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The Politics of Building Municipal Institutional Effectiveness in Chile

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Jennifer Pribble
Jennifer Pribble*
Affiliation:
University of Richmond. jpribble@richmond.edu
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Abstract

Institutional effectiveness varies widely across Chile's 346 municipalities. Whereas some local governments seem to work with impeccable precision, others struggle to deliver basic services and welfare benefits to the population. This article seeks to explain why such variation exists; it combines quantitative and qualitative evidence to show how mayors can play a crucial role in building institutional effectiveness. The study focuses on the administration of Chile's municipal job placement offices. It finds that municipalities where mayors have held office for three or more consecutive terms exhibit stronger institutional capacity than those localities where electoral turnover is the norm. The analysis, therefore, underscores an interesting finding: electoral competition has the potential both to improve and to undermine administrative capacity.

Type
Research
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , Fall 2015 , pp. 100 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 2015

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