Electoral Accountability, Distributive Conflict, and Probabilistic Voting

50 Pages Posted: 17 Feb 2022 Last revised: 22 Jan 2025

See all articles by David Foster

David Foster

Florida State University - Department of Political Science

Joseph Warren

University of Alaska, Anchorage

Date Written: January 21, 2025

Abstract

Models of electoral accountability typically assume a politician provides a public good. Yet in many contexts, elected officials distribute private goods among voters with conflicting interests. We present a formal model to analyze this situation. An elected official allocates a rivalrous good to a number of voters, who each observe their own allocation but neither others' allocations nor the official's action. Each voter’s challenge is to determine whether the incumbent stole from other voters when deciding to sack or retain the incumbent. This problem can be resolved if voters retain the incumbent probabilistically, so that the vote of any voter from whom the incumbent steals is effectively up-weighted. However, this benefit of probabilistic voting also comes with a cost, since the fact that the incumbent may be sacked by mistake diminishes the allocation they are willing to provide to voters.

Keywords: electoral accountability, distributive politics, moral hazard, probabilistic voting, Condorcet jury theorem

JEL Classification: C72, D70, D72

Suggested Citation

Foster, David and Warren, Joseph, Electoral Accountability, Distributive Conflict, and Probabilistic Voting (January 21, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4030440 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4030440

David Foster (Contact Author)

Florida State University - Department of Political Science ( email )

Tallahassee, FL 30306
United States

Joseph Warren

University of Alaska, Anchorage ( email )

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