Empirical studies have shown that government responsiveness and accountability to ensure equal distribution of public goods and avoid elite capture is related to the availability of information and general levels of awareness among the local population. This situation has welfare consequences.įirst, elite capture of public resources by local elites can be relatively lessened by the presence of media to balance the asymmetry of information. Be it centralized or decentralized government, there is a risk of ineffective public resource delivery involved, where part of the local population will receive more than the rest of the local population. It is in this intermediary stage where instances of elite capture are most common. According to the World Bank, development assistance is vulnerable to manipulation or hijack by elites, independently of the form that the assistance may take, because such aid it requires governmental or private agency to ensure transfer to households. This last option has been criticized because the citizens’ ability and skills to actually implement programs may be weaker than that of local leaders. Attempts to reduce elite capture in decentralized governments range from going back to a heavily centralized planner to providing citizens with funds to initiate projects. Local governments are even more vulnerable to capture by local elites than national governments. Failure can occur when particular subgroups of the community are able to mobilize resources to further their own self-interest at the expense of the broader community. By yielding power to smaller units, money should be more efficiently distributed, but local governments are more vulnerable to pressure groups. However, despite the theoretical predictions, the outcomes of many development projects in decentralized governments have not met these expectations. On the other hand, theory predicts that when people are involved in governing and have representation in decision making, public spending is supposed to be more efficient, more equitable and more sustainable. A centralized government often lacks knowledge and might be subject of lobbying, leaving certain territories unattended. Elite capture in decentralization įor long it was thought that creating decentralized governments would avoid the limitations of a single planner in society. In this context, as long as there is elite capture, the welfare impact will not be Pareto Optimal nor equitable. This causes a biased distribution of a public good or a service, resulting a situation wherein certain segments of the population experience reduced access to these public goods. This causes a siphoning of resources by elite middlemen through legal practices such as noncompetitive tender of contracts, excessive pricing and overcharging, which result in fewer and fewer proportion of a government project's budget being spent on the declared mission. This form of corruption is differentiated from outright criminal corruption such as embezzlement, misappropriation, or other diversion of funds by a public official.Įlite capture is related to information asymmetry, inefficient regulation or inefficient allocation of resources. This specific form of corruption occurs when elites use public funds, originally intended to be invested in services that benefit the larger population, to fund projects that would only benefit them. Elites are groups of individuals who, because of self-ratifying factors such as social class, asset ownership, religious affiliations, political power, historic discrimination among social groups, political party affiliation, or economic position, have decision-making power in processes of public concern. ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Įlite capture is a form of corruption whereby public resources are biased for the benefit of a few individuals of superior social status in detriment to the welfare of the larger population. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page.
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