An exploratory analysis of local government failure in South Africa

Abstract

This exploratory paper uses public choice theory to assess the susceptibility of South African municipal councils to government failure using the taxonomy of local government failure developed by Dollery and Wallis (2001) and extended by Byrnes and Dollery (2002). The paper also seeks to expand this typology of local government failure by including an additional category termed 'administrative incapacity and forced integration'. Various kinds of empirical evidence are used to evaluate the performance of South African municipalities within the confines of the expanded taxonomy. The evidence seems to show that, in the contemporary South African institutional milieu at least, municipalities are more prone to government failure than higher levels of government in terms of 'voter apathy', 'councillor capture', 'iron triangles', 'fiscal illusion', 'political entrepreneurship', and 'administrative incapacity and forced integration'. These tentative findings are broadly in line with the results obtained by Byrnes and Dollery (2002) on local government failure in the Australian state of New South Wales.