Tribal Mobilization, Fragmented Groups, and Public Goods Provision in Jordan

Abstract

Diversity has been blamed for poor public goods provision in a number of different contexts. It is associated with reduced spending on services, meager rates of tax collection, and poor policies. I argue in this paper, however, that in semidemocratic or authoritarian countries, where political parties are weak, diversity can be an important source of electoral competition, leading to better services. In diverse communities where multiple identity groups are politically mobilized, candidates are forced to seek the support of voters outside of their group, who are more likely to vote based on qualifications than on group affiliation, resulting in better public officials who provide superior services. Moreover, I find internal group fragmentation to be important in understanding the impact of heterogeneity on public goods provision: candidates in areas where only one identity group is politically mobilized but where that group is politically fragmented will also seek votes from other groups within the community similar to candidates in locations with "multigroup" mobilization, leading to improved public goods provision. These arguments are confirmed through the analysis of tribal mobilization and public goods across Jordan's municipalities.

Diversity, Institutions, and Economic Outcomes: Post-WWII Displacement in Poland

“…Intriguingly, economic differences between communities at different levels of cultural heterogeneity were negligible prior to 1989—though data do not allow for examining shadow economic transactions during state socialism—but became visible in the 1990s, following the strengthening of state institutions for the protection of private property and enforcement of contracts. The analysis thus suggests scope conditions for the negative effects of cultural heterogeneity on public goods provision and private economic activity: low state capacity and/or predatory state institutions, supporting conclusions in Gao (2016), Alesina and La Ferrara (2005), and Miguel (2004).…”

Ethnic Diversity and Ethnic Discrimination: Explaining Local Public Goods Provision

“…While there are many explanations for poor provision of public services, one in particular has received scholarly attention: the level of ethnic diversity, usually operationalized using a Herfindahl fractionalization index. The negative association between ethnic diversity and public services has been attested for a wide variety of nations, goods, and levels of aggregation (Alesina, Baqir, & Easterly, 1999; Algan, Hémet, & Laitin, 2011; Banerjee & Somanathan, 2007; Easterly & Levine, 1997; Miguel & Gugerty, 2005) though some recent studies have also questioned the relationship, especially at the national level (Gao, 2016; Gerring, Thacker, Lu, & Huang, 2015; Gisselquist, Leiderer, & Niño-Zarazúa, 2016; Singh & vom Hau, 2016; Soifer, 2016; Wimmer, 2016), and others have argued that the relationship is conditional on the salience of ethnic divisions, which may be a product of national policies, segregation, and between-group economic differences (Baldwin & Huber, 2010; Miguel, 2004; Trounstine, 2015). This relationship is usually traced to the inability of people from different ethnic backgrounds to cooperate with each other, a failure variously traced to differences in preferences, lack of a common language, and an inability to sustain cooperative equilibria due to social sanctioning (Habyarimana, Humphreys, Posner, & Weinstein, 2007).…”

The Theoretical Potential of the Within-Nation Comparison: How Sub-National Analyses Can Enrich Our Understandings of the National Welfare State

“…However, inasmuch as they have confirmed, sub-national analyses have also challenged the negative relationship between ethnic diversity and social welfare (see, e.g., Bouston et al, 2010; Foa, 2016; Gao, 2016; Gerring, Thacker, Lu, & Huang, 2015; Hopkins, 2011; Miguel, 2004; Mirza 2014; Rugh & Trounstine, 2011; Trounstine, 2013). Recent studies have found that ethnic diversity does not dampen the provision of social services across cities in the United States (Boustan, 2010; Hopkins, 2011; Rugh & Trounstine, 2011; Trounstine, 2013); villages in Africa (Glennerster, Miguel, & Rothenberg, 2013; Miguel, 2004) and in India and Pakistan (Mirza, 2014); in Jordanian municipalities (Gao, 2016); and in Russian regions (Foa, 2016). Further in a statistical analysis of a global sample of countries, Gerring et al (2015) found that ethnic diversity, measured through a wide range of measures and across different cleavages, did not reduce a variety of development outcomes at the sub-national level.…”