Publication Details
Abstract
Proposals to improve the organizational mechanisms of heritage promotion normally recommend consolidating the number of bodies that hold jurisdiction. This article measures whether the number of bodies is the variable that matters. On a panel of twenty heritage sites in Uzbekistan it separates three constructs: the concentration of budget relative to the promotional capability it purchases, the conversion of resources through administrative and promotional stages, and coordination distance, introduced here as the count of sequential approval steps between the site and the authority able to sanction a promotional action. Budget is distributed almost twice as unequally as capability, with Gini coefficients of 0.453 and 0.244; the five best funded sites hold 55.3 per cent of the money and 38.1 per cent of the capability. Coordination distance discriminates sharply and monotonically: sites one or two steps from the deciding authority reach a mean capability of 5.17 against 1.43 for sites four or five steps away, a ratio of 3.62, and decide in 57.5 days against 144.3. The count of bodies does not discriminate. In the latency equation the number of authorities carries 0.375 with a t statistic of 6.69 alone and collapses to 0.082 with a t statistic of 1.34 once chain length enters, while chain length takes 0.327 at 5.71. Budget and coordination distance both matter for capability, at 0.982 and minus 0.932 with t statistics of 7.27 and minus 7.15, and their ratio yields the article's operational result: removing one coordination step is equivalent to a 158 per cent budget increase. The finding refines veto player theory, which counts actors, by showing that on this panel the sequential length of the approval chain carries the effect and the headcount does not.