Political Connections, Allocation of Development Projects, And Voting Pattern in the Faisalabad District

Abstract

Development related funding is critical for the long-term growth of any country, but the allocation of funds between politicians and different areas can vary due to various factors and one important factor is the connections of politicians with those who approve or allocate these funds. This paper attempts to determine whether the strength of political connections impacts the allocation of development schemes across politicians in the Faisalabad district of Punjab. Some of the questions we answer are: Do politicians favor their own constituents with higher budget or more popular development projects? Does the allocation of development funds impact the decisions of voters in elections? Also, are there any differences in the popularity of projects, budget of projects and popularity of projects approved by the local government as compared to district and provincial government? Data on developmental schemes from the Faisalabad district has been used to answer these questions. The data is from 2010-2016 with a total of 6900 development schemes and covers the 8 towns, 11 national assembly constituencies and 22 provincial constituencies of the Faisalabad district. The results show that the connections of politicians play very important role in the allocation of the development projects. The high budget projects are approved by the district and provincial government whereas the most popular projects are approved by TMA’s and least popular by provincial government. Further we find that the voters are myopic and the budget of project and popularity of project executed by the politician impact the votes.