“Can you hear me now?”: Experimental evidence on improving public service delivery through non-electoral citizen participation"

We examine how citizens can hold policy actors accountable for public service delivery. We do so through a randomized control trial that introduces community-based mobilization interventions to improve public schooling in Pakistan. Based on our pilot, we vary these interventions by: (i) policy actor type–whether citizens approach a bureaucrat directly or exert pressure through a political route and (ii) citizen gender–whether the citizens participating are women or men. In addition, for each we also include a variation in which citizens’ interaction with the policy actor is more directly supported and facilitated by an NGO. We examine impacts on citizen political awareness and action, policy actor response, and public school/educational outcomes.