Electoral Accountability

In this paper we abstract from the usual gains and costs of decentralization (e.g. preference matching, spillovers and economies of scale). Instead we compare the political accountability of decentralized governments relative to centralized ones when there is a risk of "bad" governance. We study both the selection and incentive effects of accountability. A key aspect of centralization is to make

Elections are instruments of democratic good governance. These empower citizens to formally express their will by choosing between policy alternatives presented by contending candidates and political parties, and hold them accountable through their vote. Nonetheless, poverty and dependence of the voters has the potential to undermine the choices of the electorates through patron-client networks.
This study examines the extent to which electoral politics in rural Pakistan is dominated by clientelism and measures its impact on electoral accountability in the country. Quantitative and qualitative evidence from district Kasur of the Punjab province suggests that electoral politics in rural Pakistan is dominated by clientelism which undermines electoral accountability in the country. Correlational analysis of the three indices of; dependence, clientelistic voting choices and electoral accountability capacity suggests that more dependent a household is the more clientelistic it is in its voting choices and is less able to hold accountable her vote bloc leader or candidate for legislative assembly.

This paper takes advantage of the exogenous phasing of direct elections in districts and applies the double- difference estimator to measure impacts on (i) human development outcomes and (ii) the pattern of public spending and revenue generation at the district level. The analysis reveals that four years after the switch to direct elections, there have been no significant effects on human development outcomes. However, the estimates of the impact of Pilkada on health expenditures at the district level suggest that directly elected district officials may have become more responsive to local needs at least in the area of health. The composition of district expenditures changes considerably during the year and sometimes the year before the elections, shifting toward expenditure categories that allow incumbent district heads running as candidates in the direct elections to “buy” voter support. Electoral reforms did not lead to higher revenue generation from own sources and had no effect...

This article analyzes the role of political scandals at different times of the government’sactivity, with the intention to verify if news of corruption differs in electoral and non-electoral periods. We try to verify in what contexts Argentinean and Brazilian governments are more permeable to political scandals and respond more actively. We consider the electoral schedule and the type of Presidentialism in Argentina and Brazil. We argue that after an accusation of corruption in media, public officials assess risks in order to consider if their reputation were erode by not facing scandals of corruption. During electoral periods politicians fear of punishment from voters through mechanisms of electoral accountability. Finally we say that the majority Presidentialism is less permeable to allegations that coalition one. To corroborate these hypotheses we investigate responses of governments in Argentina (as a case of majoritarian Presidentialism),and in Brazil (as a case of coalitional ...

Are the policy failures of subnational officials reliably punished by voters, or do subnational elections instead pivot around national trends? This study attempts to shed new light on these questions by exploring subnational elections in the Argentine context. Building on a modified version of the referendum-voting model, our analysis suggests that the fate of candidates in both national and subnational elections is shaped by the performance of the incumbent presidential administration. At the same time, however, we also find evidence that voters respond to the policy choices of subnational governments, albeit in ways that attenuate, rather than strengthen, the nexus between policy responsibility and electoral accountability.

This paper shows that elections are good for peace and that politicians ’ fear of losing office is the reason why disputes between democracies are extremely rare. To examine the impact of electoral accountability on military conflicts, we construct a new dataset of executive term limits for a sample of 177 countries over the 1816-2001 period, and combine this information with a large dataset of interstate militarized disputes. In line with previous studies, we find that democracies are much less likely to fight one another than autocracies or mixed pairs of states. However, this “democratic peace ” result does not hold for democracies in which the leaders face binding term limits, which are as conflict prone as autocracies. We also find that disputes involving democracies with term limits are more likely to occur during the executive’s last mandate. To explain these findings, we provide a simple theoretical model

We show that political institutions affect corruption levels. We use audit reports in Brazil to construct new measures of political corruption in local governments and test whether electoral accountability affects the corruption practices of incumbent politicians. We find significantly less corruption in municipalities where mayors can get reelected. Mayors with reelection incentives misappropriate 27 percent fewer resources than mayors without reelection incentives. These effects are more pronounced among municipalities with less access to information and where the likelihood of judicial punishment is lower. Overall our findings suggest that electoral rules that enhance political accountability play a crucial role in constraining politician's corrupt behavior. (JEL D72, K42, O17)

This article analyzes the role of political scandals at different times of the government’sactivity, with the intention to verify if news of corruption differs in electoral and non-electoral periods. We try to verify in what contexts Argentinean and Brazilian governments are more permeable to political scandals and respond more actively. We consider the electoral schedule and the type of Presidentialism in Argentina and Brazil. We argue that after an accusation of corruption in media, public officials assess risks in order to consider if their reputation were erode by not facing scandals of corruption. During electoral periods politicians fear of punishment from voters through mechanisms of electoral accountability. Finally we say that the majority Presidentialism is less permeable to allegations that coalition one. To corroborate these hypotheses we investigate responses of governments in Argentina (as a case of majoritarian Presidentialism),and in Brazil (as a case of coalitional ...

Can elections serve as vector of good public policy in fledgling democracies where electorally persistent elites circumvent institutional safeguards? Examining legislative productivity for each member
of the Philippine House of Representatives from 1992 to 2016, we
argue that while electoral persistence can be short-run welfare enhancing
by inducing legislative attention on particularistic policies, it is
ultimately electoral competition and the prospect of ouster that determine
overall legislative behaviour. Using various measures of electoral
competition, our panel estimates suggest that district incumbents
who faced competitive elections, regardless of political pedigree, are
more likely to work for the passage of their legislative proposals into
legislation. The results lend credence to the disciplining effect of
elections, even in precarious political settings where competition is
between equally persistent political elites. Overall, incumbents who
fought competitive elections are generally more likely to produce laws
as a legislative preoccupation – a commitment they are likely to pursue
even in the presence of institutional and political uncertainties.

To take advantage of their superior access to information, local governments are increasingly entrusted with the provision of public goods. Yet, for decentralization to improve service delivery, the ability of citizens to hold elected officials accountable becomes crucial. While recognized theoretically, quantitative estimates of the gains from electoral accountability remain largely absent. This paper analyzes how electoral accountability affects the performance of a decentralized conditional cash transfer program in Brazil. We show that the program’s reduction of primary school dropout rates was 36 percent higher in municipalities governed by mayors who faced reelection possibilities compared to those with lame-duck mayors. JEL classification: D78, H43, I28, O15

Abstract: In democratic governments committed to the rule of law, the prosecutor must be accountable both to the people and to their laws. The theoretical need for prosecutor accountability, however, meets practical shortcomings in criminal justice systems ...

Previous survey level research on attitudes towards the economy among European voters has tended to focus on the short-term implications of these attitudes, relating them to vote choice or executive popularity. In this paper we seek to examine the relationships between economic assessments and more fundamental aspects of voter attitudes. More concretely, we examine the links between ideology and economic information, arguing that they are interdependent to the exctent that they can be seen to exist within a reciprocal relationship. In the wake of Kramer, we approach this problem from a comparative perspective, and find that the hypothe-sised reciprocal relationship is well supported by the statistical evidence.