Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of contributors
- 1 Citizen–politician linkages: an introduction
- 2 Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? The evolution of political clientelism in Africa
- 3 Monopoly and monitoring: an approach to political clientelism
- 4 Counting heads: a theory of voter and elite behavior in patronage democracies
- 5 Explaining changing patterns of party–voter linkages in India
- 6 Politics in the middle: mediating relationships between the citizens and the state in rural North India
- 7 Rethinking economics and institutions: the voter's dilemma and democratic accountability
- 8 Clientelism and portfolio diversification: a model of electoral investment with applications to Mexico
- 9 From populism to clientelism? The transformation of labor-based party linkages in Latin America
- 10 Correlates of clientelism: political economy, politicized ethnicity, and post-communist transition
- 11 Political institutions and linkage strategies
- 12 Clientelism in Japan: the importance and limits of institutional explanations
- 13 The demise of clientelism in affluent capitalist democracies
- 14 A research agenda for the study of citizen–politician linkages and democratic accountability
- References
- Index
7 - Rethinking economics and institutions: the voter's dilemma and democratic accountability
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of contributors
- 1 Citizen–politician linkages: an introduction
- 2 Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? The evolution of political clientelism in Africa
- 3 Monopoly and monitoring: an approach to political clientelism
- 4 Counting heads: a theory of voter and elite behavior in patronage democracies
- 5 Explaining changing patterns of party–voter linkages in India
- 6 Politics in the middle: mediating relationships between the citizens and the state in rural North India
- 7 Rethinking economics and institutions: the voter's dilemma and democratic accountability
- 8 Clientelism and portfolio diversification: a model of electoral investment with applications to Mexico
- 9 From populism to clientelism? The transformation of labor-based party linkages in Latin America
- 10 Correlates of clientelism: political economy, politicized ethnicity, and post-communist transition
- 11 Political institutions and linkage strategies
- 12 Clientelism in Japan: the importance and limits of institutional explanations
- 13 The demise of clientelism in affluent capitalist democracies
- 14 A research agenda for the study of citizen–politician linkages and democratic accountability
- References
- Index
Summary
What are the key features of delegation and accountability that structure the relationship between voters and their elected representatives? Can we construct a general theory that can account for variation in patterns of linkage and levels of accountability across democracies? In this chapter I take a step toward such a general theory by considering how the collective nature of electoral accountability confronts voters with a critical collective action problem, what I call “the voter's dilemma.” A close examination of the delegation relationship between voters and their elected representative reveals that voters face a collective action problem akin to a prisoner's dilemma in delegating to politicians to provide collective goods. I argue that this voter's dilemma is the central causal factor driving voters' choice for either clientelistic or programmatic goods. The voter's dilemma highlights how the strategic context created by collective accountability can compel voters of all income levels to relinquish their statutory authority to pass judgment on overall policy in return for a quid pro quo. The theory thus provides a parsimonious general explanation for the widely varying efficacy of the electoral connection across democracies.
In the second half of the chapter, I integrate the voter's dilemma with the new institutionalism. The voter's dilemma explains whether direct, clientelistic linkages, or indirect linkages based on the delivery of some package of national and local collective goods will predominate in a given polity.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Patrons, Clients and PoliciesPatterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition, pp. 159 - 181Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
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