Premium
Sunlight or Window Dressing? Local Government Compliance with S outh A frica's Promotion of Access to Information Act
Author(s) -
Berliner Daniel
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.46
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1468-0491
pISSN - 0952-1895
DOI - 10.1111/gove.12246
Subject(s) - enforcement , promotion (chess) , context (archaeology) , incentive , business , competition (biology) , compliance (psychology) , commission , local government , government (linguistics) , politics , state (computer science) , public economics , public administration , economics , political science , law , market economy , finance , geography , psychology , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , algorithm , computer science , biology , ecology , social psychology
Institutional reforms often face challenges of poor compliance and implementation at the local level. I analyze these in a context where weak state capacity and limited enforcement make widespread compliance unlikely. South Africa's 2000 Promotion of Access to Information Act tasked the South African Human Rights Commission with monitoring and promoting compliance, but with limited resources and no authority to sanction. I argue that local political competition can generate endogenous incentives for compliance, even under conditions of weak capacity and limited external enforcement. Using data on 234 South African municipalities over 10 years, I find higher levels of compliance among more politically competitive municipalities. The results are not simply a function of differences between African National Congress–governed municipalities and others, and are robust to numerous controls for different forms of local state capacity.