November 2022

Primary goal: measure and relate dimensions of political inequality

How can we best measure citizens’ degree of political power?

How do gaps in voice (Coffe and Bolzendahl 2011; Kasara and Suryanarayan 2015) relate to systemic responsiveness (Gaikwad and Nellis 2018)? and ultimately unequal outcomes?

Assess linkages between 3 different dimensions of political inequality:

  • input: inequality in intensity of participation
  • throughput: inequality in the system’s responsiveness to demands
  • output: inequality in how much decisions favor specific individuals / groups

Strategy: Close analysis of Kampala’s Citizen Charter process

In 2019 we were invited to support a set of consultations to provide input into the construction of a “City Charter” for Kampala.

The Charter was to outline:

  • principles and clear standards of service provision
  • rights and responsibilities of citizens and bureaucrats

We had a chance to observe:

  • The creation of an institution
  • The points of disagreement and how these were resolved

Preview of findings

Input inequality:

  • Clear disparities in who engages and how much they engage

Throughput inequality:

  • Clear evidence of elite dominance
  • Weaker evidence of inequality between citizens

Output inequality:

  • Almost no evidence of output inequalities
  • If anything, seemingly more influential participants are less satisfied with outcomes

Theoretical framework

Simple model of political action

We start from a simple model: a status quo policy which multiple players try to influence.

Each player is characterized by \(\pi_i\): how much their actions would shape outcomes (causal quantity).

Players choose optimal actions — which can vary in direction and magnitude—and we seek a Nash equilibrium

This gives:

  • Equilibrium actions (input inequality)
  • Social outcomes (outcome inequality)
  • Patterns to backout influence (throughput inequality)

Model illustrated

\label{fig:inequalities} Effort and welfare given ideals $x_1 = -.5, x_2 = +.5$.

Effort and welfare given ideals \(x_1 = -.5, x_2 = +.5\).

  • With throughput inequality, input equality and output equality cannot both be achieved simultaneously.
  • Welfare gains for more powerful player are modest; but input increases can be large

Rationalization

This can be rationalized with a reversion point that favors player 1

Design

Overview

  • Baseline
  • Small-scale consultation meetings, of around 1-1.5 hours
    • Participants: 6-8 citizens recruited from the same village
    • Facilitated by KCCA officials, or neutral facilitators (trained enumerators)
    • Objective: collect input from citizens for construction of Charter
    • Decisions: made collectively by the group, and recorded by facilitator
  • Decisions relayed to city
  • City drafts charter
  • Endline

Topics

Pre-identified set of topics | Vetted by KCCA | Plausibly contentious

  • Report budget: At what levels should budgets be reported?
  • Channels of communication: At what levels should KCCA engage with citizens?
  • Growth vs equality: Should KCCA focus on growth or inequality?
  • Raising fees and taxes: Should there be higher taxes for better services
  • Monitor Charter: What level of oversight should there be?

Also: Is KCCA going in the right direction?

Baseline sampling

Every possible challenge

  • Political instability: leadership changed 3 times
  • 2020-21: Covid-19
  • 2022: Ebola

But done

Results

Disagreement: citizens vs. KCCA

We also observe preference variation among citizens.

Disagreement: citizens vs. citizens

These differences are often significant but tend to be smaller in magnitude.

Input inequality in conventional participation

Gender: max. designates men. Luganda: max. designates native speakers.

Input inequality in consultations: times spoken

Throughput inequality: Elite influence

Strategy:

  • Meeting facilitators are not meant to influence outcomes
  • The random assignment of facilitators to meetings however lets us assess the extent to which they do
  • Key approach: can we predict meeting outcomes based on the identity of the facilitators?

Throughput inequality: KCCA going in right direction?

Facilitators in general, and KCCA facilitators in particular, matter!

Variation both between facilitators and between types of facilitator

We find the same pattern for 4 of 5 substantive outcomes

Throughput inequality: Are they more influential in disadvantaged communities?

Is the influence of facilitators weakened when communities are more privileged?

  • For communication channels with citizens we see:
    • Effects of facilitators are eliminated in privileged communities
    • Facilitator preferences drive meeting outcome more in disadvantaged communities
  • Similar dynamic, though faint, for a second topic; little evidence for remaining three topics

Output inequality: Advantaged more likely to get favored outcome?

\[Match_i = \beta_0 + \beta_1*advantaged + \beta_2*attended + \beta_3*advantaged*attended + \epsilon_i\]

An ultimate outcome: subjective welfare

We also asked participants if they were happy with outcomes on each decision (scaled 0/50/100).

  Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6
Constant 89.98*** 89.08*** 94.93*** 92.31*** 93.22*** 91.63***
  (0.88) (1.03) (0.94) (0.76) (0.73) (0.63)
Led by KCCA 2.49*          
  (1.16)          
Outcome matches preferences   3.00**        
    (0.98)        
Time speaking     -1.15***      
      (0.26)      
Male       -1.86*    
        (0.92)    
Wealth         -1.96***  
          (0.58)  
Deemed influential           -3.00*
            (1.46)
R2 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.00
Adj. R2 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00
Num. obs. 6093 4506 6093 6078 5769 6093
RMSE 24.38 24.77 24.35 24.41 24.30 24.39
N Clusters 188 188 188 188 188 188
***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05
  • Suggests KCCA assignment not producing adverse effect
  • And reassuringly some evidence of more satisfaction when outcomes match preferences
  • But “more input” and “more (deemed) influence” relate weakly and indeed negatively to subjective welfare

Conclusions

High level outcomes

Fairly clear answers:

  • Local Consultations (greatest agreement)
  • Budget disaggregation to local level
  • Equity before growth
  • External oversight
  • Maintain current tax/service structure (weakest agreement)

Did it matter?

  • We think so:
  • Results and report used by KCCA to develop draft which is (still!) before the city council
  • The draft Charter contains key endorsed principles from this process

Charter

Charter

Draft principles reflect consultations quite well:

Not yet through council

What do we learn about political inequality: Consultative process

Some relatively good news for a consultative process. Nuanced results on understandings of influence.

Running explanation: Egalitarian process partly offset inequalities in power and inputs.

Rethink

  • A mistake to infer inequality in outcomes from inequality in inputs, or inequality in responsiveness from inequality in inputs.

  • A mistake to infer inequality in outputs from inequality in throughput.

Scope condition:

  • Non distributive nature of this setting very important: scope for free riding
  • Institutional flatness could limit each type of inequality

Next stage:

  • assess whether taking part mattered for willingness to demand services

References

References

Coffe, Hilde, and Catherine Bolzendahl. 2011. “ Gender Gaps in Political Participation Across Sub-Saharan African Nations.” Social Indicators Research 102 (2): 245–64.

Gaikwad, Nikhar, and Gareth Nellis. 2018. “ Do Politicians Discriminate Against Internal Migrants? Evidence from Nationwide Field Experiments in India.” Berkeley, CA: University of California at Berkeley. http://cpd.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Nellis{\_}CPC.pdf.

Kasara, Kimuli, and Pavithra Suryanarayan. 2015. “ When Do the Rich Vote Less Than the Poor and Why? Explaining Turnout Inequality across the World.” American Journal of Political Science 59 (3): 613–27.