Decentralized Service Delivery and Individuals' Political Behavior

• In Event: Health, Health Policy Design, and the Effects on Political Attitudes & Behavior

Abstract

Decentralization reforms for improving the production of social services have become ubiquitous within public administration and international development. Across countries and policy sectors, national governments increasingly recede into the background as municipal governments and non-state organizations administer social services at the community level. This paper argues that understanding the ancillary effects of decentralization on individual political behavior is fundamental to evaluating the overall effectiveness of these reforms, as well as judging their suitability in different contexts. Theoretically, this research develops the behavioral implications of decentralization drawing on concepts of self-determination and monitoring. Empirically, those ideas are assessed using a vignette-based survey experiment. This research draws on the case of health sector reform in Honduras, and the experiment was embedded within an original survey implemented in about 600 households in cities with four distinct administrative contexts: centrally-administered and decentralized led by a single municipal government, an association of municipalities, and a non-governmental organization. Preliminary findings suggest that individuals report greater approval of governance arrangements that are more polycentric over those that are less polycentric, and decentralized arrangements led by NGOs over centralized governance. Additionally, these hybrid systems do not appear to have adverse consequences for individual political behavior in terms of public goods contributions or actions that create accountability. Overall, this work suggests that crowding-out motivation or muddled accountability are not necessarily inevitable within the types of hybrid service delivery systems that often result from decentralization reform.

Author

• Alan Zarychta, University of Chicago