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Does Decentralization Improve Perceptions of Accountability? Attitudinal Evidence from Colombia
Author(s) -
EscobarLemmon Maria,
Ross Ashley D.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
american journal of political science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.347
H-Index - 170
eISSN - 1540-5907
pISSN - 0092-5853
DOI - 10.1111/ajps.12043
Subject(s) - decentralization , accountability , incentive , politics , government (linguistics) , perception , political science , local government , public administration , survey data collection , business , economics , psychology , market economy , neuroscience , law , linguistics , philosophy , statistics , mathematics
Decentralization is argued to create incentives for local and regional politicians to be more responsive and accountable to their constituents, but few studies have directly tested this claim. We use survey data from Colombia to examine individual‐level evaluations of the degree to which decentralization prompts citizens to view department government as more accountable. We estimate the effect of administrative, fiscal, and political decentralization, controlling for participation, political knowledge, confidence in government, education, and income on perceptions of accountability. Our results indicate that administrative and fiscal decentralization improve perceptions of accountability, while political decentralization does not.