When strategic uninformed abstention improves democratic accountability

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-388
Author(s):  
Gento Kato
Keyword(s):  
General Mechanism ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Electoral Outcome ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Voter Information ◽  
Strategic Incentives ◽  
Significant Addition

The recent development in formal studies of elections produced two sets of findings that question the custom to treat voter information as a prerequisite for competent democratic decision-making. One argues that uninformed abstention is an effective strategy to approximate informed electoral outcome, and another suggests that uninformed voters may motivate strategic political elites to improve accountability. This article bridges and extends these two findings by analyzing strategic incentives in the comprehensive voting model with abstention and its connection with electoral accountability. The proposed model offers a contextual explanation for two contrasting logic in uninformed abstention, delegation and discouragement, and shows that uninformed voting with abstention sometimes improves accountability. Furthermore, uninformed abstention is more effective in generating democratically preferred outcome under delegatory than discouraged context. The results make a significant addition to the existing accountability literature by providing a more general mechanism by which less voter information improves policy outcomes.

Insider or Outsider? Grand Corruption and Electoral Accountability

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 415-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Bauhr ◽  
Nicholas Charron
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Political Corruption ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Level Data

While democratic accountability is widely expected to reduce corruption, citizens to a surprisingly large extent opt to forgo their right to protest and voice complaints, and refrain from using their electoral right to punish corrupt politicians. This article examines how grand corruption and elite collusion influence electoral accountability, in particular citizens’ willingness to punish corrupt incumbents. Using new regional-level data across 21 European countries, we provide clear empirical evidence that the level of societal grand corruption in which a voter finds herself systematically affects how she responds to a political corruption scandal. Grand corruption increases loyalty to corrupt politicians, demobilizes the citizenry, and crafts a deep divide between insiders, or potential beneficiaries of the system, and outsiders, left on the sidelines of the distribution of benefits. This explains why outsiders fail to channel their discontent into effective electoral punishment, and thereby how corruption undermines democratic accountability.

Precarious Labor and the Contestation of Policymaking in Japan

2020 ◽  
pp. 90-108
Author(s):  
Saori Shibata
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Precarious Labor ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines the impact of Japan's precarious workers' movement on policymaking in Japan, highlighting three cases through which one can witness the effects of opposition mobilized by Japanese nonregular workers on policy outcomes. In each case, one witnesses political elites being forced to respond to successful mobilizations by precarious workers and organizations that have emerged to represent their interests. These mobilizations have served to attract public attention to the impact that neoliberal government policy has on precarious workers. When faced with criticism and opposition from the public, on each occasion governments were forced either to compromise on policy goals or proposals or to abolish or postpone policies to reduce criticism. While precarious workers were not always able to achieve all of their goals, collectively they have become an important actor that is able to gain concessions or raise significant obstacles to the implementation of neoliberal policy options so that their demands must be accommodated in some way.

Who Does What Work in a Ministerial Office: Politically Appointed Staff and the Descriptive Representation of Women in Australian Political Offices, 1979–2010

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marija Taflaga ◽  
Matthew Kerby
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Career Paths ◽  
Descriptive Representation ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Systematic Data ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Policy Work ◽  
First Time

Women are underrepresented within political institutions, which can (negatively) impact policy outcomes. We examine women’s descriptive representation as politically appointed staff within ministerial offices. Politically appointed staff are now institutionalised into the policy process, so who they are is important. To date, collecting systematic data on political staff has proved impossible. However, for the first time we demonstrate how to build a systematic data set of this previously unobservable population. We use Australian Ministerial Directories (telephone records) from 1979 to 2010 (a method that can notionally be replicated in advanced democratic jurisdictions), to examine political advising careers in a similar manner as elected political elites. We find that work in political offices is divided on gender lines: men undertake more policy work, begin and end their careers in higher status roles and experience greater career progression than women. We find evidence that this negatively impacts women’s representation and their later career paths into parliament.

Party Competition and Coalitional Stability: Evidence from American Local Government

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 1055-1070
Author(s):  
PETER BUCCHIANERI
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Responsible Party

For decades, political scientists have argued that competition is a fundamental component of a responsible party system, such that when one party dominates politics, legislative coalitions destabilize and democratic accountability suffers. In this paper, I evaluate these predictions in an important but largely unexplored legislative environment: American local government. Using an original collection of roll-call records from 151 municipal councils, I show that legislative behavior is more one-dimensional when elections are partisan and the electorate is evenly balanced between the parties. When either of these features is absent, however, elite behavior remains unstructured, with coalitions shifting over time and across issues. These differences across institutional and competitive contexts suggest that partisan elections—and the party organizations that nearly always come with them—are critical for translating electoral insecurity into organized government, raising questions about the capacity for electoral accountability in a growing set of one-party dominant governments across the country.

scholarly journals Explaining Welfare Benefits in the South: A Regional Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 162-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Prysby ◽  
Benjamin Riesser
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Regional Analysis ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
The South ◽  
Congressional Voting ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
The North

This study examines whether the contemporary South can still be considered a meaningful political region by analyzing the political distinctiveness and political cohesion of the region. Political refers to the extent to which the states in the region are different from the rest of the country in relevant political characteristics. Political cohesion refers to the extent to which the states in the region are similar to each other in relevant political characteristics. We find that for presidential and congressional voting, the South is at least as political distinctive now as it was in the 1980s, but the cohesion of the region has declined, at least for presidential voting. The ideological distinctiveness of the South, for both political elites and the mass electorate, also has not diminished since the 1980s, but again the ideological cohesion of the states has declined. Finally, the South remains considerably more conservative that the North when it comes to public policy outcomes, although on this dimension both the distinctiveness and the cohesion of the South are lower now than in the 1980s.

9. Constitutions, Rights, and Judicial Power

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-177
Author(s):  
Alec Stone Sweet
Keyword(s):  
Simple Theory ◽  
Judicial Power ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Constitutional Review ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Constitutional Justice

This chapter focuses on the evolution of systems of constitutional justice since 1787. It first provides an overview of key concepts and definitions, such as constitution, constitutionalism, and rights, before presenting a simple theory of delegation and judicial power. In particular, it explains why political elites would delegate power to constitutional judges, and how to measure the extent of power, or discretion, delegated. It then considers different kinds of constitutions, rights, models of constitutional review, and the main precepts of ‘the new constitutionalism’. It also traces the evolution of constitutional forms and suggests that as constitutional rights and review has diffused around the world, so has the capacity of constitutional judges to influence, and sometimes determine, policy outcomes.

Fiscal Policy Outcomes and Electoral Accountability in American States

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-774 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Lowry ◽  
James E. Alt ◽  
Karen E. Ferree
Keyword(s):  
Fiscal Policy ◽  
The State ◽  
Divided Government ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
State Budget ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Macroeconomic Conditions ◽  
Party Control ◽  
Fiscal Balance

Clear fiscal policy effects appear in American state gubernatorial and legislative elections between 1968 and 1992, independent of the effects of incumbency, coattails, term limits, and macroeconomic conditions. The results show that accountability is generally stronger following a period of unified party control than under divided government. Voter reactions to taxes and spending relative to the state economy are conditional on expectations, which differ for each party. Net of these expectations, Republican gubernatorial candidates lose votes if their party is responsible for unanticipated increases in the size of the state budget; Democrats do not and, indeed, may be rewarded for small increases. Independent of this, the incumbent governor's party is punished in legislative elections for failing to maintain fiscal balance. Taken together, these results show how electoral accountability for fiscal policy outcomes is strong but highly contingent on a complex configuration of party labels, partisan control, expectations, and institutions.

Voting in Open Economies

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Hellwig ◽  
David Samuels
Keyword(s):  
Market Integration ◽  
Open Economies ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Set Covering ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
The Impact

What are the electoral consequences of global market integration? Although recent discussions of politics and markets have much to say on globalization’s implications for policy outcomes, the impact of market integration on representative democracy has received scant attention. This article addresses this omission. We extend the globalization literature to develop two competing hypotheses regarding the influence of open economies on electoral accountability. Predictions are tested using a new data set covering elections from 75 countries over 27 years. Results support a government constraint hypothesis: Exposure to the world economy weakens connections between economic performance and support for political incumbents. By redirecting concerns from the policy implications of globalization and toward its electoral consequences, findings highlight the influence of voter perceptions and of vote-seeking politicians in the politics of globalization.

Review Article: Putting Polarization in Perspective

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc J. Hetherington
Keyword(s):  
Review Article ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
The Public ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Senate ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Mass Attitudes

Scholarly research has demonstrated rather conclusively that American political elites have undergone a marked partisan polarization over the past thirty years. There is less agreement, however, as to whether the American electorate is polarized. This review article evaluates the evidence, causes and consequences of polarization on both the elite and mass levels. A marked difference between the two is found. Elites are polarized by almost any definition, although this state of affairs is quite common historically. In contrast, mass attitudes are now better sorted by party, but generally not polarized. While it is unclear whether this potentially troubling disconnect between centrist mass attitudes and extreme elite preferences has negative policy consequences, it appears that the super-majoritarian nature of the US Senate serves as a bulwark against policy outcomes that are more ideologically extreme than the public would prefer. Moreover, a public more centrist than those who represent it has also at times exerted a moderating influence on recent policies.

scholarly journals Motivated reasoning and democratic accountability

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew T. Little ◽  
Keith Schnakenberg ◽  
Ian R Turner
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Government Performance ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Standard Models ◽  
Fully Bayesian ◽  
The Relationship

Does motivated reasoning harm democratic accountability? Substantial evidence from political behavior research indicates that voters have "directional motives" beyond accuracy, which is often taken as evidence that they are ill-equipped to hold politicians accountable. We develop a model of electoral accountability with voters as motivated reasoners. Directional motives have two effects: (1) divergence -- voters with different preferences hold different beliefs, and (2) desensitization -- the relationship between incumbent performance and voter beliefs is weakened. While motivated reasoning does harm accountability, this is generally driven by desensitized voters rather than polarized partisans with politically motivated divergent beliefs. We also analyze the relationship between government performance and vote shares, showing that while motivated reasoning always weakens this relationship we cannot infer that accountability is also harmed. Finally, we show that our model can be mapped to standard models in which voters are fully Bayesian but have difference preferences or information.

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