The Transforming Power of Democracy: Regime Type and the Distribution of Electricity

Abstract

T heory on democracy and its consequences turns on how democracy influences behavior among politicians and the citizenry. Ultimately, the literature seeks to determine who benefits under democratic rules. This is our concern, posed in a context that allows us to address a classic question: does democracy favor large but diffuse segments of society over small but concentrated interests? We employ sectoral electricity consumption data for a panel of 733 country-years to examine democracy's impact on the distribution of electricity across three sectors that represent distinct political interests: industry, agriculture, and residential consumers. We find that in poorer countries democratization produces significant increases in the residential share of electricity relative to industry, suggesting sectors with less per capita financial clout, but a stronger voice in elections benefit under democracy. Unlike the large literatures on democracy's impact on the amounts of publicly provided goods, our results are among the first on the distribution of those goods.A well-established and yet still-growing literature seeks to evaluate democracy's impact on a range of development outcomes: health, education, wages, and economic growth (

Political determinants of electricity provision in small island developing states

“…Affordable rural electrification has been achieved in most countries through special national programs and funding arrangements, including the use of subsidies (Zomers, 2003). This also points to how politicians determine patterns of electricity consumption not only through the building of infrastructure, but also through, for example, subsidies, price regulation, and other regulatory structures (Brown and Mobarak, 2009). Hence, the undertaking of electrifying the entire population is primarily politically driven, posing high demands on both the political and administrative systems and where a third party, i.e., a public authority-typically the State-is needed to co-ordinate any targeted goals.…”

Subnationalism and Social Development: A Comparative Analysis of Indian States

“…3 the scholarly consensus that democracies outperform autocracies (boix 2001;brown and Hunter 2004;brown and mobarak 2009;besley and Kudamatsu 2006;lake and baum 2001) has recently been challenged (Shandra et al 2004;rothstein 2011;gerring, thacker, and alfaro 2012). 4 immergut 1992;Huber, ragin, and Stephens 1993;thacker 2008.…”

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“…Oda and Tsujita (2010) argue that these protests and political unrest are more common in jurisdictions that lack democratic institutions. Brown and Mobarak (2009) further argue that countries without democratic political systems and institutional structures often use energy allocations and subsidies as tools for political advantage. Supporting this view, Scott and Seth (2013) submit that often, in non-democratic states, electricity distribution favours industries rather than residential areas, which becomes a source of the protest.…”