Do political donors have greater access to government officials? Evidence from a FOIA field experiment with US municipalities

Abstract

Whether political donors have greater access to government officials is a perennial question in politics. Using a freedom of information act (FOIA) compliance field experiment with US municipalities in California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania, we fail to find evidence that political donors have greater access to government officials compared to engaged citizens. We contribute to the lobbying literature by testing for preferential treatment towards political donors in municipal government. Consistent with the extant FOIA literature, we do find that a formal FOIA request increases compliance rates and decreases wait time before an initial reply. This is an important contribution because, although many polities have FOIA laws, it cannot be taken for granted that FOIA laws will lead to transparency in practice. Testing the effectiveness of FOIA laws in the US is particularly important because state laws vary substantially.

The (Missing?) Role of Institutions in Behavioral Public Administration

“…The novelty of the research on behavioral public administration moves the field forward by acknowledging these psychological, personal, and behavioral biases of public administrators and other public officials. Public administrators and public officials exhibit racial and ethnic biases (Acolin, Bostic, & Painter, 2016;Butler & Broockman, 2011;Costa, 2017;Dinesen, Dahl, & Schiloer, 2021;Einstein & Glick, 2017;Giulietti, Tonin, & Vlassopoulos, 2015;Jenkins, Landgrave, & Martinez, 2020;Jilke, Van Dooren, & Rys, 2018;Mendez & Grose, 2018;Pfaff et al, 2020;Riccucci & Van Ryzin, 2016;Rodriguez & Rossel, 2018). There is also evidence that the attitudes of public officials are susceptible to social psychological cues (Grose et al, 2021;Jilke & Tummers, 2018), framing (Grose & Peterson, 2020;Sheffer et al, 2018), and other behavioral nudges (Avellaneda, 2013;Jilke, Van de Walle, & Kim, 2015;James, John, & Moseley, 2017;Richardson & John, 2021).…”

Capturing the social relevance of government transparency and accountability using a behavioral lens

“…Third, the regulatory context is a likely factor influencing the behavior of government officials (Ingrams, 2017). Though it does not speak specifically to this point, Jenkins et al (2020) find that requests to government that invoke FOIA laws prompt more expedient responses than requests that do not invoke a FOIA law, suggesting that such regulations do not necessarily enhance the overall responsiveness of government offices. Examining whether specific regulatory requirements or settings affect government officials' responses can be investigated further.…”

Inherent Frictions and Deliberate Frustrations: Examining the Legal Variables of State FOI Law Administration

“…The study is an exploratory field survey-or FOI audit-of nine U.S. states, comprising 1,002 requests across 334 counties, employing techniques similar to previous FOI request-based field studies (Ben-Aaron et al, 2017;Cuillier, 2010;Grimmelikhuijsen et al, 2018;Jenkins et al, 2020;Spac et al, 2018;Worthy et al, 2017). The study was conducted during two time periods: Feb.…”