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Preventing Prevention

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  • Sean Gailmard
  • John W. Patty

Abstract

Preventing climate change and damage from natural disasters typically requires policies with up‐front costs that promise a flow of benefits over time. Why has obtaining such policies in a competitive electoral democracy proved so intractable? We develop a formal model of electoral accountability in this context, in which politicians have private information about their motivations. The model shows why fully rational voters, though certain that incumbents spend less on disaster prevention than is good for them, reelect incumbents at very high rates. In addition, in such equilibria, voters would punish incumbents who spent more on disaster prevention. This equilibrium is consistent with (and implies) some of the major empirical regularities observed in the literature on voting and disaster prevention. We discuss some implications of our analysis for advancing public debates about disaster and climate change mitigation.

Suggested Citation

  • Sean Gailmard & John W. Patty, 2019. "Preventing Prevention," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(2), pages 342-352, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:63:y:2019:i:2:p:342-352
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12411
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
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    Cited by:

    1. Cindy Cheng & Joan Barcelo & Allison Spencer Hartnett & Robert Kubinec & Luca Messerschmidt, 2020. "CoronaNet: A Dyadic Dataset of Government Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic," Working Papers 20200042, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Apr 2020.
    2. Austin Bussing & Michael Pomirchy, 2022. "Congressional oversight and electoral accountability," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 34(1), pages 35-58, January.
    3. Guido Merzoni & Federico Trombetta, 2021. "A Note on Asymmetric Policies: Pandering and State-specific Costs of Mismatch in Political Agency," DISEIS - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo dis2102, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo (DISEIS).
    4. Amy Pond, 2021. "Biased politicians and independent agencies," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 33(3), pages 279-299, July.
    5. Merzoni, Guido & Trombetta, Federico, 2022. "Pandering and state-specific costs of mismatch in political agency," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 132-143.
    6. Dodlova, Marina & Zudenkova, Galina, 2021. "Incumbents’ performance and political extremism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    7. Lindsey Gailmard, 2022. "Electoral accountability and political competence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 34(2), pages 236-261, April.
    8. Gento Kato, 2020. "When strategic uninformed abstention improves democratic accountability," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(3), pages 366-388, July.
    9. Cindy Cheng & Joan Barceló & Allison Spencer Hartnett & Robert Kubinec & Luca Messerschmidt, 2020. "COVID-19 Government Response Event Dataset (CoronaNet v.1.0)," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(7), pages 756-768, July.

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