Browsing by Author "Schultz, Anna Elisabeth"

How does geographic location affect citizens' abilities to hold leaders responsible? This dissertation addresses this question in three papers in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. In the first, it investigates the relationship between traditional governance and vote buying. In the second, it investigates the role of distance to sub-national capitals in local governments' responsiveness to citizens' needs. In the third, it examines how voter responsiveness declines in distance from national capitals across sixteen african countries. What emerges is a geographically-nuanced representation of the impediments to government responsiveness.