Amount Awarded: $20,000
According to U.N. projections, 86% of global population growth over the next two decades will occur in cities of low and middle-income countries (Montgomery, 2008, p. 762). Meanwhile, over the last four decades, many low- and middle-income countries decentralized the provision of basic goods and services to municipal governments (United Cities and Local Governments, 2008). The trends underscore the importance of understanding the politics of local public service delivery in the Global South, if we are to ensure that populations have access to basic health, education, and infrastructure services. In this pilot project, we will examine variation in the politics of public service delivery in cities of different sizes in India. In particular, we examine the relationship between city size and policy priorities, and the political drivers of these differences. Peder Sather Center funding will enable us to collect and harmonize administrative data that will allow us to examine these relationships, as well as conduct qualitative fieldwork to improve our understanding of the patterns in the quantitative data.