Speaker
Description
We present a field experiment in Burkina Faso that tests a novel, low-cost approach to promoting citizen engagement and political accountability in local governance: Inviting randomly selected citizens to observe local council meetings. Selected citizens received a personal invitation from the mayor to observe a local council meeting, ask questions, and share their observations with their family and neighbors.
We examine (1) how the presence of ordinary citizens at local council meetings affects the behavior of local decision-makers, and (2) how invitations to serve as ``citizen observers" affect other forms of voluntary civic participation and citizens' attitudes toward local government. Furthermore, we compare these effects in two different institutional contexts: locally elected councils and externally appointed municipal councils, taking advantage of the temporary replacement of elected municipal councils by externally appointed special delegations. The experiment has both theoretical and practical relevance. Theoretically, it contributes to our understanding of how social observability, induced by the presence of citizen observers, affects the behavior of elected and non-elected public decision makers. It further helps us understand how first-hand experience with local governance processes affects citizens' political attitudes and behavior, for example through information, personal contact, reciprocity and self-efficacy. Moreover, the experiment sheds light on differences in how elected and non-elected decision-makers are perceived by and interact with ordinary citizens in an otherwise identical institutional environment. Finally, the experiment allows us to assess the effectiveness and viability of citizen observers as a mechanism for inclusion and accountability in local governance.
