Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T13:09:16.017Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Adverse Effects of Sunshine: A Field Experiment on Legislative Transparency in an Authoritarian Assembly

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2012

EDMUND MALESKY ,
PAUL SCHULER  and
ANH TRAN
EDMUND MALESKY*
Affiliation:
Duke University
PAUL SCHULER*
Affiliation:
University of California–San Diego
ANH TRAN*
Affiliation:
Indiana University–Bloomington
*
Edmund Malesky is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Duke University, 326 Perkins Library, Box 90204, Durham, NC 27708 ([email protected]).
Paul Schuler is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science, University of California at San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, 0519, La Jolla, CA, 92093 ([email protected]).
Anh Tran is Assistant Professor, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University at Bloomington, 1315 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47405 ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An influential literature has demonstrated that legislative transparency can improve the performance of parliamentarians in democracies. In a democracy, the incentive for improved performance is created by voters’ responses to newly available information. Building on this work, donor projects have begun to export transparency interventions to authoritarian regimes under the assumption that nongovernmental organizations and the media can substitute for the incentives created by voters. Such interventions, however, are at odds with an emerging literature that argues that authoritarian parliaments primarily serve the role of co-optation and limited power sharing, where complaints can be raised in a manner that does not threaten regime stability. We argue that under these conditions, transparency may have perverse effects, and we test this theory with a randomized experiment on delegate behavior in query sessions in Vietnam, a single-party authoritarian regime. We find no evidence of a direct effect of the transparency treatment on delegate performance; however, further analysis reveals that delegates subjected to high treatment intensity demonstrate robust evidence of curtailed participation and damaged reelection prospects. These results make us cautious about the export of transparency without electoral sanctioning.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 106 , Issue 4 , November 2012 , pp. 762 - 786
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alt, James, Lassen, David, and Skilling, David. 2002. “Fiscal Transparency, Gubernatorial Approval, and the Scale of Government: Evidence from the States.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 2 (3): 230–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banarjee, Abhijit, Green, Donald, Green, Jennifer, and Pande, Rohini. 2010. “Can Voters be Primed to Choose Better Legislators? Experimental Evidence from Rural India.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Barro, Robert. 1973. “The Control of Politicians: An Economic Model.” Public Choice 14 (1): 19–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauhr, Monika, and Grimes, Marcia. 2011. “Seeing the State: The Implications of Transparency for Societal Accountability.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Conference, Chicago.Google Scholar
Besley, Timothy. 2005. “Political Selection.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 19 (Summer): 43–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besley, Timothy, and Burgess, Robin. 2002. “The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 117 (November): 1415–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besley, Timothy, Pande, Rohini, and Rao, Vijayendra. 2006. “Political Selection and the Quality of Government: Evidence from South India.” London School of Economics. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Besley, Timothy, and Prat, Andrea. 2006. “Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability.” American Economic Review 96 (3): 720–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blaydes, Lisa. 2006. “Who Votes in Authoritarian Elections and Why? Determinants of Voter Turnout in Contemporary Egypt.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Boix, Carles, and Svolik, Milan. 2007. “Non-tyrannical Autocracies.” Princeton University. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Boix, Carles, and Svolik, Milan. 2010. “The Foundations of Limited Authoritarian Government: Institutions and Power-sharing in Dictatorships.” University of Illinois. Unpublished manuscript. https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/msvolik/www/research/institutions.pdf (accessed July 22, 2012).Google Scholar
Brunetti, Aymo, and Weder, Beatrice. 2003. “A Free Press is Bad News for Corruption,” Journal of Public Economics 87: 1801–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, James M. 1989. “The Public-choice Perspective.” In Essays on the Political Economy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 13–24.Google Scholar
Canes-Wrone, Brandice, Herron, Michael, and Shotts, Kenneth. 2001. “Leadership and Pandering: A Theory of Executive Policymaking.” American Journal of Political Science 45 (3): 532–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, John. 2010. “Transparency and Legislative Behavior.” Dartmouth College. Working paper.Google Scholar
Chong, Alberto, De La O, Ana, Karlan, Dean, and Wantchekon, Leonard. 2010. “Information Dissemination and Local Governments' Electoral Returns, Evidence from a Field Experiment in Mexico.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Seattle.Google Scholar
Datta, Saugato. 2008. “Television Coverage and Political Voice: Evidence from Parliamentary Question Hour in India.” World Bank Group. SSRN Working Paper http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1281627 (accessed July 22, 2012).Google Scholar
Ferejohn, John. 1986. “Incumbent Performance and Electoral Control.” Public Choice 50 (1–3): 5–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankel, Maurice. 2001. “Freedom of Information: Some International Characteristics.” Campaign for Freedom of Information. cf01.org.uk/pdf/amsterdam.pdf (accessed July 22, 2012).Google Scholar
Gandhi, Jennifer. 2009. Political Institutions under Dictatorship. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gandhi, Jennifer, and Lust-Okar, Ellen. 2009. “Elections under Authoritarianism.” American Review of Political Science 12: 403–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gandhi, Jennifer, and Przeworski, Adam. 2006. “Cooperation, Cooptation, and Rebellion under Dictatorships.” Economics and Politics 18 (1): 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gandhi, Jennifer, and Przeworski, Adam. 2007. “Authoritarian Institutions and the Survival of Autocrats.” Comparative Political Studies 40 (1): 1279–1301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gandhi, Jennifer, and Vreeland, James. 2004. “Political Institutions and Civil War: Unpacking Anocracy.” University of Notre Dame. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Geddes, Barbara. 2006. “Why Parties and Elections in Authoritarian Regimes.” Revised version. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Gehlbach, Scott and Keefer, Philip. 2011. “Investment without Democracy: Ruling-party Institutionalization and Credible Commitment in Autocracies.” Journal of Comparative Economics 39 (2): 123–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golden, Miriam and Picci, Lucio. 2008. “Pork Barrel Politics in Postwar Italy, 1953-1992.” American Journal of Political Science 52 (2): 268–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haber, Stephen. 2006. “Authoriarianism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Political Economy, eds. Weingast, Barry and Wittman, Donald. New York: Oxford University Press, 693–707.Google Scholar
Heng, Russell Hiang-Khng. 1998. “Media in Vietnam and the Structure of Its Management. In Mass Media in Vietnam, ed. Marr, David. Canberra: Australian National University, 27–50.Google Scholar
Heng, Russell Hiang-Khng. 2004. “Civil Society Effectiveness and the Vietnamese State: Despite or Because of the Lack of Autonomy.” In Civil Society in Southeast Asia, ed. Hock Guan, Lee. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 144–66.Google Scholar
Hix, Simon, Hagemann, Sarah, and Frantescu, Doru. 2011. “The Effect of Transparency on Legislative Voting: An Experiment Using Members of the European Parliament.” London School of Economics and Political Science. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Horsley, Jamie. 2008. “China Adopts First Nationwide Open Government Information Regulations,” Yale China Law Center Working Paper. http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/Ch_China_Adopts_1st_OGI_Regulations.pdf (accessed April 6, 2011).Google Scholar
Humphreys, Macartan, and Weinstein, Jeremy. 2007. “Policing Politicians: Citizen Empowerment and Political Accountability in Africa.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Hyde, Susan, and Marinov, Nikolay. 2012. “Which Elections Can Be Lost?” Political Analysis 20 (2): 191–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jamal, Amaney. 2008. Barriers to Democracy: The Other Side of Social Capital in Palestine and the Arab World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Joshi, Anirudh. 2010. “Annex 1: Service Delivery.” Review of Impact and Effectiveness of Transparency and Accountability Initiatives: A Review of the Evidence to Date, eds. McGee, Rosemary and GaventaSussex, John, UK: Institute of Development Studies.Kaufmann, Daniel, and Ana Bellver. 2005. “Transplanting Transparency: Initial Empirics and Policy Applications.” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, Washington DC http://ssrn.com/abstract=808664 (accessed July 22, 2012).Google Scholar
Lassen, David. 2005. “The Effect of Information on Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Natural Experiment.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (1): 103–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latin American Network for Legislative Transparency. 2012. Mission Statement. http://www.transparencialegislativa.org/eng/nosotros.asp (accessed August 22, 2012).Google Scholar
Lindstedt, Catherina, and Naurin, Daniel. 2010. “Transparency Is Not Enough: Making Transparency Effective in Reducing Corruption.”International Political Science Review 31 (3): 301–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lust-Okar, Ellen. 2006. “Elections under Authoritarianism: Preliminary Lessons from Jordan.” Democratization 13 (3): 456–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ma, Liang, and Wu, Jiannan. 2011. “What Drives Fiscal Transparency? Evidence from Provincial Governments in China.” Presented at the 1st Global Conference on Transparency Research, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz. 2007. “Elections under Autocracy and the Strategic Game of Fraud.” Revised version. Presented at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz, and Kricheli, Ruth. 2010. “Political Order and One Party Rule.” Annual Review of Political Science 13: 123–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malesky, Edmund. 2009. “The Vietnam Provincial Competitiveness Index: Measuring Economic Governance for Private Sector Development.” 2009 Final Report, Vietnam Competitiveness Initiative Policy Paper #14. Hanoi: Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and US AID's Vietnam Competitiveness Initiative.Google Scholar
Malesky, Edmund, and Schuler, Paul. 2009. “Paint-by-numbers Democracy: The Stakes, Structure, and Results of the 2007 Vietnamese National Assembly Election.” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 4 (1): 1–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malesky, Edmund, and Schuler, Paul. 2010. “Nodding or Needling: Analyzing Delegate Responsiveness in an Authoritarian Parliament.” American Political Science Review 104 (3): 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malesky, Edmund, and Schuler, Paul. 2011. “The Single-party Dictator's Dilemma: Information in Elections without Opposition.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 36 (4): 491–530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malesky, Edmund, and Taussig, Markus. 2009. “Where Is Credit Due? Legal Institutions, Connections, and the Efficiency of Bank Lending in Vietnam.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 25 (2): 535–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manin, Bernard, Stokes, Susan, and Przeworski, Adam. 1999. “Introduction.” In Democracy, Accountability, and Representation, eds. Przeworski, Adam, Stokes, Susan, and Manin, Bernard. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1–26.Google Scholar
Maskin, Eric and Tirole, Jean. 2004. “The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government.” American Economic Review 94 (1): 1034–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCubbins, Mathew D., and Schwartz, Thomas. 1984. “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Policy Patrols versus Fire Alarms.” American Journal of Political Science 281: 165–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGee, Rosemary, and Gaventa, John. 2010. “Review of Impact and Effectiveness of Transparency and Accountability Initiatives: A Review of the Evidence to Date.” Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies. http://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/IETASynthesisReportMcGeeGaventaFinal28Oct2010.pdf (accessed July 22, 2012).Google Scholar
Naurin, Daniel. 2007. Deliberation behind Closed doors: Transparency and Lobbying in the European Union. Colchester, UK: ECPR Press.Google Scholar
Ninh, Kim. 2010. “Votes National Assembly Votes on Contested High-speed Rail Project.” In Asia. July 5. http://asiafoundation.org/in-asia/2010/07/07/vietnams-national-assembly-votes-on-contested-high-speed-rail-project/ (accessed July 22, 2012).Google Scholar
Paler, Laura. 2011. “Keeping the Public Purse: An Experiment in Windfalls, Taxes, and the Incentives to Restrain Government.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Peruzzotti, Enrique, and Cataline, Smulovitz, eds. 2006. Enforcing the Rule of Law: Social Accountability in the New Latin American Democracies. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Power, Greg. 2012. The Global Parliamentary Report: The Changing Nature of Parliamentary Representation. New York: United Nations Development Program and Inter-parliamentary Union.Google Scholar
Prat, Andrea. 2005. “The Wrong Kind of Transparency.” American Economic Review 80: 21–36.Google Scholar
Salomon, Mathieu. 2007. “Power and Representation at the Vietnamese National Assembly: The Scope and Limits of Political Doi Moi.” In Vietnam's New Order, eds. Balme, Stephanie and Sidel, Mark. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 198–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheng, Yumin. 2009. “Authoritarian Co-optation, the Territorial Dimension: Provincial Political Representation in Post-Mao China.” Studies in Comparative International Development 44 (1): 71–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpser, Alberto. 2005. “Making Votes Not Count: Strategic Incentives for Electoral Corruption.” Ph.D diss. Stanford University.Google Scholar
Smulovitz, Catalina, and Peruzzotti, Enrique. 2000. “Societal Accountability in Latin America.” Journal of Democracy 1 (4): 147–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strömberg, David. 2004. “Radio's Impact on Public Spending.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119 (1): 189–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svolik, Milan. 2009. “Power-sharing and Leadership Dynamics in Authoritarian Regimes.” American Journal of Political Science 53 (2): 477–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United Nations Development Programme. 2012. The Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index. Hanoi, Vietnam: UNDP.Google Scholar
Voice of Vietnam News. “Vietnam NA Session Closes in Hanoi” (accessed June 22, 2010, using Lexis-Nexis.com).Google Scholar
Wright, Joseph. 2008. “Do Authoritarian Institutions Constrain? How Legislatures Affect Economic Growth and Investment.” American Journal of Political Science 52 (2): 322–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Malesky Supplementary Material

Appendix

Download Malesky Supplementary Material(File)
File 1.2 MB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.