Power and the Vote
Elections and Electricity in the Developing World

Who gets electricity in the developing world? Power and the Vote offers a deeply political answer tested against new data from satellites.

Brian Min (Author)

9781107525382, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 September 2015

211 pages, 40 b/w illus. 24 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 1 cm, 0.37 kg

'Using satellite imagery and a combination of national and local data from across India, Min analyses the distribution of electricity and other public goods across that country, which he argues has been distorted by political and electoral motivations.' Survival: Global Politics and Strategy

How do developing states decide who gets access to public goods like electricity, water, and education? Power and the Vote breaks new ground by showing that the provision of seemingly universal public goods is intricately shaped by electoral priorities. In doing so, this book introduces new methods using high-resolution satellite imagery to study the distribution of electricity across and within the developing world. Combining cross-national evidence with detailed sub-national analysis and village-level data from India, Power and the Vote affirms the power of electoral incentives in shaping the distribution of public goods and challenges the view that democracy is a luxury of the rich with little relevance to the world's poor.

1. Introduction
2. Public goods, elections, and the poor
3. Power and the state
4. Measuring electricity from space
5. Democracy and light
6. Lighting the poor
7. Electrifying India
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB]