Evidence for the irrelevance of irrelevant events

The expectation that voters behave rationally has been challenged through studies suggesting that “irrelevant events” like natural disasters and sports results change voting behavior. We test the effect of irrelevant events by matching candidate-level election results from Irish general (1922–2020) and local elections (1942–2019) with games in the men's Gaelic football and hurling championships, the most popular sports in Ireland. Although Irish citizens care deeply about sports, we fail to find any relationship between match results and support for incumbents or politicians of government parties. These findings hold when applying an “unexpected event during survey design” to two representative surveys. Our results contribute to the literature on political accountability and point to conditional effects of irrelevant events.

Opposition Media, State Censorship, and Political Accountability: Evidence from Chavez’s Venezuela

This study investigates the effects of state censorship in the context of the 2007 government closing of RCTV, a popular opposition television channel in Venezuela. Some parts of the country had access to a second opposition channel, Globovision, while other parts completely lost access to opposition television. The first finding, based upon ratings data, is that viewership fell on the progovernment replacement, following the closing of RCTV, but rose on Globovision in areas with access to the signal. Based upon this switching, the paper investigates whether support for Chavez fell in areas that retained access to opposition television, relative to those that completely lost access. Using three measures, Latinbarometer survey data, electoral returns, and data on protest activity, the second finding is that support for Chavez fell in municipalities that retained access to opposition television, relative to municipalities that lost access to opposition television. Taken together, these two findings suggest that voters switching from censored outlets to uncensored outlets can limit the effectiveness of state censorship.

Liberal Internationalism, Decolonization, and International Accountability at the United Nations: The British Dilemma

Even as policymakers in both the United States and Britain agreed that decolonization should be gradual, the principles and institutions that the Americans advocated undermined the very prospect of the sort of gradual change they claimed to prefer. At the heart of the matter was the notion of political accountability to an international organization. While American policymakers assumed that such accountability would—and should—be established after the Second World War, British policymakers recognized that the mere assent to the principle of international political accountability would lead to the pressure to decolonize more rapidly. American policymakers would constantly reassure their British counterparts that the commitments to international accountability which they had undertaken under American pressure were safely restricted to the moral and legal realm and would therefore not undermine their ability to govern in the colonies. But policymakers in Britain accurately predicted that once admitted in principle, the moral commitment to political accountability to the international community would become a political weapon against the colonial powers. The American conviction—which stemmed from a thoroughgoing liberal internationalism—that the colonial powers could persuade the anti-colonial powers to moderate their stance and sympathize with the dilemmas of decolonization was refuted time and again.

Term Limits and Environmental Treaty Commitments

How does political accountability in democracies affect leaders’ incentives for international cooperation? We consider how term limits should affect international environmental agreement (IEA) participation. Pursuing environmental protection as a public good coincides with the political survival incentives of democratic leaders. Term limits decouple leaders’ policy priorities from their political survival incentives, discouraging IEA participation. However, prioritization of environmental concerns increases with economic development. As such, the effect of term limits on IEA participation should be strongest in rich democracies. We test these arguments using data from the International Environmental Agreements Database from 1970 to 2011. Democratic leaders, particularly in rich democracies, sign fewer IEAs when freed from the reelection motive. We also consider the potential that term limits could favor IEA participation if doing so aligns with a leader's preferences. This potential should be greatest in poor democracies where citizens place less emphasis on environmental protection, though we find little evidence for this expectation. The findings have important implications for understanding the determinants of IEA participation and the political accountability–international cooperation relationship. Whereas some argue that electoral incentives that cause leaders to favor present over future concerns undermine environmental cooperation, our results suggest that political accountability in democracies can promote treaty participation.

Lebanese political accountability is a faint prospect

Headline LEBANON: Political accountability is a faint prospect

Avoidance, ambiguity, alternation: Position blurring strategies in multidimensional party competition

In a multidimensional environment, parties may have compelling incentives to obscure their preferences on select issues. This study contributes to a growing literature on position blurring by demonstrating how party leaders purposively create uncertainty about where their party stands on the issue of European integration. By doing so, it theoretically and empirically disentangles the cause of position blurring—parties’ strategic behavior—from its intended political outcome. The analysis of survey and manifesto data across 14 Western European countries (1999–2019) confirms that three distinct strategies—avoidance, ambiguity, and alternation—all increase expert uncertainty about a party's position. This finding is then unpacked by examining for whom avoidance is particularly effective. This study has important implications for our understanding of party strategy, democratic representation, and political accountability.

Impact of re-election on development in India: a comparative analysis of leading and lagging states

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine political accountability to the voter in India by studying re-election patterns in 14 major states categorized as leading and lagging during the period 1952–2015. Design/methodology/approach This study has computed a state-wise re-election index by taking the ratio of the number of constituencies exhibiting re-election in four consecutive terms during 1952–1999 to the total number of constituencies in the state. The time-invariant re-election index as of the year 1999 is used to estimate the impact of the re-election on per capita state income during 2001–2015. This paper has used the correlated random effects estimation procedure that considers the state-specific unobserved factors while using a time-invariant regressor to ascertain the impact of re-election. Findings This study finds that persistent re-election does not seem to lead to better development outcomes. When this study computes the re-election index by excluding constituencies that are underdeveloped both in the economic and social spheres, this paper finds the asymmetric impact of re-election for the leading and the lagging states. The findings suggest that historical institutions in the laggings states could be driving the empirical results. The empirical findings are corroborated by the relatively poor availability of basic amenities in constituencies exhibiting persistent re-election when compared to the state average. Practical implications The findings suggest that the provision of re-election without term limits may need to be revisited in the lagging states for better political accountability. Originality/value First, the authors study the pattern of constituency-wise re-election to compute state-wise re-election index to capture persistent re-election. Second, the authors assess the development status of a constituency by mapping it to the development indicators of the district in which the constituency is located. This paper considers both economic as well social indicators of development. Third, the time-invariant nature of the re-election index helps to address reverse causality while studying the impact of re-election on development. Fourth, the authors use a novel econometric methodology to study the impact of the re-election on development given the time-invariant characteristic of the re-election index.

Follow-The-Money: Policy-Level Engagements for Girl Child STEM Education in Northern Nigeria

In Nigeria in the 1950s, a person with a liberal arts education was considered a truly educated person. The liberal arts education was for personal development and deployment in the administrative services and teaching but had little commercial scientific application. Admittedly, this era of generalists is dying, giving way for a new paradigm. The new paradigm is the knowledge economy. Now, to be an effective player in the knowledge economy, an individual needs specialised knowledge and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education is the building block. In Northern Nigeria, there is a problem - STEM is still generally seen as courses for the men while the women are encouraged by their parents to pursue careers in the liberal arts when they did not drop out. The resultant effect is a reinforcement of gender inequality and economic disparities which negates the spirit of Sustainable Development Goals. Disturbed by the trend, Connected Development with support from development partners, is using her innovative Follow-The-Money project to pilot grassroots-based advocacy aimed against STEM-inclined stereotypes and out-of-school syndrome - which disproportionately affects the girl child. The campaign methodology involves surveying and profiling dilapidated schools in rural communities and peri-urban areas in Northern Nigeria and conveying findings to political authorities and policymakers for intervention. While political accountability must be extracted from authorities, we engage social/informal institutions to build up interest for girl child education. Follow The Money is challenging stereotypes, social norms and cultural practices impeding the uptake of STEM education and also strengthening informal structures to demand political accountability. Through high-level engagements, results show unprecedented reconstruction and rehabilitation of dilapidated schools and enrolments are soaring. Undoubtedly, the proportion of girls taking up interests in STEM has improved remarkably. Follow-The-Money is now scaling-up across the 36 states in Nigeria.

Democratic Accountability in Times of Crisis: Executive Power, Fiscal Policy and COVID-19

We examine the performance of four parliamentary democracies – Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK – as they confront the need for a substantial fiscal policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research covers the period 1 January 2020 to 30 June 2020. We score the four countries on nine components of democratic accountability using Mark Philp's distinction between formal and political accountability. We conclude, first, that to appreciate the nuanced character of accountability, it is important to have a set of operational measures that identify specific aspects of performance. Second, preparation is important for resilience: countries that demonstrated strong accountability before the pandemic maintained relatively high accountability standards during the crisis; weaker accountability mechanisms showed less resistance to the expanding power of the executive. Finally, it is easier to be accountable when outcomes are favourable, but favourable outcomes include adherence to the norms of democratic accountability.

Labor Informality and Economic Political Accountability of Executive Incumbents in Latin America

Many governments across Latin America have been unable to reduce stubbornly high levels of labor informality and the lack of legal and social protection put informal workers in a situation of continuous economic peril and uncertainty. This paper argues that the inherent characteristics and conditions of informal workers act as noisy signals that diminish the effect that economic perceptions have on evaluations of the incumbent executive across Latin American countries. The empirical results support the argument, suggesting that the effect of perceptions of the economy on evaluations of the incumbent is lower among informal relative to formal workers. Furthermore, this dynamic is prevalent in urban areas where there is a more evident differentiation between formal and informal workers, and disappears in rural areas, where both formal and informal workers face challenges that produce noisy signals and diminish the effect of perceptions of the economy on evaluations of the incumbent.