A new virtual issue of The Economic Journal, ‘Accountability and Electoral Selection’ is out now and can be read online for free for a limited time.
Electoral accountability—the ability of voters to hold their representatives accountable for their behaviour—is an important feature of democratic systems.
With an introduction by Amanda Friedenberg, The Economic Journal Editor (2021-2025), this issue showcases 11 papers previously published in the Journal which deal with issues pertaining to accountability and electoral selection.
The papers cover:
- an overview of the challenges associated with accountability and the differences between formal accountability and real accountability;
- voter information as a limitation to real accountability the extent to which improvements in information can influence electoral accountability or support;
- electoral selection as a limitation to real accountability and the extent to which voters can hold politicians accountable in the presence of electoral selection, and how the interplay between politicians’ actions and electoral selection might lead to weaker formal institutions; and
- a host of questions about selection itself opened up by the fact that formal accountability also gives rise to questions about the nature of electoral selection.
Read the new virtual issue for free here.