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Irresponsible parties, responsible voters? Legislative gridlock and collective accountability.

ABSTRACT: Legislative gridlock is a failure of one of the key functions of government: to pass legislation. Can voters counter such political dysfunction? This paper examines whether and how voters hold politicians accountable for gridlock. We focus on the passage of the government budget, the central task of any legislature, and define a legislature to experience budgetary gridlock if it fails to pass the budget on time. We argue, based on evidence from twenty years of budget enactment data, that voters hold state legislators accountable for budget gridlock in US state governments, with gridlocked incumbents losing their seat more often than incumbents passing budgets on time. Based on established theories of party organization in American politics, we develop three competing theoretical hypotheses to guide our understanding of the observed patterns of retrospective voting. We find strong support for collective electoral accountability with voters punishing incumbent members of state legislature majority parties.

SUBMITTER: Andersen AL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7051087 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Irresponsible parties, responsible voters? Legislative gridlock and collective accountability.

Andersen Asger Lau AL Lassen David Dreyer DD Nielsen Lasse Holbøll Westh LHW

PloS one 20200302 3

Legislative gridlock is a failure of one of the key functions of government: to pass legislation. Can voters counter such political dysfunction? This paper examines whether and how voters hold politicians accountable for gridlock. We focus on the passage of the government budget, the central task of any legislature, and define a legislature to experience budgetary gridlock if it fails to pass the budget on time. We argue, based on evidence from twenty years of budget enactment data, that voters ...[more]

PMID: 32119706

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Project description:Background:Citizen-led accountability initiatives are a critical strategy for redressing the causes of health inequalities and promoting better health system governance. A growing body of evidence points to the need for putting power relations at the forefront of understanding and operationalizing citizen-led accountability, rather than technical tools and best practices. In this study, we apply a network lens to the question of how initiatives build collective power to redress health system failures affecting marginalized communities in three municipalities in Guatemala.Methods:Network mapping and interpretive discussions were used to examine relational qualities of citizen-led initiatives' networks and explore the resources they offer for mobilizing action and influencing health accountability. Participants in the municipal-level initiatives responded to a social network analysis questionnaire focused on their ties of communication and collaboration with other initiative participants and their interactions with authorities regarding health system problems. Discussions with participants about the maps generated enriched our view of what the ties represented and their history of collective action and also provided space for planning action to strengthen their networks.Results:Our findings indicate that network qualities like cohesiveness and centralization reflected the initiative participants' agency in adapting to their sociopolitical context, and participants' social positions were a key resource in providing connection to a broad base of support for mobilizing collective action to document health service deficiencies and advocate for solutions. Their legitimacy as "representatives of the people" enabled them to engage with authorities from a bolstered position of power, and their iterative interactions with authorities further contributed to develop their advocacy capabilities and resulted in accountability gains.Conclusions:Our study provided evidence to counter the tendency to underestimate the assets and capabilities that marginalized citizens have for building power, and affirmed the idea that best-fit, with-the-grain approaches are well-suited for highly unequal settings characterized by weak governance. Efforts to support and understand change processes in citizen-led initiatives should include focus on adaptive network building to enable contextually-embedded approaches that leverage the collective power of the users of health services and grassroots leaders on the frontlines of accountability.

Project description:BackgroundTo facilitate global COVID-19 vaccine equity, the World Health Organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, and the United Nations Children's Fund supported the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) partnership. COVAX's goals may have best been pursued through shared health governance - a theory of global health governance based on six premises, in which global health actors collaborate to achieve a shared goal. Shared health governance employs a framework for accountability termed "mutual collective accountability", in which actors hold each other accountable for achieving their goal, thus relying on transparency with one another.MethodsWe conducted a multi-method qualitative study triangulating document analysis and key informant interviews to address the question: To what extent did COVAX employ shared health governance, mutual collective accountability, and transparency? We thus aimed to explore the governance structures and accountability and transparency mechanisms in COVAX and determine whether these constituted shared health governance and mutual collective accountability.ResultsWe identified 117 documents and interviewed 20 key informants. Our findings suggest that COVAX's co-convening organisations were governed by their individual formal governance mechanisms, while each was formally accountable to its own leadership team, resulting in challenges when activities and decisions involved collaboration between organisations. Furthermore, COVAX's governance lacked transparency, as there was little public information about their decision-making processes and operations, including information about the algorithm with which they make vaccine allocation decision, possibly contributing to its inability to achieve its goals.ConclusionsThe COVAX partnership only achieved four of the six premises of shared health governance. Since actors involved in COVAX did not hold one another accountable for their role in the partnership, it did not employ mutual collective accountability, while also lacking in transparency. Although these results do not entirely explain COVAX's shortcomings, they contribute to evidence about the roles of good governance, transparency, and accountability in large global health initiatives and underscore failures of the current global governance system.

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Irresponsible parties, responsible voters? Legislative gridlock and collective accountability.

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Irresponsible parties, responsible voters? Legislative gridlock and collective accountability.

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