PREFACE
Growing up in the Dominican Republic (DR), a country where the state often lacks competent ways to provide public goods and services, I watched my fellow citizens individually “adjust” to inefficiencies, rather than collectively demanding or trying to affect change. It was (and still is) common to see households—often with minimal economic capacity to pay—seek private solutions to public problems: since electricity is not reliable, let’s buy generators; since public schools’ quality is extremely low, let’s send our children to private schools; since public transportation is a disaster, let’s buy private vehicles and use them at all times; and the list goes on. In sum, the common scenario has been one of people acting independently to create a decent private version of what an acceptable provisioning of public goods and services should be. I cannot say that I have never seen groups of people acting together as a strong, united front to request credible change from the authorities, but such actions were usually related to costs (e.g., protests because gas or food prices have increased) rather than the mediocre provision of public goods and services. As a result, most, if not all, improvements that have finally come about have been the result of delayed political action, often conveniently provided near election times for the purpose of gaining votes, and not due to civic pressure.