Political competition versus electoral participation: effects on government’s size

From a theoretical standpoint, there are reasons to believe that political competition and electoral participation might have opposite effects on the size of government. We investigate empirically this possibility using data from a panel of 104 countries from 1960. We find that reforms enhancing political competition tend to limit the size of government, while reforms increasing electoral participation tend to increase the size of government. These results are robust for the global sample and across different regions. Our findings reinforce the empirical relevance of the distinction between political competition and participation. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2012