Why Quality Matters : Rebuilding Trustworthy Local Government in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone
A broad consensus has emerged among practitioners and researchers that failure to build accountable and legitimate institutions is a critical risk factor associated with vicious circles of repeated violence. Despite this consensus, very few studies...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/04/16200029/quality-matters-rebuilding-trustworthy-local-government-post-conflict-sierra-leone http://hdl.handle.net/10986/6024 |
| Summary: | A broad consensus has emerged among
practitioners and researchers that failure to build
accountable and legitimate institutions is a critical risk
factor associated with vicious circles of repeated violence.
Despite this consensus, very few studies have tested the
extent to which local government performance and
decentralized service provision shape citizens' beliefs
toward political authorities. This paper contributes to fill
this gap by examining the antecedents of trustworthy local
government authorities in a post-conflict and fragile
setting, Sierra Leone. Taking advantage of a unique
longitudinal survey, the National Public Services, it
examines the impact of sub-national variation in local
government performance on citizens' beliefs about the
trustworthiness of local government authorities. To test the
hypothesis, it uses multilevel models to exploit variation
over time and within and across sub-national units in Sierra
Leone. The results suggest that improvements in the quality
of decentralized service delivery, as well as perceptions of
local councillors' honesty, are positively associated
with perceptions of local government officials as
trustworthy political authorities. These findings speak to
the possibility that local service provision can play a role
in shaping the relationships between citizens and the state
and in overcoming the root causes of fragility and conflict. |
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