Politicians may shirk if their performance is obscure to constituents. This paper theorizes that early dissemination of performance information can prompt incumbents to improve before the next election, especially where challengers are anticipated.
📍 Study Context
Our research took place in Uganda during 2011–2016 elections across 20 districts and focused on job duty scorecards made available to constituents for randomly selected politicians. We tested whether transparency could improve political behavior between electoral terms, conditional on future competition.
📊 Key Findings
- Performance improved significantly in competitive constituencies but not elsewhere • The effects were observable across multiple metrics of accountability • Service delivery remained unaffected by the intervention
📝 Implications
These results suggest that targeted transparency initiatives can enhance politicians' responsiveness to citizens, particularly where electoral stakes remain high. This provides empirical support for strategic behavior models and offers insights into designing effective governance reforms.
