Competitive elections create a relationship of formal accountability between policy makers
and citizens. Recent theoretical work suggests that there are limits on how well this formal …

Politics and political conflict often occur in the written and spoken word. Scholars have long
recognized this, but the massive costs of analyzing even moderately sized collections of …

What is good government? Why do some governments fail? How do you implement political
accountability in practice? What incentives do you need to put in place to ensure that …

This book demonstrates the consequences of legislators' strategic communication for
representation in American politics. Representational Style in Congress shows how …

Particularistic spending, a large literature argues, builds support for incumbents. This
literature equates money spent in the district with the credit constituents allocate. Yet …

Scholars of distributive politics often emphasize partisanship and clientelism. However, as
Jennifer Bussell demonstrates in Clients and Constituents, legislators in" patronage …

Why are voters influenced by the views of local patrons when casting their ballots? The
existing literature suggests that coercion and personal obligations underpin this form of …

An important empirical literature evaluates whether voters are rational by examining how
electoral outcomes respond to events outside the control of politicians, such as natural …

A long research tradition in behavioral political science evaluates the performance of
democracy by examining voter competence. This literature got its start arguing that voters' …

We exploit variation in US gubernatorial term limits across states and time to empirically
estimate two separate effects of elections on government performance. Holding tenure in …