This dissertation examines the political effects of NGOs in developing democracies. There is a large and contradictory literature on whether, how, and why NGOs affect politics. Some argue that NGOs are an essential component of a strong civil society necessary for democratic consolidation. Others argue that NGOs are co-opted by the existing hierarchy of political elites, and politicians claim credit for the opted services they provide, damaging democratic accountability.
I argue that NGOs have systematic effects on politics in two realms: participation and voting behavior. First, I agree with the conventional wisdom that NGOs tend to boost participation of all kinds. However, I argue that---particularly in weakly democratic settings---NGOs are likely to encourage unconventional means of participation such as demonstrations and protest in addition to more conventional forms such as voting. This is a strong challenge to the common assumption in the literature that NGOs are the bulwark of moderate civil society.
Second, I argue that the effects of NGOs on voting behavior are conditional on the size of the jurisdiction in question. Existing work predicts starkly contradictory political effects: Some claim NGOs should help incumbents by providing services for which politicians can claim credit, while others claim they should hurt incumbents by facilitating opposition. I argue that both these effects are possible, but in different contexts. In areas with very small populations, the associational effects of NGOs (their ability to bring people together, air common grievances, and build trust to help solve collective action problems) are much stronger, making it more likely that NGO activity will strengthen opposition politics. In larger population areas, however, the effects of increases in association are relatively much smaller. And, in the more impersonal setting of larger cities, credit-claiming for NGO services is easier. Thus, NGOs in larger cities are likely to help incumbents, rather than help the opposition.
I test my argument and competing hypotheses from the literature using a new approach: an analysis of an original subnational dataset comparing municipalities in Bolivia. The dataset includes measures of NGO activity, election returns, and protest, as well as a number of controls, for two time periods, 1999 and 2004.
My Research