Rational choice models predict that political competition and political participation have opposite e¤ects on the size of government. We investigate these theories using data from a panel of 18 Latin American countries during the 20th century. Our research builds evidence for the prediction that reforms enhancing political competition tend to limit the size of government, while reforms increasing political participation tend to increase the size of government. Furthermore, we …nd that reforms which remove literacy requirements from franchise laws are associated with governmental expansion, while changes in women's su¤rage laws have no impact on the size of government. Our …ndings demonstrate the empirical relevance of the distinction between political competition and participation.

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Do democratic electoral systems strengthen a country's outcomes in education? Does the degree of inclusiveness of a democratic system matter? This article offers evidence that political competition and the inclusion of marginalized populations in electoral systems transformed education over an 80-year period in Latin America. It finds that democracy has a positive effect on education enrollment and illustrates how current work on democracy and development has overlooked important democratic subcomponents, specifically, who votes and how. Our results deepen current work on democracy, operationalizing the impact of electoral expansion in comparative analysis and showing how democracies respond to specific education demands.

No abstract

Rational choice models predict that political competition and political participation have opposite e¤ects on the size of government. We investigate these theories using data from a panel of 18 Latin American countries during the 20th century. Our research builds evidence for the prediction that reforms enhancing political competition tend to limit the size of government, while reforms increasing political participation tend to increase the size of government. Furthermore, we …nd that reforms which remove literacy requirements from franchise laws are associated with governmental expansion, while changes in women's su¤rage laws have no impact on the size of government. Our …ndings demonstrate the empirical relevance of the distinction between political competition and participation.