Political Engagement Project

This project examines how citizens can hold policy actors accountable for public service delivery outside of election cycles. Using the lens of public schooling, this study will examine the effectiveness of different types of non-electoral participation citizens can leverage to improve educational outcomes in public schools. The project focuses on the public service delivery of education as previous work has shown that in spite of citizens’ concerns about the quality of this public service, learning outcomes in public schools continue to lag behind private school counterparts in Pakistan.

Through a randomised control trial, the project intends to test several interventions based on the community mobilisation of citizens in rural Punjab and the effectiveness of subsequent non-electoral participation in improving educational outcomes in public schools in these areas.

Initial research has highlighted two key dimensions of citizen participation, which this project will focus on: (i) policy actor type – whether citizens approach a political or bureaucratic actor
(ii) citizen gender – whether the citizens participating are (primarily) women or men. The project examines impacts on citizen political awareness and action , policy actor response , and public school /educational outcomes.