7: Accountability and Representation Flashcards
definition of political representation
5 components (Stanford)
- some party is representing something/someone
- some party is being represented
- something is being represented (opinions, perspectives, interests, discourses, etc.)
- something represented about the person being represented - setting within which the activity of representation is taking place (political context)
- e.g. parliament - something is being left out (opinions, interests, perspectives, etc.)
what type of representation is instantiated in modern democratic constitutions?
trustee representation
art 38 of German fundamental law and art 27 of the French constitution
2 forms of autonomy that are at the core of political representation
- the representative’s autonomy is guaranteed by the constitution
- illegality of mandates
- constitution enshrines that the representative has some degree of autonomy in decision-making - autonomy of the represented is guaranteed by their freedom to choose on what grounds to evaluate the representative
- elections provide the represented with the opportunity to hold their representatives to account
definition of responsiveness
government is responsive if it adopts policies signalled as preferred by citizens
not the same thing as representation since a trustee can follow their conscience and conclude that the majority of citizens wants something but does something else based on other information
definition of mandate responsiveness
public officials are mandate responsive if they pursue policies they advocated in election campaigns (responsive to the mandate)
close to delegate representation
definition of formal accountability
the entity doing the representing is viewed as something that has to act on behalf of the represented and the represented are empowered to sanction/reward the entity based on their activities or performance
elections institutionalise formal accountability since elections allow the represented to reward/sanction representatives by reelecting or failing to reelect them
definition of real accountability
interactions through institutions of formal accountability that actually induce the representative to act in the represented’s true best interests
whose preferences do elected representatives take into account? (theory and empirical evidence)
preferences of the group that really mattered to the election of these representatives
reelection oriented politicians target policies to benefit citizens whose votes are responsive to policy choices - this responsiveness from citizens will be tied to a low level of ideological/ethnic/partisan attachments (if you don’t care about this, you vote for whoever implements actual policy change), single issue voters (those that only care about one policy), districting (swing states), low voter turnout (groups that don’t tend to turnout to vote), concentrated interests
model from Bueno de Mesquita
- 2 candidates, 3 groups of voters (those affiliated with candidate a, those affiliated with candidate b and independents)
- groups are not majorities on their own but 2 groups are
- essentially, independents are the ones that are targeted by candidates since their votes matter the most because they will vote based on the platform/policy and not the candidate themselves
Miller (Q JE 2008) based on women’s suffrage, political responsiveness and child survival in US history
- women unresponsive since they could not vote but there was a move when women started to be able to vote in the late 19th and early 20th century which would have made them more responsive (amendment in 1920)
- Massachusetts had a referendum on whether women should have the right to vote but only 4% of women turned out even though most women wanted the right and so they lost
- big concern of women was healthcare spending for children, hospital spending, health and sanitation, so the moment they have the right to vote, politicians ramped up this spending to gain their vote
Fujiwara (2015) on voting technology, political responsiveness and infant health in Brazil
- before the introduction of electronic voting, ballots of low-education and poor voters were often uncounted because it was too complicated and 20% of the population were illiterate
- introducing of electronic voting in 1998 did not change turnout but changed valid votes
- left-wing parties benefitted primarily because poor voters tend to vote on the left
- this had results on healthcare spending
evidence that elections tend on average to elect more competent leaders and to provide them with incentives to work hard on behalf of the citizens
on average, voters more likely to reelect incumbents who generate good policy outcomes
elections create incentives for effort
evidence from term limits
- in US/France, presidents can only be elected for 2 terms so if you’re in the second term and cannot be elected, no motivation to work hard and you might just want to pass your own mandate
de Janvry et al. (2011)
- Brazil’s decentralised government means that there are large sums of resources from the federal government to provide public services and the decision on spending these is made by elected mayors
- mayors are limited to two terms
- in 2001, there was a new conditional cash transfer program meant to keep children in school and it was up to local officials to target funds to minimise dropout
- exogenously, some mayors were term limited in 2001 and others weren’t so we can analyse if mayors who can be reelected did a better job
disentangling two effects, Alt et al. (JoP, 2011)
- variation with respect to term limits for state governors in the US
- disentangle incentive and competence effects so for the incentive effect, compare a 1st term eligible governor to a 1st term ineligible governor and for the competence effect, compare a 1st term ineligible governor and a 2nd term ineligible
- governments that can be reelected paid lower interest rates on public debt than governments who cannot, spend less, etc.
- results basically say that sometimes elections elect people who do a better job but sometimes those people cannot be reelected so on average, having elections means we retain people who are better and elections also make politicians work harder
what is pandering? (evidence)
setting where elections create incentives to choose a wrong policy in order to appear competent to voters
voters do not directly have feedback on the policy before election so incentives to do what is popular end up being much greater even when you know what the right decision is
idea that politicians are more likely to listen to popular beliefs the closer they get to the election
evidence on pandering, Canes-Wrone et al. (AJPS, 2004)
- for incumbents, responsiveness depends on whether presidents are more responsive to public opinion when the next election is imminent and the effect of presidential popularity (since it is non-monotonic)
- in these cases, politicians that truly believe in a policy over the popular policy will invest in that one right after the election rather than before it
- presidents with average approval ratings are more likely to adopt policy positions congruent with public opinion
- presidents with bad popularity ratings find no point in following public opinion (Hollande and labour market reform at the end of his term)
- presidents with approval ratings significantly above or below average have the greatest propensity to take unpopular positions
