IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/6021.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why quality matters : rebuilding trustworthy local government in post-conflict Sierra Leone

Author

Listed:
  • Sacks, Audrey
  • Larizza, Marco

Abstract

A broad consensus has emerged among practitioners and researchers that failure to build accountable and legitimate institutions is a critical risk factor associated with vicious circles of repeated violence. Despite this consensus, very few studies have tested the extent to which local government performance and decentralized service provision shape citizens'beliefs toward political authorities. This paper contributes to fill this gap by examining the antecedents of trustworthy local government authorities in a post-conflict and fragile setting, Sierra Leone. Taking advantage of a unique longitudinal survey, the National Public Services, it examines the impact of sub-national variation in local government performance on citizens'beliefs about the trustworthiness of local government authorities. To test the hypothesis, it uses multilevel models to exploit variation over time and within and across sub-national units in Sierra Leone. The results suggest that improvements in the quality of decentralized service delivery, as well as perceptions of local councillors'honesty, are positively associated with perceptions of local government officials as trustworthy political authorities. These findings speak to the possibility that local service provision can play a role in shaping the relationships between citizens and the state and in overcoming the root causes of fragility and conflict.

Suggested Citation

  • Sacks, Audrey & Larizza, Marco, 2012. "Why quality matters : rebuilding trustworthy local government in post-conflict Sierra Leone," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6021, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2012/04/03/000158349_20120403091456/Rendered/PDF/WPS6021..pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Posner,Daniel N., 2005. "Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521541794, September.
    2. Rachel Glennerster & Edward Miguel & Alexander D. Rothenberg, 2013. "Collective Action in Diverse Sierra Leone Communities," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 285-316, May.
    3. Maarten Voors & Eleonora Nillesen & Philip Verwimp & Erwin Bulte & Robert Lensink & Daan van Soest, 2010. "Does Conflict affect Preferences? Results from Field Experiments in Burundi," Research Working Papers 21, MICROCON - A Micro Level Analysis of Violent Conflict.
    4. Brian Greenhill & Michael D. Ward & Audrey Sacks, 2011. "The Separation Plot: A New Visual Method for Evaluating the Fit of Binary Models," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 991-1002, October.
    5. Vito Tanzi, 1998. "Corruption Around the World: Causes, Consequences, Scope, and Cures," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 45(4), pages 559-594, December.
    6. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2002. "The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1415-1451.
    7. Margit Tavits, 2007. "Clarity of Responsibility and Corruption," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 218-229, January.
    8. Habyarimana, James & Humphreys, Macartan & Posner, Daniel N. & Weinstein, Jeremy M., 2007. "Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(4), pages 709-725, November.
    9. Leonard Wantchekon, 2003. "Clientelism and voting behavior: Evidence from a field experiment in benin," Natural Field Experiments 00339, The Field Experiments Website.
    10. World Bank, 2011. "World Development Report 2011 [Rapport sur le développement dans le monde 2011 : Conflits, sécurité et développement - Abrégé]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 4389.
    11. Duch,Raymond M. & Stevenson,Randolph T., 2008. "The Economic Vote," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521707404, September.
    12. Yongmei Zhou, 2009. "Decentralization, Democracy, and Development : Recent Experience from Sierra Leone," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2672.
    13. Duch,Raymond M. & Stevenson,Randolph T., 2008. "The Economic Vote," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521881029, September.
    14. Posner,Daniel N., 2005. "Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521833981, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alexander De Juan & Carlo Koos, 2021. "Survey participation effects in conflict research," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(4), pages 623-639, July.
    2. Muhsin Ali & Karim Khan, 2023. "Violent Conflict and Informal Institutions: Evidence from a Civil Conflict in Pakistan (Article)," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 62(2), pages 235-264.
    3. Alexander De Juan & Jan Henryk Pierskalla, 2016. "Civil war violence and political trust: Microlevel evidence from Nepal," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 33(1), pages 67-88, February.
    4. Skali, Ahmed & Stadelmann, David & Torgler, Benno, 2021. "Trust in government in times of crisis: A quasi-experiment during the two world wars✰," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 277-289.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Porten, John & Rhee, Inbok & Gibson, Clark, 2022. "Ethnicity is not public service destiny: The political logic of service distribution in South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    2. Gisselquist, Rachel M. & Leiderer, Stefan & Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel, 2016. "Ethnic Heterogeneity and Public Goods Provision in Zambia: Evidence of a Subnational “Diversity Dividend”," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 308-323.
    3. Clayton,Amanda & Noveck,Jennifer Lynn & Levi,Margaret, 2015. "When elites meet : decentralization, power-sharing, and public goods provision in post-conflict Sierra Leone," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7335, The World Bank.
    4. John Porten & Inbok Rhee & Clark Gibson, 2021. "Ethnicity is not public service destiny: The political logic of service distribution in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-63, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Klaus Desmet & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "The political economy of ethnolinguistic cleavages," Working Papers 2009-17, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    6. Sam Barrett, 2015. "Subnational Adaptation Finance Allocation: Comparing Decentralized and Devolved Political Institutions in Kenya," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 15(3), pages 118-139, August.
    7. De Luca, Giacomo & Hodler, Roland & Raschky, Paul A. & Valsecchi, Michele, 2018. "Ethnic favoritism: An axiom of politics?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 115-129.
    8. Erik Lindqvist & Robert Östling, 2013. "Identity and redistribution," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 469-491, June.
    9. Kenneth Shelton Aikins & Richard Ametefe, 2017. "Ethnic Factor and Politics in the Asuogyaman District of Ghana," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(3), pages 21582440177, July.
    10. Franck, Raphaël & Rainer, Ilia, 2012. "Does the Leader's Ethnicity Matter? Ethnic Favoritism, Education, and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 294-325, May.
    11. Ian S. Lustick & Philip E. Tetlock, 2021. "The simulation manifesto: The limits of brute‐force empiricism in geopolitical forecasting," Futures & Foresight Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3(2), June.
    12. Fenske, James, 2010. "Institutions in African history and development: A review essay," MPRA Paper 23120, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Pedro C. Magalhães & Luís Aguiar-Conraria, 2017. "Procedural Fairness and Economic Voting," NIPE Working Papers 07/2017, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    14. Rachel Glennerster & Edward Miguel & Alexander D. Rothenberg, 2013. "Collective Action in Diverse Sierra Leone Communities," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 285-316, May.
    15. Stefan Lindemann, 2011. "The Ethnic Politics of Coup Avoidance: Evidence from Zambia and Uganda," Africa Spectrum, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 46(2), pages 3-41.
    16. Desmet, Klaus & Ortuño-Ortín, Ignacio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2012. "The political economy of linguistic cleavages," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 322-338.
    17. Papaioannou, Elias & Michalopoulos, Stelios, 2010. "Divide and Rule or the Rule of the Divided? Evidence from Africa," CEPR Discussion Papers 8088, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Pulejo, Massimo & Querubín, Pablo, 2021. "Electoral concerns reduce restrictive measures during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    19. Rachel M. Gisselquist & Stefan Leiderer & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, 2014. "Ethnic Heterogeneity and Public Goods Provision in Zambia: Further Evidence of a Subnational 'Diversity Dividend'," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-162, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero & Adrienne LeBas, 2020. "Does electoral violence affect vote choice and willingness to vote? Conjoint analysis of a vignette experiment," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 77-92, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health Monitoring&Evaluation; Population Policies; E-Government; Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures; E-Government;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6021. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.