is dramatic variation in what and how much students learn in school, both within and across countries. Commonly cited explanations, such as levels of development or policy design, can explain little of this variation, particularly within countries. Rather, understanding variation in the subnational implementation of quality-enhancing reforms can fill in this gap. For these reforms, subnational implementation faces two political constraints. First, as a result of weak voter demand and opposition from a well-organized teachers’ union, elected officials view the implementation as politically costly. Second, these same officials have little incentive to invest in the high degree of state capacity that implementation requires. In this paper, I focus specifically on the first of these constraints. I argue that elected officials have the incentives to implement costly reforms when the electoral costs of doing so are low and when they have a non-electoral motivation for implementation. Using original data about the implementation of a recent education reform in Mexico, I show that electoral costs are low when the officials’ governing coalition does not depend on the teachers’ union and that officials’ non-electoral motivation results from previous professional experiences with the education sector. By focusing on how the politics of implementation can explain variation in student learning, this paper helps us better understand the different logics that motivate the expansion of services versus improvements in their provision.

Author

• Julia Smith Coyoli, Harvard University