The Effect of Sustained Transparency on Electoral Accountability

• In Event: Voting and Accountability

Abstract

While transparency is assumed to strengthen political accountability, initiatives disseminating politician performance information
prior to elections have reported mixed results. In this paper, we argue that sustained transparency--defined as the dissemination of politician performance information early, regularly and predictably throughout the term--is critical. Theoretically, we show that sustained transparency can affect electoral outcomes via constituents' vote choices, but also through incumbents' decisions of running for reelection, party leaders' nominations, and challengers' entry choices. We further show theoretically that transparency's effects on those multiple pathways is conditional on the quality of incumbent performance but also on the relative strength of her party. We test the predictions of our model using a field experiment involving 396 subnational constituencies in Uganda. Our findings are broadly consistent with our pre-registered hypotheses, suggesting that sustained transparency can improve electoral accountability, even in the context of an electoral authoritarian regime.

Authors

• Guy Grossman, University of Pennsylvania

• Kristin Grace Michelitch, Vanderbilt University

• Carlo Prato, Columbia University