Paul Dosh
Political Science
Ecuador
Does Decentralization Help the Poor?: Responsiveness and Efficiency in Urban Latin America
For decades, state authorities have failed to provide basic urban services to millions of lowincome Latin Americans. Sometimes low-income groups succeed in winning needed services, but
more often the strategies they employ fail. In an effort to improve government responsiveness and
efficiency, many countries are decentralizing responsibility for these services from the state level to
lower levels of government. This trend raises two questions. First, how do different degrees of
decentralization shape both the responsiveness of local officials to low-income groups and the
efficiency of service delivery to these same groups? Second, which types of strategies for obtaining
services are more likely to succeed when used by low-income groups in settings with different degrees
of decentralization? In order to answer these questions, I will spend 11 months studying low-income
neighborhoods in Quito, Ecuador, where a recent experiment with decentralization provides a unique
opportunity to compare service provision at three different levels of government: state, metropolitan
(city-wide), and district (local).
Broad consensus has emerged in Latin America on the need for some amount of
decentralization, but which level of service provision will best benefit low-income groups through
increased responsiveness and efficiency of local government is an open question. Two pairs of
hypotheses reveal the major axes of disagreement. One group of scholars argues that maximum
decentralization—to the district level—leads to 1) increased responsiveness through direct access to
officials; and 2) more efficient service delivery due to inter-district competition. This view assumes
that the lowest level of government is also the optimal level of government. A second perspective
argues that decentralization can go too far. These scholars claim that partial decentralization—to the
metropolitan level—will increase 1) responsiveness by retaining the capacity to redistribute resources;
and 2) efficiency due to a lack of counter-productive inter-district competition. Although some
evidence has been accumulated both for and against the first set of claims, the latter pair of hypotheses
has never been tested empirically in Latin America. Resolution of this issue is important for several
reasons: 1) it has theoretical implications for ongoing discussions about institutional reform; 2) it is at
the heart of current policy debates in Latin America; and 3) the unmet needs of the urban poor are of
great normative importance. Moreover, neither perspective addresses the interaction of
decentralization and strategies to obtain basic services.
Strategies vary on three dimensions. First, within a group seeking services, decisions may be
made with broad participation or by a narrow group of elites. Second, groups may make universal
demands that would benefit everyone in the district, or they may make particularistic demands that
benefit a narrow segment of the population, such as a single neighborhood. Third, demands may be
made through political parties or through a variety of nonpartisan channels. It makes sense that the
strategy chosen may have an effect on government responsiveness and efficiency. Yet why would we
expect to find a relationship between degree of decentralization and the likelihood of different
strategies succeeding? Existing studies of political demands made by the poor show that different
institutional frameworks open up certain opportunities while closing others. District service provision,
for example, may allow face-to-face contact with decision makers, but it also inhibits broad crossdistrict demands. I do not anticipate finding a uniform relationship between strategy and degree of
decentralization, but my case selection will allow me to discern some patterns that suggest how
different levels of decentralization may advantage or disadvantage certain groups depending on their
ability to carry out various strategies.
To analyze the effects of decentralization and strategy on responsiveness and efficiency, I have
chosen to examine efforts to obtain basic service provision by urban dwellers in Quito's low-income
neighborhoods. I have chosen Quito because of the unique research opportunity created by Ecuador's
1991 decision to decentralize responsibility for basic services to a newly created metropolitan council
and mayor of Quito. No other major city provides this kind of research opportunity. This metropolitan
government now has well-defined responsibilities and broad authority over Quito's 16 urban districts.
Within these districts, I will study efforts to win service provision in four pairs of low-income
neighborhoods (a total of eight), each pair of neighborhoods in a different district, some of which are
still struggling to obtain essential services.
I will study service provision and demands for basic services during two time periods. During
the first period, 1979-1991, local district leaders were directly elected (and thus at least nominally
accountable to their district, rather than the state), but the state government centrally controlled
provision of all potable water, electricity, and sewerage. During the second time period, 1991-2001,
leaders were directly elected at the district and metropolitan levels, but the metropolitan government
was responsible for water, electricity, and sewerage in Quito. During both time periods, however,
garbage collection and simple road maintenance were provided at the district level. Study of these
time periods permits analysis of decentralization's effects on responsiveness and efficiency through
multiple comparisons. I will compare:
1) state and district provision of different services from 1979 to 1991;
2) metropolitan and district provision of different services from 1991 to 2001;
3) state and metropolitan provision of the same services across different time periods (1979-91 and
1991-2001).
While other cases would allow examination of state versus district service provision, only Quito
permits study of all three levels of service provision.
Just as my choice of time periods ensures variation in degree of decentralization, my choice of
neighborhoods will maximize variation in strategies pursued by low-income groups. Once in the field,
I anticipate spending the initial two months selecting eight low-income neighborhoods that have
demanded different services with varying degrees of success. Selecting neighborhoods that contain
within-case variation (i.e. success and failure of different service demands) will allow me to control for
many neighborhood-level factors including size, age, population density, distance from city center,
economic status, and local geography. While these controls will allow for systematic analysis of the
impact of degree of decentralization on responsiveness and efficiency, variation in strategies (e.g.
universal vs. particularistic strategy) pursued across pairs of neighborhoods will permit investigation of
the effects of type of strategy.
In order to gather data on my eight neighborhood cases, I will conduct in-depth interviews with
both structured and open-ended questions with past and present neighborhood leaders, elected district
and metropolitan officials, and administrators within service agencies (e.g. the Metropolitan Potable
Water Company). These will support data gathered locally from the National Institute of Statistics, the
Center for the Study of Structure and Administration of Government, and news sources available only
in local archives (e.g. Quito's three daily newspapers). Both the interviews and archival data are
essential to my project and can only be obtained in Quito. Based on these data, I will create indicators
for four key variables:
Degree of decentralization: 1) percentage of relevant budget controlled by agency (e.g. the portion
of Quito's sewerage budget actually controlled by the metropolitan government and not the state);
2) percentage of population served by each agency; and 3) whether or not agency decisions are final
or need approval.
Type of political strategy: 1) number of participants in decisionmaking; 2) percentage of district
population that would benefit from a demand; and 3) amount of party-affiliated resources—
financial, organizational, or political—supporting a demand.
Government responsiveness: 1) percentage change of households with access to services following
demands for services; and 2) the speed with which demands are met.
Government efficiency: 1) change per capita cost of service provision (controlled for inflation).
I expect to make three main contributions with my dissertation. First, I will use the unique case
of Quito to present a more nuanced analysis of decentralization in Latin America, which for many has
been only a state vs. district debate. I will connect this to a growing debate in U.S. cities over the
merits of service provision at the metropolitan level. Second, I will test several general theoretical
propositions from the literature on decentralization and examine their interaction with the effects of
political strategies. This is an area of growing interest in the Latin American field, but empirical
studies often lack a theoretical framework. Third, I will build on the small, but growing literature on
the neglected topic of Latin American cities. In a region where an increasing majority live in major
cities, scholars have paid comparatively little attention to large urban centers.
I have arranged to work as an affiliated scholar at the Latin American Faculty of Social
Sciences (FLACSO) during my time in Quito (Sept. 2001-July 2002). The director of FLACSO,
Professor Fernando Carrión, is Ecuador's leading scholar on urban politics and decentralization and has
agreed to assist me with my fieldwork. The faculty of FLACSO will serve as an excellent forum for
both formal and informal presentations of my ongoing research.
Paul Dosh
Political Science
Ecuador
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