The politics of proximity : local redistribution in developed democracies

Over the last few decades, countries across the European Economic Area (EEA) have granted local governments considerable discretion over social policy. This project examines the consequences of these reforms. Drawing on unique data from over 28,000 European local governments, it demonstrates that decentralization has not been accompanied by declining levels of provision, as predicted by extant theories, but rather by significant expansion in the scale and scope of redistributive activity. Explaining this puzzle, the dissertation argues that local government behavior is shaped by the 'politics of proximity', which provides clear incentives for incumbents to invest in redistributive policy for electoral gain. These hypotheses are tested across five empirical chapters, each of which leverages micro-level data, natural experiments, and speech evidence to explore this emerging form of redistributive politics.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Ferwerda, Jeremy

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kathleen Thelen.

• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/101809

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/101809