This study used the nation-wide policy of randomly allocating village council headships to women to identify the impact of female political leadership on the governance of projects implemented under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India.
Using primary survey data, the paper finds more programme inefficiencies and leakages in village councils reserved for women heads: political and administrative inexperience make such councils more vulnerable to bureaucratic capture. When using a panel of audit reports, governance improves as female leaders accumulate experience. These results suggest that female political leadership may generate gains in governance but only after the initial, gendered disadvantages recede. The findings highlight capacity building as necessary for bolstering the effectiveness of political quotas for women.
Key findings:
- The results suggest that households in female reserved GPs are more likely to have experienced and suffered from corruption and sub-standard administration of the public program. This conclusion holds both for implementation of those aspects of the program for which the GP is entirely responsible and for those where it shares responsibilities with other program functionaries. The findings from the audit data suggest that irregularities are more likely to be prevalent in the initial years of program implementation in GPs reserved for women. The overall analysis, thus, confirms that the possibility of poor governance or plain corrupt practices may be higher in female reserved GPs.
- These results can be attributed to the lack of prior political and administrative experience of women sarpanchs. Female sarpanchs perform better, even relative to unreserved sarpanchs on some program processes, if they have prior political experience. Substantive backing for this explanation is obtained from the audit data analysis which shows that as experience accumulates, governance improves. The explanation is also supported by results which suggest that mandal level officers (MPDOs and APOs) are more likely to be held responsible for malfeasance in the program in GPs reserved for a woman sarpanch.
- While there is no effect of experience on reducing bureaucratic capture of power per se, it is somewhat ameliorated in GPs where reserved sarpanchs have had prior political experience. The unpacking of the time dimension of governance gains and setbacks associated with female political reservations also helps to reconcile the two opposing stands in the literature highlighted in the introduction: both stands are valid but should allow for a crucial time dimension nuance. Moreover, given the relatively higher levels of gender parity and female literacy in Andhra Pradesh as opposed to other parts of India, the estimates of the effect of female leadership on governance and corruption are likely to be lower bounds.
- The findings, therefore, do not suggest that female leaders are more likely to be intrinsically corrupt or to misgovern public programs, but point instead to the need for capacity building and training of women leaders. It is similarly apparent that political reservations need to be credibly backed up to improve governance outcomes since elected female leaders often require assistance in the day-to-day execution of duties, are less educated and are less likely to have prior political experience. Lack of adequate administrative support and training in the utilization of financial resources by grass roots institutions may seriously undermine the effectiveness of public programs and of affirmative action policies in developing countries.