CONSTITUTIONS, CLEAVAGES AND COORDINATION A SOCIO-INSTITUTIONAL THEORY OF PUBLIC GOODS PROVISION by Joel Sawat Selway A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Political Science) in The University of Michigan 2009 Doctoral Committee: Professor Robert J. Franzese, Co-Chair Associate Professor Allen D. Hicken, Co-Chair Professor Ken Kollman Professor Mark Mizruchi Professor Ashutosh Varshney © Joel Sawat Selway 2009 Devotion To my mother, Savitree (Busparoek) Selway, for her tireless efforts to educate me as a child and the inspiration she left behind. ii Acknowledgements To God who has directed me in this path and blessed me with strength to see it through. To my wife who has selflessly supported me these long years in graduate school. To my children who gave me joy when I came home each day. To my advisor and co-chair, Allen Hicken, who convinced me to come to Michigan, who trained me in field research in Thailand, who tirelessly listened to and engaged my ideas, and who became my life-long friend. To Rob Franzese, my other co-chair and guru of stats, who respected my ideas, provided invaluable insights to help me develop them, and who gave of his time to read over my many drafts. It was in Rob’s Political Economy pro-seminar that I came upon the idea for my dissertation. To Ashutosh Varshney, for whom I have the upmost respect. Bringing me on to his research project in my first year of graduate school and with whom I worked for three years, Ashu inspired the development and ethnicity aspects of my dissertation, and encouraged me through his sincere praise and frank appraisals of my work. To Ken Kollman, a relative late-comer, but invaluable addition to my dissertation committee. For his detailed, candid and quick appraisals of my work, and for his support and encouragement throughout the job-market ordeal. Specifically, for his suggestion to use cross-national public opinion surveys to construct my cross-cuttingness indices. To Mark Mizruchi, the final member of my committee, and to all the other professors and fellow graduate students, for which there are too many to name, who have engaged my ideas at the University of Michigan. To the organizers and participants of the Comparative Workshop for their feedback and discussion of ideas. To all those who helped me in my field research in Thailand: To Thitinan Pongsudhirak and the Institute of Security and International Studies for hosting me at Chulalongkorn University. To all my informants, the secretaries of various big-wigs, the taxi drivers for their political discussions, and anybody who made my research possible, for which there are too many to name. To all those who helped me with my field research in Mauritius: To Norbert for his help in finding me an affordable apartment (& rental car) that was way too big for one person in the lovely seaside town of Flic-en-Flac, and for his introduction to Mauritius. To the University of Mauritius, who let me use their facilities. To Manand Baldawoo for his iii endless supply of contacts, and for knowing just about every politician and bureaucrat I wanted to interview. To all my informants and the various government organizations who helped me locate records/reports that made my research possible in such a short time. To the numerous grantors of fellowships and grants that have helped fund my research: The US Department of Education (Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program); The Center for International Business Education (CIBE), Ross School of Business; Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies (International Research Award); Advanced Study Center (Global Transformations Pre-dissertation Research Award); and the University of Michigan Global Health and Research Training Initiative funded by the Fogarty International Center/Horace Rackham Graduate School. iv Foreword This dissertation is ultimately about human development – improving the quality of life of the billions of people who live in low and middle income countries. This substantive topic has driven my research for the past few years, and will continue to motivate it for the foreseeable future. Undertaking research in “developing” countries has exposed me to the hopes and fears of the rural Thai villager, the Bangkok taxi driver, and the Port Louis factory worker. All these people, male and female, young and old, regardless of ethnicity or religion, yearn to improve their lives, and to develop fully their potential. They long for the social opportunities many of us in the West take for granted. My hope is that this dissertation will contribute to an improvement and ultimate fulfillment of these desires. v Table of Contents Devotion .............................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii Foreword ............................................................................................................................. v List of Figures .................................................................................................................. viii List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction to Dissertation ...................................................................................... 1 1.2 The Puzzle of Public Goods Provision in Developing Democracies ........................ 5 1.3 Health as a Public Good ............................................................................................ 9 1.4 Sociological Theories of Public Goods Provision .................................................. 12 1.5 Institutional Theories of Public Goods Provision ................................................... 19 1.6 Socio-Institutional Theories of Public Goods Provision ........................................ 24 1.7 Effective Constituency Breadth, Party Nationalization, and a Socio-Institutional Theory of Public Goods Provision ................................................................................ 27 1.8 Concluding Remarks to this Introductory Chapter ................................................. 37 1.9 Research Design and Plan of the Dissertation ........................................................ 37 Chapter 2: Measuring Cross-cuttingness .......................................................................... 46 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 46 2.2 Single-Dimension Measures of Ethnic Diversity ................................................... 48 2.3 Conceptualizing Multi-Dimensional Measures of Ethnic Diversity ....................... 51 2.4 Formulating Multi-Dimension Measures of Ethnic Diversity ................................ 56 A Measure of Cross-cuttingness ............................................................................... 59 2.5 An Alternative Measure of Cross-Cuttingness? ..................................................... 61 2.6 Indices of Cross-cuttingness ................................................................................... 64 2.7 Empirical Significance ............................................................................................ 74 2.8 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 77 Chapter 3: Testing the Theory .......................................................................................... 85 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 85 3.2 The Dependent Variable: Allocation Breadth ......................................................... 86 Measuring Electoral Rules: Average Representation Proportion ............................ 89 3.3 Hypotheses .............................................................................................................. 89 3.4 Empirical Model ..................................................................................................... 96 3.5 The Dataset ............................................................................................................. 98 3.6 Results ................................................................................................................... 102 3.7 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 108 Chapter 4: Constituency Breadth in pre-1997 Thailand and Mauritius .......................... 113 4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 113 4.2 Thailand and Mauritius: A Puzzling Comparison ................................................ 114 4.3 Electoral Rules in Thailand and Mauritius ........................................................... 116 4.4 Existing Explanations of Party Nationalization .................................................... 117 4.5 Social Structure in Mauritius ................................................................................ 119 4.6 Effective Constituency Breadth in Mauritius ......................................................