Benny Geys

‘Rational’ Theories of Voter Turnout: A Review

The paradox between an individuals decisions to head to the polls and the absence of strictly rational arguments for this action has intrigued – and troubled – many scholars. The present article surveys various theoretical contributions to resolve this paradox of (not) voting. We assess these approaches based on their ability to explain a number of ‘stylised facts’ with respect to voter turnout. The main conclusion is that straying away from the behavioural assumptions of the Downsian model provides more realistic models and leads to promising predictions as to the individuals decision to head to the polls. Incorporating the role of (social) groups and learning in particular can be regarded as important strides towards understanding the individuals decision to cast a vote.

Toward an Empirical Characterization of Bridging and Bonding Social Capital

Though a vast amount of empirical work stresses the beneficial effects of social capital, the recent literature has explicitly recognized the importance of distinguishing different types of social capital. Particularly, a distinction has been made between homogeneous (or bonding) and heterogeneous (or bridging) networks under the argument that the latter are more likely to generate positive externalities than the former. The empirical operationalization of this theoretical distinction has thus far, however, remained underdeveloped. We take a step to resolve this issue by assessing the diversity of (voluntary) association membership on a number of socio-economic traits. The proposed methodology is applied to Flemish survey data on voluntary association membership. This analysis indicates that hobby clubs and humanitarian associations such as the Red Cross are among the most bridging associations, while women’s groups and associations for retired people are among the most bonding groups.

Institutional Performance And Social Capital: An Application To The Local Government Level

Abstract: A large and growing body of research is devoted to the effects of social capital on institutional performance. This literature reveals that societies characterized by higher levels of social capital tend to achieve superior performance. Still, enquiries to date predominantly concentrate on country-level data or large sub-national units. The primary purpose of this article is to extend the empirical work to the local government level, while retaining the use of objective data to gauge institutional performance. This use of local data has the advantage of increasing the data set available and provides a more stringent test of the effect of social capital because social capital is likely to vary less at lower levels of government. The results—based on an empirical analysis of 305 Flemish municipalities in 2000—support the view that social capital leads to government (out)performance also at the local level of government.

Voter Involvement, Fiscal Autonomy and Public Sector Efficiency: Evidence from German Municipalities

Social and/or political involvement within the population is often argued to enhance public sector performance. The underlying idea is that engagement fosters political awareness and interest and increases the public’s monitoring ability. Still, weak fiscal autonomy can undermine voters’ interest in and demand for an efficient production of public services. In our contribution, we test whether and how voter involvement in the political sphere is related to government performance – in terms of its efficiency – using a broad panel of German municipalities. Our results suggest that voter involvement indeed has a positive impact on cost efficiency. Crucially, however, this efficiency-enhancing effect of voter involvement is significantly positively affected by local governments’ fiscal autonomy.

Value for money? German local government efficiency in a comparative perspective

In this article, we investigate the cost efficiency of German local governments in the state of Baden-Württemberg in 2004 using a stochastic frontier approach. Besides being the first study on German data, we add two elements to the literature. First, we provide a comparative perspective, allowing us to embed our results in the broader literature. Second, unlike most previous studies, we explicitly account for exogenous or nondiscretionary influences when estimating municipal efficiency scores. The results suggest that disregarding such exogenous factors can lead to significant and systematic bias in the estimated inefficiency levels. Particularly, underestimation of efficiency occurs for municipalities with high tourist activity, while the reverse is true for municipalities with high unemployment.

Measuring the ‘Bridging’ versus ‘Bonding’ Nature of Social Networks: A Proposal for Integrating Existing Measures

Recent research illustrates that two distinct interpretations and operationalizations of ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding’ social networks co-exist in the literature (based on links between diverse networks or between socio-economic groups within a given network, respectively), and that these do not coincide in empirical applications. The present contribution first confirms this conclusion using data from the United Kingdom. Then, we suggest a simple way to integrate both existing approaches into a more general measure of bridging and bonding. Applying this more general index to UK and Flemish data, a) provides stronger empirical support for the idea that memberships in bridging groups are more strongly linked to positive civic values than those in bonding ones, and b) shows that the extended index behaves more consistently across institutional settings (i.e. Flanders and the UK) than both underlying measures independently.

Citizen coproduction and efficient public good provision: Theory and evidence from local public libraries

In both public administration and economics, efficiency is brought forward as an important criterion for evaluating administrative actions. Clearly, its value as an assessment principle depends on our ability to adequately measure efficiency. This article argues that citizen’s coproduction in public services requires a careful reassessment of how we approach the measurement of productive efficiency in public service delivery. Theoretically, we illustrate that using observable outcomes (e.g., library circulation, school results, health outcomes, fires extinguished, and crimes solved) as output indicators is inappropriate and leads to biased estimates of public service providers’ productive efficiency. This bias arises because citizens co-determine final outputs, leaving them at least partly beyond the service providers’ control. Empirically, we find supportive evidence of both the existence and importance of such ‘demand-induced’ bias.

How to Make Head or Tail of 'Bridging' and 'Bonding'?: Addressing the Methodological Ambiguity

A distinction has recently been proposed between bridging (or encompassing) and bonding (or inward-looking) social networks. However, existing theoretical contributions remain vague as to the fundamental meaning of both concepts. As a consequence, two distinct interpretations have developed alongside each other. In the present paper, we employ data on voluntary association membership in Flanders to empirically illustrate that both approaches can lead to substantially different outcomes and therefore appear to tap into different dimensions of bridging versus bonding. These findings underline the problematic nature of the current conceptual ambiguity. We conclude that should the bridging/bonding distinction add meaningfully to our understanding of the external effects of social networks, it is essential to resolve the conceptual and methodological imprecision.

District Magnitude, Social Heterogeneity and Local Party System Fragmentation

Scholars analysing party system structures have generally followed two approaches. The ‘institutional’ approach emphasizes the role of electoral laws, while the ‘sociological’ approach highlights the effect of socioeconomic heterogeneity. Recently, evidence based on cross-country data indicated that a high level of fragmentation requires both a permissive electoral system and substantial socio-economic heterogeneity. As electoral rules have their main impact at the level of the constituency, using country-level data may not be ideal, however. Moreover, previous results appear to be driven by the inclusion of single-member district states. Both these caveats are addressed in this article. Based on a sample of Belgian municipal elections over the period 1982–2000, I show that the model incorporating an interaction between heterogeneity and district magnitude significantly outperforms specifications that disregard the interaction effect (a) at the constituency level and (b) in (mediumsize) multi-member districts.

Government Weakness and Electoral Cycles in Local Public Debt: Evidence from Flemish Municipalities

Empirical research on Political Business (and Budget) Cycles is more supportive for electoral cycles in policies than in macro-economic outcomes. But even pre-electoral policy cycles receive no unanimous confirmation. In the present paper, we give credence to recent arguments that this may be due to the disregard for the political, economic and institutional context in which politicians make policy decisions. Specifically, we argue that the level of political fragmentation of the government affects both the need for and possibility to engage in opportunistic policy cycles. An analysis of local public debt data for 296 Flemish municipalities provides empirical support for this contention.