Motivated Reasoning and Political Accountability

• In Event: Behavioral Models of Politics

Abstract

Standard political agency models assume voters form the most accurate beliefs possible about how politicians are performing. However, substantial evidence from political behavior indicates that voters have ``directional motives'' beyond accuracy. These results are often taken as evidence that voters will not be able to hold politicians accountable for their actions. We probe this conclusion by formalizing a model of accountability where voter's form beliefs with both directional and accuracy motives. As long as moderate voters lack strong directional motives, not fully caring about accuracy does not seriously undermine accountability. The picture is less rosy if voters in the middle don't have weak directional motives, but have a ``motivation for moderation'', which makes them less responsive to politician behavior. We then consider extensions about how the media environment interacts with directional motives.

Authors

• Andrew Little, University of California-Berkeley

• Keith E. Schnakenberg, Washington University

• Ian R. Turner, Yale University