Political Competition vs. Political Participation: Effects on Government's Size

Abstract

From a theoretical standpoint, there are reasons to believe that political competition and political participation might have opposite effects on the size of government. We investigate empirically this possibility using data from a panel of 104 countries from 1960. We find that reforms enhancing political competition tend to limit the size of government, while reforms increasing political participation tend to increase the size of government. These results are robust for the global sample and across different regions. Controlling for the existence and enforcement of compulsory voting laws does not affect our main results. Our findings reinforce the empirical relevance of the distinction between political competition and participation.