Transparency in political decision-making is often proposed as a remedy to failures of the political agency. However, a small number of recent theoretical contributions (e.g. Prat 2005 or Fox 2007) discuss potential negative consequences of transparency in political decision-making on the quality of policy outcomes and representation of voter preferences, particularly when actions of politicians such as individual votes are recorded and made publicly available.
We (Stadelmann et al. 2014) try to identify the impact of transparency in political decision-making on the quality of political representation with a difference-in-difference strategy. The quality of political representation is measured by the observed divergence of parliamentary decisions from revealed voter preferences on identical issues. Full transparency of actions of individual politicians does not decrease divergence from voter preferences.
When can transparency of individual actions of politicians pose problems?
Can transparency alone have a significant effect on the quality of political representation or does it need to be complemented with other institutional reforms?
Cited references:
Fox, J. (2007), 'Government Transparency and Policymaking', Public Choice 131(1-2), 23-44.
Prat, A. (2005), 'The Wrong Kind of Transparency', American Economic Review 95(3), 862-877.
Stadelmann, D.; Portmann, M. & Eichenberger, R. (2014), 'Full Transparency of Politicians' Actions Does Not Increase the Quality of Political Representation', Journal of Experimental Political Science 1, 16-23.
Article Full Transparency of Politicians' Actions Does Not Increase ...
Transparency in political decision-making is not good for those nations where the bandwagon effect is abundantly observed. Full transparency of actions of individual politicians required courage which affect sometimes their whole life.
I find it an interesting topic and I will read the article. The first question that comes to my mind is (perhaps an obvious one): Why would full transparency increase the quality of political representation? Perhaps the channel is reputation.
There is literature on the benefits of transparency in monetary policy by committees (via a better anchoring of expectations): the profile of individual votes is informative about the future stance of monetary policy (Gerlach-Kristen, 2004).
A possible problem would be a "beauty contest" effect (Morris and Shin, 2002). But Svensson (2006) shows that it is probably not the case for monetary policy.
Petra Gerlach-Kristen, 2004. "Is the MPC's Voting Record Informative about Future UK Monetary Policy?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 106(2).
Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2002. "Social Value of Public Information," American Economic Review, 92(5),
Lars E. O. Svensson, 2006. "Social Value of Public Information: Comment: Morris and Shin (2002) Is Actually Pro-Transparency, Not Con," American Economic Review, 96(1).
I am not sure you can measure the quality of political representation based on the closeness of politicians actions to voters’ claimed preference.
First, what “the people” say they want may or may not reflect what they actually want, a social desirability bias factors into any poll. Additionally poll questions are often flawed, poll the wrong people (Dewy Wins) or just use other combinations of bad methods. an aggregate “poll of polls” or FiveThirtyEight-style model does better than using a single poll, but still has flaws.
Second, representatives are elected to make the hard choices (theoretically) that are in the best interest (theoretically) of his/her constituents, constituency and area the body represents (municipality, state, country). This could be in direct conflict with the will of the people, but in the best interest of the people.
Third, even with more access than ever before, those not elected, and those who’s jobs do not involve following every political movement do not have the time to know every detail of every policy. And even officials an the “political class” do not have the time to do this for every issue. That is one of the reasons representative democracy has existed for thousands of years. We, the unelected have to put these decisions in the hands of others.
Would not high-quality representation be an instance of a lawmaker taking an unpopular vote he/she knows is right, and ultimately turns out to be a “good” vote, but could cost his/her seat in the next election? Is that not why these people are elected?
Not to dive too much into the realm of fiction, but full transparency by politicians is explored in Dave Eggers 2013 novel “The Circle.” In the novel, politicians from the municipal to national level wear body cameras and record their every interaction as do their staffs.
Full transparency in this regard is impossible, first because it creates a tremendous amount of data that needs to be sorted, indexed and quantified. Second there is information that cannot be recorded. In the U.S. one Senate committee promised to keep the identity of a Senator who proposed tax-reform ideas secret for 50 years because of the potential backlash of “doing the right thing” or “taking bold steps.”
I support transparency, but am not sure what you mean by that. Is it televising and steaming all hearings and proceedings? Is it posting every interaction a member has? Staff? Posting public schedules? Private schedules?
I am sure this all reflected my U.S.-based view of the world where we do not have a parliamentary model, and where proportional representation does not exist at the national, state or largely municipal level (although it might somewhere). Here we elect individuals for a fixed set of years (2, 4 or 6 at the national level with Judges appointed for a period of good behavior, usually life or retirement) and do not call for elections on a national level outside of our national election day, although there are always special elections to fill open seats.
On the last Altman's paragraph, see "Sunshine or Shield? Secret Voting Procedures and Legislative Accountability" (http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/17/4/10.html#.VFPySCzSboA.facebook).
The article is in charge of the controversial issue between voting open and secret ballot as a mechanism of control of parliamentary in deliberative action, using jointly the statistical analysis of selection (sartori) and simulation computational (ABM Modeling) in a country with proportional representation (Brazil).
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