Political Accountability, Fiscal Conditions and Local Government Performance : Cross-Sectional Evidence from Indonesia

Why are some local governments more successful than others in managing resources and delivering services? And even more vitally, how can malfunctioning governments be reformed so that they perform their responsibilities more effectively? This article contributes to our understanding of theses overar...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Eckardt, S.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	EN
Published:	2012
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5220

id	okr-10986-5220
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-52202021-04-23T14:02:21Z Political Accountability, Fiscal Conditions and Local Government Performance : Cross-Sectional Evidence from Indonesia Eckardt, S. Why are some local governments more successful than others in managing resources and delivering services? And even more vitally, how can malfunctioning governments be reformed so that they perform their responsibilities more effectively? This article contributes to our understanding of theses overarching questions by exploring the interactions between political institutions and public sector performance in the context of decentralisation and local governance. It shows-both theoretically and empirically-that performance outcomes are determined by the extent to which people can hold their governments accountable through political institutions. The basic hypothesis underlying this research is that political accountability, either by encouraging sanctions upon non-compliant public agents or simply by reducing the informational gap regarding government activities, will create forceful incentives for elected officials and civil servants to reduce opportunistic behaviour and improve performance. Using a cross-sectional regression the hypothesis is empirically tested against evidence from newly empowered local governments in Indonesia. The empirical findings broadly support our hypotheses. Improved public services on the ground, both in terms of quantity and quality, require informed and well functioning decision-making processes that allocate resources to priority areas that meet the demand of the broader community. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 2012-03-30T07:31:51Z 2012-03-30T07:31:51Z 2008 Journal Article Public Administration and Development 0271-2075 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5220 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article Indonesia
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	EN
geographic_facet	Indonesia
relation	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
description	Why are some local governments more successful than others in managing resources and delivering services? And even more vitally, how can malfunctioning governments be reformed so that they perform their responsibilities more effectively? This article contributes to our understanding of theses overarching questions by exploring the interactions between political institutions and public sector performance in the context of decentralisation and local governance. It shows-both theoretically and empirically-that performance outcomes are determined by the extent to which people can hold their governments accountable through political institutions. The basic hypothesis underlying this research is that political accountability, either by encouraging sanctions upon non-compliant public agents or simply by reducing the informational gap regarding government activities, will create forceful incentives for elected officials and civil servants to reduce opportunistic behaviour and improve performance. Using a cross-sectional regression the hypothesis is empirically tested against evidence from newly empowered local governments in Indonesia. The empirical findings broadly support our hypotheses. Improved public services on the ground, both in terms of quantity and quality, require informed and well functioning decision-making processes that allocate resources to priority areas that meet the demand of the broader community. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
format	Journal Article
author	Eckardt, S.
spellingShingle	Eckardt, S. Political Accountability, Fiscal Conditions and Local Government Performance : Cross-Sectional Evidence from Indonesia
author_facet	Eckardt, S.
author_sort	Eckardt, S.
title	Political Accountability, Fiscal Conditions and Local Government Performance : Cross-Sectional Evidence from Indonesia
title_short	Political Accountability, Fiscal Conditions and Local Government Performance : Cross-Sectional Evidence from Indonesia
title_full	Political Accountability, Fiscal Conditions and Local Government Performance : Cross-Sectional Evidence from Indonesia
title_fullStr	Political Accountability, Fiscal Conditions and Local Government Performance : Cross-Sectional Evidence from Indonesia
title_full_unstemmed	Political Accountability, Fiscal Conditions and Local Government Performance : Cross-Sectional Evidence from Indonesia
title_sort	political accountability, fiscal conditions and local government performance : cross-sectional evidence from indonesia
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5220
_version_	1764394348951109632

Political Accountability, Fiscal Conditions and Local Government Performance : Cross-Sectional Evidence from Indonesia

Similar Items