Accountability Flashcards
Define Vertical accountability
the role of voters in holding public officials accountable via elections
Define Horizontal accountability
the role of public institutions in holding public officials accountable e.g. court systems which can overrule corrupt decisions
Define Social accountability
communities and civic groups can act as a intermediary of voters and solve collective issues
Explain the principle agent model of vertical accountability
- A politician (agents) would like to be able to make credible promises to voters (principles) in exchange for votes
- Problem with this contract is that it is not credible, as once voted for candidates don’t have to fulfil promises
- These electoral “contracts” are not credible for two reasons
Misaligned incentives – Politicians and voters have different preferences
Incomplete Information – The Politicians performance was not fully known - These reasons lead to the outcomes which differs from those of the voters (agency slack) which results in a commitment problem
- This reverse equilibrium leads to voters now having no incentive to believe promises and politicians have no incentive to keep promises
- So voters never re-elect politicians and politicians steal as much as they can
Outline 2 ways in which we can address agency shock
- Selection process – finding politicians with aligned incentive
- Sanctioning – voting for politicians that keep their promises
How does strong and weak selection mechanisms impact voters and politicians behaviour
What did Ferraz & Finan (2008, 2011) find out about the effectiveness of sanctioning measures in dealing with agency shift. READING
- All municipalities of Brazil are audited and are done so randomly
- Searching if expenditure is accurate, a reasonable measure of corruption
- Looked at how these audits impacted how people vote for corrupt politicians or not
- Corrupt mayors are no less likely to be re-elected than non-corrupt mayors
- Which shows that the misaligned incentives and information’s are a problem as people are unaware that their politicians are corrupt
- Very corrupt mayors are more likely to not get re-elected if they had the pre-election audits
- A politician who is term limited does not seem to care about them being corrupt as not a lot can happen to them
- However the sanctioning measures do seem to work for first term mayors who are on average less corrupt than second term mayors
- Sanctioning measures shift corruption and selection measures also work as when transparency increase less likely to get corrupt politicians elected
- Politicians tend to spend the most money right before an election, this is a logic of low information
- As the politicians want everyone to know that you have done something
Explain how Klasnja (2005) supports the idea of an incumbency disadvantage
- Mayors salary in Romania is dependent on the population of the towns
- So those who have a higher salary are less likely to commit corruption as they do not need to the extra money
- However there is a visible incumbent disadvantage for the mayors who don’t earn that much, as they are more likley to be corrupt in order to earn more but this would come at a cost of not being re-elected
What explains strong and weak accountability mechanisms?
- Information Problems: when voters are poorly informed about politicians behaviour or qualification, sanctioning and selection mechanisms become weaker
- Open and competitive elections; when politicians can limit competition or voting, both sanctioning and selection are ineffective
- Demographic diversity; If there are strong ethnic and religious lines within voting with party and identity being closely aligned people find it difficult to vote
- Credibility; When politicians have a reputation for credible promises sanctioning measures are the most effective
What did Ofosu (2019) find out about how a competitive election impacts politicians performance
- Found that 20% more of constituency development funds were used in high observation areas
- Strong evidence that competitive elections are better for policy
What did Feyzioglu et al (1998) find about government spending
governments receiving foreign aid targeted for education are likely to offset the funds by reducing their own financing of education
What does Keefer & Khemai (2005) find about accountabilty - Information
READING
- Information constraints reduce citizens ability to hold politicians accountable and encourage politicians to cater to special interests
- Imperfect information about individual politicians’ contributions to social service improvements can distort incentives
o Because of the poor populations disadvantage in terms of limited mobility, illiteracy and underdeveloped media for mass communication more likely to suffer from a lack of information - Politicians get some credit for easy-to-observe buildings and take jobs but little to no credit for the quality of services available
What does Keefer & Khemai (2005) find about accountabilty - Clientilist Governments
READING
- Clientist Governments – in low credibility environments, elections would thus have little meaning and politicians would never authorise narrow targeted expenditures
- Evidence supports the notion that clientelist governments have a stringer than average preference for targeted infrastructure provides, are more corrupt than average and underprovide education
o Keefer (2000a) – in young democracies political competitors, especially political parties are less likely to have built up reputations through repeated electoral cycles
o Therefore, political competitors in young democracies are therefore less likely to be able to make credible promises to all their voters and are more likely to rely on clientelist promises
What does Keefer & Khemai (2005) find about accountability - Decentralisation
READING
- Two types of decentralisations are often seen as responses to inadequate central governments
o Decentralisation of responsibilities for the provision of local public goods, to locally elected village and municipal governments
o Greater autonomy of decision-making for service providers, combined with greater participations of citizens through community-based organisations
