Satisfaction with Local Government of Rich and Poor People - Research Paper Example

Rich people living in urban areas are more satisfied with local government than poor people living under the same government Introduction Comparative urban politics is the part of political science that deals with the politics of cities. This area of study is gaining popularity with the rapidly growing urbanization all over the world. The study of comparative urban politics throws light on the process of urbanization from different angles, like the political structure in cities, suburbs and villages, etc. The study of comparative urban politics is essential as it assists scholars to uncover the reasons behind the political, economic and social change at the urban level. The study of comparative urban politics is necessary for the fulfillment of many aims, such as to maintain sustainability in cities and to meet the challenges of urbanization worldwide. Moreover, it is significant for the comprehension of applicability, impartiality, competence and the right of governance at the local level. If we look at geographical statistics, we will get to know the fact that the number of cities is far more than the number countries in the world. This reality highlights the importance of comparative urban politics in our curriculum. In order to manage cities, good urban politics is as important as any other area of politics. There is a direct relation between the strength of cities and the economic development of the country. The more prosperous the cities are, the greater will be the economic development of the country. The direct mathematical relation between the growth of cities and the country is stated as: ↑ Good urban politics → ↑Economic development of the Country Good urban politics is essential as cities are a composition of various economic classes. According to scholars, the rich population of cities is more benefitted and satisfied with the local government as compared to the poor. In this research paper, I will test whether this point of view is true, by critically analyzing whether people living in urban areas are more content than the poor people living under the same government. This can be done by comparing the cities of London and Rio de Janeiro from different perspectives. In this hypothesis, people (rich or poor) are dependent variables, while the local government is independent variable. This is because the satisfaction level of people depends on the policies of the local government. The more the level of contentment, the greater will be the power and influence of the local government. Literature Review “Comparative urban governance holds tremendous potential for assisting scholars in uncovering the casual mechanisms and drivers of political, economic and social change at the urban level.” (Pal. A, 2008, p.74). With the maturity of mankind, the people, the state, and the politics are debatable issues in the culture of the current century. “Serving public as a government employee, be it federal, state, municipal, appointed, elected or hired, has its ups and downs in the public eye, depending on issues such as the current state of politics and the economy.” (Wilson. S, 2009, p. 39). “The anonymous writer in the Salisbury Journal argued that eighteenth- century towns served as the most reliable barometers of the political views, sensibilities and grievances of “the people”, and therefore contributed to the “sense of the nation” (Wilson. K, 1998, p. 3). “Our notion has been correspondingly liberated from its high level strait-jackets to include a broad range of social, cultural and symbolic practices that challenged, as well as, maintained the parameters of power.” (Wilson. K, 1998, p. 4). “Stakeholders in government have a very special effect on operations and in many ways, the quality of service and work life. The first stakeholder that comes to mind is the public, with industry a close second; however, legislative bodies, government agencies and consumer advocate groups also all have strong pulls. Servicing such divergent groups therefore means to look at issues with a motive of bringing improvement to them.” (Wilson. S, 2009, p. 39). “In most societies of the modern world, planners and elected politicians have generally accepted a norm that defines their role in the public decision-making process. The planners serve as technical rational experts who make use of information and knowledge to design public actions towards larger societal goals. The elected politicians, on the other hand, act as representatives of the people and serve to define these larger goals. But due to the nature of the institutional relation between the planning bureaucracy and the political class, where one is the boss of the other, there exists a danger of undue political dependence of the planning bureaucracy, to the extent, that it might begin to prove detrimental to the good of the public.” (Pal. A, 2008, p.83). With the development of communication, technology and transportation, the people living in urban areas are more prosperous than the people living in rural or less developed areas of the country. This is because government policies affect the developed areas more quickly than the undeveloped ones. “Economic, demographic and imperial expansion, the solidification of the national market, the swelling ranks of the middling sorts and the developments in communications, transportation, building and press have all contributed to the emergence of a distinctive provincial culture that have significantly altered the face and texture of urban society.” (Wilson. K, 1998, p. 11). The satisfaction and dissatisfaction of citizens is linked to the increase or decrease in taxes, package of services and the quality of different kinds of public services. (Lyons et al, 1992, p. 5). “Some of the most important and enduring theoretical propositions concerning citizen responses of dissatisfaction with their local tax and service packages can be found again in the long standing debate, between the advocates of the public choice approach and the traditional civic reform model for organizing the local government” (Lyons et al, 1992, p. 6). In fact, we have incomplete knowledge about the sources of citizen satisfaction. “Several explanations have been examined in literature, including some based on the individual- level demographics (e.g., race and income) and some on the attitudinal (e.g. political efficacy) factors. Other focus on the systemic jurisdiction-level (e.g., consolidated/fragmented government structure) factors (DeHoog et al, 1990, pp. 807-08). There are three explanations of citizen satisfaction with urban services: individual-level explanation, jurisdictional-level explanation and city and neighborhood-specific explanations, “If one is interested in making inferences about only the individual-level determinants of satisfaction, as beck and his collogues were doing in 1987, then the use of city-specific survey is appropriate. But if one is interested in accounting for all three sets of determinants; such approach is inadequate as there is simply too little variance in the jurisdictional-level factors to aid in controlling their impact. Instead, we need a design that allows us to disentangle the two systematic influences on evaluation, that is, the city- services-individual and the jurisdictional-level influences both, while controlling the community level determinants” (DeHoog et al, 1990, pp. 814). “Despite the centrality of citizen evaluations of local services in the urban politics research, our understanding of the sources and the consequences of these evaluations under varying structural and institutional arrangements remain quite fragmentary and incomplete for two reasons” (Lyons et al, 1992, p. 6). The first reason is, “the research designs employed by urban scholars do not provide an analytical base of sufficient strength to enable us to examine many of the competing propositions simultaneously” (Lyons et al, 1992, p. 6). “Second, and perhaps more important, the field remains disjointed because we lack an integrated theoretical account of these phenomenon.” (Lyons et al, 1992, p. 7) Methods As the hypothesis cannot be tested by studying all cities of the world, so I chose two cities i.e. London and Rio de Janeiro. I selected these two cities because both are capitals and this will help me to test my hypothesis easily. The level of satisfaction of people is measured by the availability of facilitation/public utilities. Since, statistics about all public utilities cannot be stated, so I conducted this research by employing six public utilities: health, education and population in case of Rio de Janeiro and working labor force, construction of houses and population in the case of London. Figure 1 shows data about the four boroughs of London; Islington and Wandsworth are less wealthy areas than Westminster Kensington and Chelsea. Table: 1 London Poor Areas Rich Areas Measures of Satisfaction Wandsworth (2003-4) Islington (2003-4) Westminster (2003-4) Kensington and Chelsea(2003-4) Population(Thousands) 274 180 222 174 Working age Population (%) 2.8 5.1 3.1 2.5 Construction of houses (numbers) 842 283 842 269 Similarly, data for the four areas of Rio de Janeiro is displayed in figure: 2, where Vassouras and Rio Bonito are less developed areas as compared to Angra dos Reis and Volta Redonda. Table: 2 Rio de Janeiro Poor Areas Rich Areas Measures of Satisfaction Vassouras 2009 Rio Bonito 2009 Angra dos Reis 2009 Volta Redonda 2009 Population 34.259 Persons 55.051 persons 168.664 persons 261.403 persons Education 1.269 high school enrollment 2.342 high school enrollment 7.401 high school enrollment 12.831 high school enrollment Health Services 25 SUS Health institutions 35 SUS Health institutions 58 SUS Health institutions 94 SUS Health institutions I collected data from articles, books, news accounts, historical material, archival materials and statistics that are available in library and the internet. To measure the satisfaction level of people of London, I have selected three variables: population, working labor force and the construction of houses. On the other hand, to measure the satisfaction level of the people of Rio de Janeiro, I have selected the following variables: population, education, health services. I chose these variables because they are significant for our understanding of comparative urban politics. I will measure the variables of my hypothesis quantitatively. The satisfaction level of the people is a dependant variable and the local government is an independent variable, which will be later analyzed under the light of the above stated empirical data. Findings By studying empirical data stated in the Tables 1 and 2, I observed that the satisfaction level of people is not necessarily connected to the availability of public utilities provided by the local government. Although, people of developed and less developed areas respond equally to the facilities, yet local governments are more concerned about the provision of facilities to the comparatively economically stronger areas of the cities. This is because these areas are usually the hubs of international trade, as they have good infrastructure and better access to technology. On the other hands, poor areas are deprived of latest technology and outstanding infrastructure, either due to poor economical background or slow response to the public utilities. Statistics in figure: 1 show that it is not always necessary that the less developed areas of a city respond slowly to government. For example, the working age population in Islington is 5.1%, which is greater than other areas. Moreover, The construction of houses in Wandsworth is equal to that of Westminster. The hypothesis that rich people are more satisfied with the local government than poor people cannot be verified by the data shown in figure: 1. According to the hypothesis, the level of satisfaction is directly proportional to the availability of public services, like health, education, etc; the more the availability of services, the greater will be the satisfaction level of people. But, this is not always true, for instance, the percentage of working age population and the number of houses constructed in Islington and Wandsworth are almost equal to that of Westminster Kensington and Chelsea, although these are comparatively wealthier areas of London. On the contrary, this hypothesis holds true in case of Brazilian city, Rio de Janeiro. Vassouras and Rio Bonito are poor areas, so the level of education and health services is low as compared to Angra dos Reis and Volta Redonda. Moreover, the population of Vassouras and Rio Bonito is also less than that of Angra dos Reis and Volta Redonda. Thus, it shows that it is not necessarily true that the satisfaction level of riches is associated with the local government. Government pays more attention towards densely populated areas, because the majority of population living in these areas is aware of their rights .This is because of a good economy and high literacy rate. And if the elected government fails to improve the condition of people by implementing sound economic and social policies, then the people stop voting them again. “As with their corporate counterparts, government managers face many challenges each day. Unique to governments and their actions, the fundamental theory is that governments are more accountable for their actions than those of corporations” (Wilson. S, 2009, p. 40). Analysis The reason behind my finding is a natural phenomenon. It is a very obvious fact that rich people are able to utilize public utilities better, due to the availability of finance. On the other hand, poor people cannot afford it due to the lack of financial resources. For example, the health services provided by local government are within the reach of rich people, whilst many poor people die because they cannot afford high charges of doctors. Similarly, the availability of education facilitates the rich segment of societies, as the poor segments is more busy in earning a decent livelihood for themselves. Although, the above stated data verifies my hypothesis, but it is not always true. If rich people are more satisfied with the government, then why is there a high level of corruption within their class? Likewise, the level of corruption in the rich segment of society is low as they are already prosperous and content. This means that the level of satisfaction is not solely associated with the availability of public services. The concept of satisfaction is vague as there is a combination of determinants. In this analysis, the local government was an independent variable and the satisfaction level of people depended on it. The independent variable played a significant role in this analysis because the satisfaction level of people could not be derived in the absence of government policies. Good government policies mean the availability of more public utilities, which in turn, elevates the satisfaction level of people belonging to various classes. This direct relationship between the dependent and independent variable can be written as: ↑ Level government Policies (Independent Variable) → Satisfaction level of people (dependant variable) ↑ Conclusions In this paper, I observed that rich people are more satisfied with the local government as compared to poor people. I chose this hypothesis because it is closely related to comparative urban politics; the study of politics within and outside cities. I collected the demographic statistical data of different areas of two capital cities; London and Rio de Janeiro, from various online and offline sources like online libraries, databases and the college library. I wanted to assess the satisfaction level of people by using the availability of public utilities as a measuring tool. There are numerous public utilities like health, education, employment, houses, etc. And in order to make my analysis easy, I chose two public utilities i.e. education and health for comparing different areas of the Brazilian city Rio de Janeiro. Then, I made a comparison between the availability of public utilities in various poor and rich areas of these cities. I found out that the people of rich areas were enjoying more public utilities than that of the poor. Although, the data of Brazilian city Rio de Janeiro validated my hypothesis but this validity is not authentic. This is because satisfaction is a qualitative concept that cannot be solely assessed with the help of numerical values. For example, when I compared the statistical data of London, I found out that both areas are equally responsive to public services, which means that an equal level of satisfaction can be attained by people under the same government. My study has many loopholes due to the vagueness of the concept of satisfaction and the presence of many other factors, like corruption, etc. My findings can be refined by adding more public utilities. This is because the concept of satisfaction is very wide and is not confined to the availability of public utilities. Reference DeHoog et al, (1990). Citizen satisfaction with local governance: A tale of individual, jurisdictional, and city-specific explanations .Journal of politics, vol. 52, no.3. Available at: www.ebscohost.com Lyons et al (1992). The Politics of Dissatisfaction Citizens, Services, and Urban Institutions. M.E. Sharpe. Pal. A (2008).Planning from the Bottom Up: Democratic Decentralization in Action. IOS Press. Wilson. K (1998).The sense of the people: politics, culture, and imperialism in England, 1715-1785.Cambridge University Press. Wilson. S (2009). Government of the People, by the People, for the People... Journal for Quality & Participation. Vol. 32, no.3. 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