Direct Democracy and Local Public Goods: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia
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Olken_Direct democracy.pdf
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297.41 KB
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Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Olken, Benjamin A.
Date Issued
May 2010
Journal
American Political Science Review
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Citation
BENJAMIN A. OLKEN (2010). Direct Democracy and Local Public Goods: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia. American Political Science Review, 104 , pp 243-267 doi:10.1017/S0003055410000079 © 2010 American Political Science Association
Version
Final published version
Abstract
This article presents an experiment in which 49 Indonesian villages were randomly assigned to choose development projects through either representative-based meetings or direct election-based plebiscites. Plebiscites resulted in dramatically higher satisfaction among villagers, increased knowledge about the project, greater perceived benefits, and higher reported willingness to contribute. Changing the political mechanism had much smaller effects on the actual projects selected, with some evidence that plebiscites resulted in projects chosen by women being located in poorer areas. The results suggest that direct participation in political decision making can substantially increase satisfaction and legitimacy.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055410000079
