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

American Political Science Review 106.4 (2012): 762-786.

43 Pages Posted: 19 Jul 2010 Last revised: 30 Sep 2013

See all articles by Edmund J. Malesky

Edmund J. Malesky

Duke University, Political Science

Paul J. Schuler

University of Arizona

Anh Tran

Indiana University Bloomington - School of Public & Environmental Affairs (SPEA)

Date Written: December 1, 2012

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.

Keywords: Transparency, Authoritarian Institutions, Parliament, Legislature, Experiment, Randomized, Field Trial

Suggested Citation

Malesky, Edmund J. and Schuler, Paul J. and Tran, Anh, The Adverse Effects of Sunshine: A Field Experiment on Legislative Transparency in an Authoritarian Assembly (December 1, 2012). American Political Science Review 106.4 (2012): 762-786., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1642659 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1642659

Edmund J. Malesky (Contact Author)

Duke University, Political Science ( email )

140 Science Drive (Gross Hall), 2nd floor
Duke University Mailcode: 90204
Durham, NC 27708-0204
United States

Paul J. Schuler

University of Arizona ( email )

Department of History
Tucson, AZ 85721
United States

Anh Tran

Indiana University Bloomington - School of Public & Environmental Affairs (SPEA) ( email )

1315 East Tenth Street
Bloomington, IN 47405
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
567
Abstract Views
5,839
Rank
88,544
PlumX Metrics