Forthcoming, Studies in Comparative International DevelopmentAs cities throughout the developing world grow, they often expand more quickly than the infrastructure and service delivery networks that provide residents with basic necessities such as water and public safety. Why do some cities deliver more effective infrastructure and services in the face of rapid growth than others? Why do some households and communities secure better services than others? Answering these questions requires studying the large, politicized bureaucracies charged with providing urban services, and especially the relationships between frontline workers, agency managers, and citizens in informal settlements. Researchers investigating public service delivery in cities of the Global South, however, have faced acute data scarcity when addressing these themes. The recent emergence of crowd-sourced data offers researchers new means of addressing such questions. In this paper, we draw on our own research on the politics of urban water delivery in India to highlight new types of analysis that are possible using crowd-sourced data, and propose solutions to common pitfalls associated with analyzing it. These insights should be of use for researchers working on a broad range of topics in comparative politics where crowd-sourced data could provide leverage, such as protest politics, conflict processes, public opinion, and law and order.

Can market competition between intermediaries improve the quality of citizen-state interactions? I test this question in the context of a public-private partnership (PPP) policy that created a network of digital intermediaries -individuals authorized by the state to submit online applications on behalf of citizens. I use the overtime and staggered expansion of the intermediary network to identify the relationship between greater competition among digital intermediaries for the share of citizen applications and the quality of citizen-state interactions. I find that having an increased presence of intermediaries in a jurisdiction does not improve the citizen experience in engaging with the state. Why doesn't an increase in the presence of intermediaries positively impact the quality of citizen-state interactions? I argue that digital intermediaries selected by the state have limited incentives to compete in the market for citizen applications. To establish the incentives of digital intermediaries, I juxtapose their functioning against informal intermediaries, who submitted paper-based applications before the state moved citizen applications online. Based on qualitative interviews and data on the transition from paper-based to online applications, I show that the PPP policy by formalizing the citizen-state interface disrupts informal mediation arrangement and limits market competition. The lack of relationship between the expansion of the intermediary network and the quality of citizen-state interactions has

Technological change has always played a role in shaping human progress. From the power loom to the mobile phone, new technologies have continuously influenced how social and economic activities are organized—sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. Agricultural technologies, for example, have increased the efficiency of agricultural production and catalyzed the restructuring of economies (Bustos et al., 2016). At the same time, these innovations have degraded the environment and, in some cases, fueled inequality (Foster and Rosenzweig, 2008; Pingali, 2012). Information technology has played a catalytic role in social development, enabling collective action and inclusive political movements (Enikolopov et al., 2020; Manacorda & Tesei, 2020); yet it has also fueled political violence and perhaps even genocide (Pierskalla & Hollenbach, 2013; Fink, 2018).

This chapter outlines a practical framework for designing scalable technology solutions that solve development challenges. We begin with an overview of the common constraints to sustainable development that often are encountered in the context of poverty. These constraints are based on a large body of research in development economics, political economy, psychology, and other social sciences; and they help to explain why engineering innovations so frequently fail to achieve outcomes when implemented in the real world. In the second part of this chapter, we provide a framework for implementing development engineering projects, consisting of four key activities: innovation, implementation, evaluation, and adaptation. Combining these activities in an iterative (and usually nonlinear) path allows the researcher to anticipate and design around the most common pitfalls associated with “technology for development.”

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