correlated with an increase in public school expenditure, suggesting that formal electoral mechanisms can have an effect on service provision.<sup>103</sup> Such findings have likewise been found in the health sector, where enfranchisement of the poor has been shown to have a significant effect on health provision and outcomes. Fujiwara (2015) finds that the rise of electronic voting in Brazil resulted in the de-facto enfranchisement of poor and less educated voters, which had the secondary effect of increasing health care provision, including services for prenatal and newborn health.<sup>104</sup> Similarly, in terms of health outcomes, Kudamatsu (2012) utilizes surveys conducted in 28 African countries to compare infant survival rates before and after the emergence of democracy in these countries and finds that infant mortality declined after democratization,<sup>105</sup> which suggests the effect that formal democratic accountability channels may have on improving health outcomes, particularly in a developing country context.

# **_Gaps in the Literature_**

While the theoretical literature reviewed above provides an understanding of how the concepts of OGD, transparency, accountability and service delivery are defined—and how they relate to larger theoretical concepts and debates—the empirical literature that supports a relationship between these ideas is slightly less complete. As noted above, existing case studies are often aspirational or speculative in nature, and do not provide sufficiently rigorous evidence that OGD inputs translate into accountability or service delivery outcomes. Moreover, the situation-specificity of these cases provides limited external validity for other contexts. A final drawback to this literature is a paucity of analysis of the proximate conditions in place— that is, defining what is necessary and sufficient from a political economy perspective—to ensure that OGD has its intended impacts.

Likewise, with respect to the empirical literature, numerous studies have been completed—some using sophisticated large-n experimental and quasi-experimental designs—however, few have been able to link Open Data, and OGD in particular, to changes in levels of government accountability or the provision and outcomes of health and education services. Rather, the literature available focuses mainly on the effects of other types of transparency and accountability initiatives—such as community score cards, participatory budgeting, and social audits—and not OGD itself. As is the case with such granular quantitative analysis, many studies focus on particular countries and regions at particular moments in time, which again, reduces their comparability to other contexts.

# **III. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK**

In an attempt to answer the question posed above, this research will evaluate four different propositions— or premises—that can be extrapolated from the literature, including previous theoretical and empirical contributions on transparency, accountability, and service delivery. As described below, this research will also test the political economy “conditions” that are necessary and/or sufficient for the purported relationships to hold—including the role played by the larger information-availability environment (i.e. “publicity” condition) and formal citizen voice (i.e. “political agency” condition) as well as government capacity (i.e. “public sector management” condition) and informal social accountability channels (i.e. “client power” condition).

> 103 C. K. Carruthers & M. H. Wanamaker, "Municipal Housekeeping: The Impact of Women's Suffrage on Public Education," Journal of Human Resources, vol 50(4) (2015) p. 837-872.

> 104 T. Fujiwara, “Voting Technology, Political Responsiveness, and Infant Health: Evidence from Brazil.” Econometrica 83 (2) (2015) p. 423–64.

> 105 M. Kudamatsu, “Has Democratization Reduced Infant Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa? Evidence from Micro Data.” Journal of the European Economic Association 10 (6) (2012) p. 1294–317.

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