IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v31y2019i4p600-625.html

Plausible deniability

Author

Listed:
  • Joshua A Strayhorn

Abstract

One explanation for why voters sometimes fail to hold elected officials accountable for corruption is failure to correctly attribute blame. Yet existing theories of how voters attribute responsibility do not consider how voters assessments may be shaped by the possibility that politicians can strategically delegate corrupt activity. This paper develops a formal model of an electoral accountability environment where politicians can pursue malfeasance directly or indirectly, but where ‘rogue agents’ occasionally pursue malfeasance independently. Corruption can arise via multiple pathways, and politicians sometimes possess plausible deniability. In one equilibrium, voters rationally reelect after plausibly deniable corruption due to a non-obvious and novel mechanism. Politicians are also more likely to delegate malfeasance to agents when they anticipate lenience. Voter lenience is non-monotonically related to many parameters, including politician competence, the agent’s malfeasance preferences, and transparency.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua A Strayhorn, 2019. "Plausible deniability," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 31(4), pages 600-625, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:31:y:2019:i:4:p:600-625
    DOI: 10.1177/0951629819875518
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951629819875518
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951629819875518?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brunetti, Aymo & Weder, Beatrice, 2003. "A free press is bad news for corruption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1801-1824, August.
    2. Margit Tavits, 2007. "Clarity of Responsibility and Corruption," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 218-229, January.
    3. AlÌcia Adserý, 2003. "Are You Being Served? Political Accountability and Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 445-490, October.
    4. Milan W. Svolik, 2013. "Learning to Love Democracy: Electoral Accountability and the Success of Democracy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(3), pages 685-702, July.
    5. Klašnja, Marko & Tucker, Joshua A. & Deegan-Krause, Kevin, 2016. "Pocketbook vs. Sociotropic Corruption Voting," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(1), pages 67-94, January.
    6. Scott Ashworth & Ethan Bueno de Mesquita & Amanda Friedenberg, 2017. "Accountability and Information in Elections," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 95-138, May.
    7. Canes-Wrone, Brandice & Shotts, Kenneth W., 2007. "When Do Elections Encourage Ideological Rigidity?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(2), pages 273-288, May.
    8. John Ferejohn, 1986. "Incumbent performance and electoral control," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 5-25, January.
    9. Ritva Reinikka & Jakob Svensson, 2005. "Fighting Corruption to Improve Schooling: Evidence from a Newspaper Campaign in Uganda," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 259-267, 04/05.
    10. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2008. "Exposing Corrupt Politicians: The Effects of Brazil's Publicly Released Audits on Electoral Outcomes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 703-745.
    11. Tirole, Jean, 1986. "Hierarchies and Bureaucracies: On the Role of Collusion in Organizations," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 181-214, Fall.
    12. Björn Bartling & Urs Fischbacher, 2012. "Shifting the Blame: On Delegation and Responsibility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 67-87.
    13. Eric Maskin & Jean Tirole, 2004. "The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1034-1054, September.
    14. Robert Barro, 1973. "The control of politicians: An economic model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 19-42, March.
    15. Schwindt-Bayer,Leslie A. & Tavits,Margit, 2016. "Clarity of Responsibility, Accountability, and Corruption," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107127647, Enero-Abr.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Foerster, Manuel & Voss, Achim, 2022. "Believe me, I am ignorant, but not biased," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2010. "Disclosure by Politicians," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 179-209, April.
    2. Mark Schelker, 2009. "Auditor Terms and Term Limits in the Public Sector: Evidence from the US States," CREMA Working Paper Series 2009-19, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    3. Jan Palguta, 2015. "Political Rent-Seeking in Public Procurement: Evidence from the Entry of Political Challengers at Electoral Thresholds," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp549, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    4. Ash, Elliott & MacLeod, W. Bentley, 2021. "Reducing partisanship in judicial elections can improve judge quality: Evidence from U.S. state supreme courts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    5. Mark Schelker, 2012. "The influence of auditor term length and term limits on US state general obligation bond ratings," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 27-49, January.
    6. Karthik Reddy & Moritz Schularick & Vasiliki Skreta, 2020. "Immunity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(2), pages 531-564, May.
      • Karthik Reddy & Moritz Schularick & Vasiliki Skreta, 2012. "Immunity," Working Papers 12-17, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
      • Karthik Reddy & Moritz Schularick & Vasiliki Skreta, 2013. "Immunity," Working Papers 13-04, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
      • Karthik Reddy & Moritz Schularick & Vasiliki Skreta, 2013. "Immunity," CESifo Working Paper Series 4445, CESifo.
    7. Iaryczower, Matias & Lewis, Garrett & Shum, Matthew, 2013. "To elect or to appoint? Bias, information, and responsiveness of bureaucrats and politicians," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 230-244.
    8. Hélène Laurent, 2021. "Corruption and politicians’ horizon," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 65-91, March.
    9. Benjamin Nyblade & Steven R. Reed, 2008. "Who Cheats? Who Loots? Political Competition and Corruption in Japan, 1947–1993," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(4), pages 926-941, October.
    10. Mark Gradstein, 2011. "Dictatorship, Democratic Transitions, And Development," Working Papers 1104, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    11. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2011. "The Political Economy of Mass Media," CEPR Discussion Papers 8246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Keefer, Philip & Khemani, Stuti, 2014. "Mass media and public education: The effects of access to community radio in Benin," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 57-72.
    13. Nobuhiro Mizuno & Ryosuke Okazawa, 2022. "Why do voters elect less qualified candidates?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 34(3), pages 443-477, July.
    14. Bhattacharyya, Sambit & Hodler, Roland, 2015. "Media freedom and democracy in the fight against corruption," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 13-24.
    15. Gustavo J Bobonis & Luis R Cámara Fuertes & Rainer Schwabe, 2011. "The Dynamic Effects of Information on Political Corruption: Theory and Evidence from Puerto Rico," Working Papers tecipa-428, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    16. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2010. "Businessman Candidates," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 718-736, July.
    17. Lagunoff, Roger, 2006. "Credible communication in dynastic government," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 59-86, January.
    18. Britto, Diogo G.C. & Fiorin, Stefano, 2020. "Corruption and legislature size: Evidence from Brazil," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    19. Francesco Drago & Roberto Galbiati & Francesco Sobbrio, 2020. "The Political Cost of Being Soft on Crime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(6), pages 3305-3336.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:31:y:2019:i:4:p:600-625. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.