Abstract
Long-lasting democratic institutions have been found to matter for the universal provision of reliable electricity. In this article we revisit this finding, suggesting that the effect of democracy on electricity provision is moderated by the quality of institutions shaping the implementation of public policies. We test the hypothesis positing the interaction effect between democracy and corruption using cross-national data on the share of population living in unlit areas. The results show that democracy is associated with a higher electrification rate only in low-corrupt contexts. When corruption is widespread, democratic experience is not correlated with higher rates of electrification. These findings suggest that the effect of democratic institutions is conditional on the quality of the institutions that shape policy implementation.
Highlights
Electricity is essential to social and economic development
This paper has investigated the interdependent effects of democratic experience and corruption in the public administration on electricity provision
The aim has been to contribute to our understanding of how experience with a certain regime type and the quality of implementing institutions in the political system together affect the prerequisites for successful electrification, which is Sustainable Development Goal number seven under the United Nations’ framework (United Nations, 2015b)
Summary
Electricity is essential to social and economic development. For example, it has been described as the “lifeblood of the modern economy” (Min, 2015, 2), as most of the economic activities that we see in the world today are dependent upon a steady supply of electricity and a stable system to distribute it. We theorize that there are strong reasons to expect that democratic rules provide politicians with strong incentives to deliver public services—in this case electricity—to citizens, their actual ability to provide such goods is dependent on the access to reasonably well-functioning administrative apparatus. This leads us to estimate the effect of democracy on electricity access conditional on the level of corruption in the public administration. We present our results, followed by a discussion and some concluding remarks
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