Seminars/Lectures
Gatvol about Kak: Why Politicians in South Africa Fail to Provide Public Services to their Voters
Tue
Nov
12
Clark Gibson
Professor of Political Science, University of California at San Diego
Guest Professor, Keough School of Global Affairs
Advisory Board Member, Kellogg Institute
Millions of South Africans have protested their government’s failure to provide basic services like sanitation, water, and trash removal. Democratically elected municipal governments deliver vastly different levels of these services across the country. What accounts for the difference? Don’t elections matter? In this talk, Gibson will argue that South African mayors supply services based on an electoral strategy that employs their political assets and the demographic composition of their voters. This strategy allows some mayors to win elections.
