Information Dissemination and Active Citizenship: Experimental Evidence from Uganda

Abstract

Information constraints are seen as serious impediments to the ability of citizens to hold politicians accountable. In this thesis, I study an intervention in Uganda where scorecards describing the performance of local politicians are disseminated to the constituencies of randomly selected local politicians. I test the effects of the scorecard dissemination on citizens’ participation and demand for improved public services. I find that the information has no effect on the number of citizens reporting service delivery problems and that the effect is negative on the number citizens attending community meetings and speaking at community meetings called by local governments. By studying a unique set of participation outcomes, the thesis contributes to the scarce literature investigating the link between information about politicians and citizen participation in forms other than voting.