Audrey Sacks

They Are Not Like Us: Understanding Social Exclusion

Negative attitudes toward groups in society are widespread and underpin systematic processes of social exclusion that marginalize people and deny them opportunities and dignity. This paper looks at the processes underlying social exclusion. It uses data covering Eastern Europe and Central Asia to study the responses to a simple hypothetical survey question about which specific groups respondents would not like to have as neighbors. Unwelcoming attitudes toward groups such as immigrants, ethnic minorities, the poor, HIV individuals, and others are surprisingly common. These attitudes fall into three distinct clusters: intolerance for the poor and for different lifecycle stages; intolerance toward stigmatized attributes and behaviors; and intolerance toward specific identity groups. An empirical analysis of the determinants of attitudes shows that country-specific factors are far more important than socio-economic characteristics. These findings could have important implications for theories about exclusion and for the design of appropriate social inclusion policies. The authors argue that strategies to address social exclusion need to consider ways to change social norms, attitudes, and behaviors toward disadvantaged groups. The paper explores potential entry points for change within formal and informal institutions.

Does the semi-autonomous agency model function in a low-governance environment ? the case of the road development agency in Zambia

This paper uses Zambia as a case study to assess empirically whether political interference in a low-governance environment has diminished in the past years as expected after a semi-autonomous agency model was set up ten years ago. The road sector in Zambia has experienced some significant developments since then. The paper uses data on contract from 2008 to 2011 and analyses a number of key trends related to Road Development Agency governance and staffing dynamics as well as procurement and project selection within the institution. The main findings indicate that, after some years of implementation of these reforms, there is reason to question whether the model of semi-autonomous agency enables road management to be shielded from political interference. Zambia may be an isolated case but, so far, this model does not seem to have been able to decrease political interference in the selection or supervision of projects and there seems to have been an increased lack of accountability of civil servants working in this sector.

Unpaved Road Ahead: The Consequences of Election Cycles for Capital Expenditures

Canonical political budget cycle theories predict an increase in visible government expenditures in election years due to signaling by incumbents. We identify the presence of an alternative election-related distortion of government budgets—a drop in capital expenditures—that applies in low capacity and weak governance settings. In election years, the increase in scrutiny and distraction of politicians and bureaucrats decreases the ability of governments to facilitate complicated capital investments. We test this argument by exploiting the exogenous phasing in and timing of local direct elections in Indonesian districts and detailed data on local budget compositions to document the existence of meaningful reductions in capital expenditures in election years. This effect is mediated by the status of incumbents. While safe incumbents who are running for reelection can avoid this particular type of distortion, elections with embattled incumbents or without incumbents running for reelection exhibit much stronger effects.