Democratization and Political Responsiveness : Evidence from Indonesian Villages

Following democratization, how do elected politicians change the allocation of public resources in response to new voters? This paper studies this political responsiveness following Indonesia’s transition to democracy, exploiting the staggered introduction of elected district heads for identification. By tracking outcomes across local governments, event study estimates compare the allocation of resources with and without an elected politician in office, at the same point in time, within the same broader institutional context. When elected district heads take office, night light growth is 2.6 percentage points greater across villages supporting the winning political party - an effect that’s driven by districts with stronger media presence and political competition in the baseline. These effects, however, are not associated with improvements in local public goods. Disparities in night light growth are more pronounced during village head election years, suggesting that village officials - in addition to voters - are targeted with preferential favors by elected district administrations. Taken together, results suggest that democratization reshapes political responsiveness across new voter constituencies, but may do so through new clientelist systems rather than broader investment in public goods. JEL Codes: H1, H2, H4, H5, H7, O1, P10, R11