Policymaking Precision and Electoral Accountability

Abstract

A voter who dislikes uncertainty would be willing to sacrifice some ideological similarity with an elected official for greater precision in policymaking. This form of competence – policymaking precision – differs from traditional conceptions of politician competence in that it has implications for spatial policy choice. Accordingly, our paper explores the mechanisms and consequences of voters holding politicians accountable based on their competence at executing the policies they intend to. We find that the voter cannot induce an incumbent to choose a policy other than her ideal point in any equilibrium. The voter can, however, induce incumbents to put forward effort to improve their policymaking precision. Since policymaking precision provides a benefit to all risk-averse actors who care about policy, it is no surprise to see term-limited incumbents still make investments in their competence. Less expected is that the possibility of being retained despite being a high-variance lawmaker exerts downward pressure on incumbents’ first-period investments in policymaking precision. Our model yields predictions about the variance of policies across periods as well as comparative statics about retention probabilities, all of which provide comparisons for and reinterpretations of extant findings in the electoral accountability literature.