Citizen response to local service provision: Emerging democratic accountability in decentralized West Africa?

A central tenet of democratic theory is that the threat of electoral sanction holds politicians accountable to citizen preferences. But do voters who receive social service investments evaluate the state more positively and does this translate into electoral rewards for incumbents? I examine this question in decentralized Senegal, where locally elected governments are responsible for providing basic social services. Pairing village-level data on local service delivery with local electoral results and public opinion surveys, I present evidence that receiving new public goods investments does improve citizen evaluations of their local governments, but that voters are more likely to reward incumbent mayors than they are incumbent parties. I argue that this is a rational strategy for voters in new democracies with weak party institutionalization and suggests that party systems are an important scope condition for how voters try to hold their governments accountable in emerging democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]