Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Political Science

Committee Chair

John Kilwein

Committee Co-Chair

Herschel Thomas

Committee Member

Erik Herron

Committee Member

Tamba Mbayo

Committee Member

Samuel Workman

Abstract

My dissertation is a collection of three essays that assess the nature of government attention in young democracies. Theories of the policy process focus on policy dynamics in Western democracies with little application to non-Western democracies. This dissertation bridges this gap by studying policy dynamics in the neopatrimonial democracies of Ghana and South Africa. The dissertation sheds light on how the unique features of young democracies (centralization, clientelism, and powerful executives) shape government attention, responsiveness to public opinion, and the importance of elections in policy change. The first essay examines the dynamics of government attention and how the neopatrimonial nature of these democracies impacts stability and change in government agenda-setting. I theorize that government attention in Ghana and South Africa will be more punctuated than attention in democratic regimes but less punctuated than what has been found in autocratic regimes. I use legislative hearings and budget allocations as a measure of government attention. I find that Ghana meets my expectations for both budgets and hearings. South Africa on the other hand has budget punctuations that are higher than those found in both autocracies and democracies and legislative punctuations that are within the range found in Western democracies. The second essay looks at the role of elections in policy change in a clientelist context where government policy is used to reward supporters and expand winning coalitions. I predict that when elections are competitive, governments will pay more attention to the provision of public goods in election years. I also predict that in election years there will be targeted distribution of goods and services to groups or individuals. I find that competitive elections do increase government's attention to the provision of public goods in election years. My qualitative analysis of policy language in South Africa in election years does not indicate an increased use of distributive language in election years. The last essay examines the extent to which government policy priorities align with the priorities of the public. While I expect limited congruence between government priorities and the priorities of the public, I find moderate levels of congruence between legislative priorities and public priorities in both Ghana and South Africa. Ultimately, this dissertation contributes to the literature on agenda dynamics by assessing the impacts of democratic institutions in Africa, a context that has received little attention in the policy agendas literature.

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