Do Municipal Governments Favor Richer Citizens? Unequal Responsiveness at the Local Level in Brazil and South Africa
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Abstract
This paper examines unequal responsiveness in Brazil and South Africa—two of the most economically unequal countries in the world. While studies on unequal responsiveness typically focus on the national level, we extend this research to the local level, where disparities in public service provision directly affect citizens’ daily lives, particularly in middle-income countries. Building on a classic conceptualization of the components of responsiveness, we distinguish between policy responsiveness—the extent to which government spending priorities align with citizens’ preferences—and allocation responsiveness—the extent to which spending is geographically distributed according to citizens’ socioeconomic needs. In Study 1, we analyze whether municipal spending across policy areas follows the stated priorities of richer versus poorer citizens, using locally representative surveys and municipal budget data by policy area. In Study 2, we assess whether richer or poorer neighborhoods receive more municipal resources, using spatially disaggregated spending data from South African metropolitan municipalities and geocoded public construction projects in Brazilian cities. Across both countries, we find both types of unequal responsiveness. Our findings contribute empirically by extending the unequal responsiveness literature to local politics in middle-income democracies, and conceptually by distinguishing between policy and allocation responsiveness. More broadly, the paper bridges the unequal responsiveness and distributive politics literatures.
Keywords
political inequality, unequal responsiveness, distributive politics, local politics, Brazil, South Africa