Data and Code for: Custom Elections and Local Policies: The Case of Canada's First Nations

We examine the effect of community-designed electoral codes on Canadian First Nation communities. Adopting a custom code for local elections allows for changes such as increasing term duration, creating appeal and supervisory bodies, and incorporating traditional governance elements. To reduce biase...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Aragon, Fernando, Kessler, Anke
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: ICPSR - Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.3886/e137961v1
https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/project/137961/version/V1/view
Description
Summary:We examine the effect of community-designed electoral codes on Canadian First Nation communities. Adopting a custom code for local elections allows for changes such as increasing term duration, creating appeal and supervisory bodies, and incorporating traditional governance elements. To reduce biases due to selective opt-in, we exploit the timing of the electoral reform and a rich set of controls. We find that bands using the custom system pay lower remunerations to their chiefs, spend more on education and training and less on band development, and have better waste-water services. These results are consistent with increased accountability and less short-termism.