Institutional constraints, citizen expectations and local-level accountability

• In Event: Local Politics in Developing Countries: Experiencing and Engaging with the State

Abstract

How does the institutional environment impact whether and how ordinary citizens engage in politics to hold their local public officials accountable? Much recent research has focused on the conditions – such as improved access to performance information – under which voters will punish poor performing politicians. But we know much less about what explains why voters may be reluctant to give good performers a second chance in office. Nor does much research integrate the reality that voters’ strategies to keep politicians in line are not limited to voting in re-elections, but rather, and particularly at the local level and in more rural settings, voters may have more sustained and ongoing contact with mayors through which they exert influence and oversight. Overall, what institutional features are necessary at the local-level for these types of accountability-generating voting and non-voting political behavior to occur? And how do citizens’ views on politicians and the state impact their political behavior in terms of pushing for greater accountability? The paper advances a theory that specific institutional constraints, first, inhibit voters’ interest in and ability to use electoral accountability to hold their elected officials accountable, and second, make it more likely that instead citizens will engage in oversight with the state in non-electoral ways. Applied to the particular setting of mayoral politics in Peru, the paper tests the theory by drawing on an original household survey with a survey experiment, as well as original quantitative datasets and qualitative interviews. Overall, the paper advances our understanding of accountability in local-level politics, particularly how citizens view their local government institutions and how weak institutional contexts impact how they choose – or not - to engage to push local politicians to perform better.

Author

• Julie Anne Weaver, Harvard University