This dissertation seeks to understand the differences in the responsiveness of local bureaucracy towards citizens' claims. Since the state has a monopoly on service provision, citizens have to engage with a bureaucrat to access their entitlements. However, within the territory of a state, in some places, citizens experience an attentive state quick to address their demands, while in other parts, the same state can be unresponsive and apathetic. What explains these spatial disparities in state responsiveness? The dominant explanations for variation in the quality of citizen-state interactions examine how political processes, community characteristics, and the quality of social institutions influence bureaucratic responsiveness towards citizens' claims. The three essays in this dissertation focus on the state and its role in producing local differences in the quality of citizen-state interactions.
The first essay looks at a policy decision taken by the state to modernize its interface with citizens by outsourcing the citizen applications to digital intermediaries. The digital intermediaries formally sanctioned by the bureaucracy were tasked with assisting citizens in filing online applications. The digital intermediaries replaced the informal intermediaries who lacked formal sanction of the state and helped citizens with approvals of paper-based applications. The essay shows that the expansion of the network of state-managed intermediaries overtime does not improve bureaucratic responsiveness. I argue that intermediaries selected by the state to modernize the citizen application process, unlike informal intermediaries, have limited incentives to compete in the market for citizen applications. The essay sheds light on citizens' reliance on informal intermediaries in settings with limited bureaucratic accountability. It explores how formalization of the citizen-state interface and disruption of informal mediation arrangements can limit the effectiveness of the state's attempts to modernize its interface with citizens.
The second essay delves into how the preferences of bureaucrats over being relocated across different jurisdictions create differences in state presence and impacts state responsiveness. Relocating bureaucrats allows the state to allocate personnel resources across its territory. I show that the strong preferences of bureaucrats over relocation result in attempts to circumvent organizational directives placing bureaucrats in locations that do not align with their preferences. The lobbying efforts by bureaucrats increase the duration for which positions at the local level lie vacant, and higher vacancies reduce state responsiveness towards citizens' claims. Further, due to the over-representation of bureaucrats from more developed regions, the vacancies accumulate in jurisdictions with lower economic development. This essay examines how the preferences of bureaucrats and their representation within the bureaucracy can play a substantial role in shaping state presence and have a negative impact on citizen-state interactions.
The final essay in this dissertation focuses on top-down monitoring of agents by a centralized principal and its impact on bureaucratic responsiveness at the local level. The essay seeks to understand the circumstances under which a top-down monitoring effort can improve bureaucratic responsiveness. The limited empirical examination of the use of information technology by the state in low and middle-income countries to monitor the performance of mid-level managers points towards mixed results. If local bureaucracy shirks responsibility or is unresponsive to citizens, top-down monitoring can improve state responsiveness. However, in capacity-constrained contexts, top-down monitoring in itself may not improve bureaucratic performance. I juxtapose the bureaucracy's response to an increase in the volume of citizen claims before and after top-down monitoring is implemented. I find that top-down monitoring improves state responsiveness. Further, the gains can be observed across both high capacity and low capacity jurisdictions. The essay shows that reducing field-level discretion through top-down monitoring can improve bureaucratic performance even in low state capacity settings.
