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Electoral Accountability

Are Voters Myopic or Looking for Improvement?

·579 字·2 分钟
Polihot 政治行为 Voting Behavior Retrospective Voting Prospective Voting Valence Politics Electoral Accountability
APSR — pp. 1-18 2026-09-01 Original Are Voters Myopic or Looking for Improvement? MARKUS PRIOR, TALBOT M. ANDREWS Abstract Abstract Timing of valence outcomes plays an important role in key theories of electoral choice, and different models place different emphases on past and future outcomes. Whereas sanctioning models consider only retrospective evaluations as an accountability mechanism, selection models hold that voters use past and proposed future conditions to infer the incumbent’s ability to deliver benefits. Drawing on four surveys run on six different samples, we demonstrate that voters prefer improving conditions in both retrospection and prospection. In retrospection, this pattern is difficult to distinguish from overweighting of temporally proximate conditions, which gave rise to the notion of “the myopic voter.” Distinguishing the two processes, we find that people do not ignore early datapoints and reward improving conditions (in both retrospection and prospection). This preference for improvement does not simply reflect an uncritical heuristic for upward trends. People are not universally myopic and many genuinely value improving aggregate conditions retrospectively and prospectively.

Media, Electoral Accountability, and Partisan Polarization

·86 字·1 分钟
Polihot 美国政治 政治行为 Media Electoral Accountability Polarization Partisanship Voting Behavior
JOP — 2026-07-17 Original Media, Electoral Accountability, and Partisan Polarization Daniel J. Moskowitz Abstract （原文未提供摘要） 中文 媒体、选举问责与党派极化 Daniel J. Moskowitz 摘要 原文未提供摘要 关键词 媒体、选举问责、党派极化、政治极化、选民行为、政党认同 DOI: 10.1086/743211 查看原文 →

Bureaucratic Resistance and Policy Inefficiency

·521 字·2 分钟
Polihot 政治经济学 公共行政 Bureaucracy Policy Reform Electoral Accountability Formal Model Public Service Quality
APSR — pp. 1-17 2026-04-07 Original Bureaucratic Resistance and Policy Inefficiency KUN HEO, ELISA WIRSCHING Abstract Poor public service provision creates an electoral vulnerability for incumbent politicians. Under what conditions can bureaucrats exploit this to avoid reforms they dislike? We develop a model of electoral politics in which a politician must decide whether to enact a reform of uncertain value, and a voter evaluates the incumbent’s reform based on post-reform government service quality, which anti-reform bureaucrats can undermine. Bureaucratic resistance for political leverage is most likely to occur when voters are torn between the reform and the status quo. Resistance lowers the informational value of government service for voters and can lead to policy distortions and accountability loss. When reform is moderately popular, resistance leads to policy inefficiency by preventing beneficial reforms due to electoral risks and inducing ineffective reforms by offering bureaucrats as scapegoats. Our model identifies a distinct mechanism of bureaucratic power and its implications for policy and accountability.