The niche of non-governmental organizations in a changing landscape of citizens’ preferences

We investigate nongovernment public service providers within an agent-based computational model of bureaucrats, citizens, and elected officials. Our analysis explores the relationships of all four types of agents in a single, dynamic model. Specifically, we focus on the delivery of public goods to the citizenry through elected officials and bureaucrats. In our computational model citizens have diverse preferences for a variety of public goods. Political parties adapt their programs to get elected. Bureaucrats implement the priorities provided by the elected officials, who try to get reelected. Failure to provide the promised public goods affects the satisfaction of the citizens which may lead to the creation of nongovernment service providers, including for-profit firms and non-profit organizations. The model enables us to analyze how well preferences of citizens are met for different assumptions of the strategies of elected officials and bureaucrats. Key-words: local political economy, nongovernmental organizations, preferences, agentbased modeling