Legislative Malfeasance and Political Accountability

Abstract

the university of trento, nuffield college (oxford), Washington university in st. Louis, stanford university, the Pontificia universidad católica de chile, and carleton university (canada). We are grateful for comments from members of those audiences and for additional comments by James alt, donatella della Porta, andrew healy, douglas a. hibbs, Jr., Lucio Picci, steven reed, susan roseackerman, salvatore vassallo, and andrea vindigni. the data were gathered by Miriam golden with support of the national science foundation (ses-0074860), the russell sage foundation, and the academic senate of the university of california at Los angeles. the data on malfeasance were originally provided by the gruppo democratici di sinistra-L'ulivo of the senato della repubblica italiana and are publicly available via dataverse at http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/golden. for research assistance, we thank daniel smith, Jonathan slapin, Matthew spence, and yuki yanai.

Turkish Voter Response to Government Incompetence and Corruption Related to the 1999 Earthquakes

“…According to Chang et al (2010) that is exactly what happened in Italy in 1994. The election held in that year took place in the midst of the "Clean Hands" investigation which implicated more than a third of the legislators from different parties, including five former prime ministers and thousands of other politicians.…”

“…Costas et al (2011), Freille et al (2007), Lederman et al (2005), Adsera et al (2003), Brunetti and Weder (2003), and Besley and Burgess (2002) provide evidence on the importance of a free press in reducing corruption. However, as Johnson et al (2011), Chang et al (2010), and Golden (2006) point out, corruption exists even in advanced democracies. Worse yet, Costas et al (2011), Fernández-Vázquez andRivero (2010), Chang et al (2010), and Reed (2005) show, through Spanish, Italian, and Japanese examples, that such corruption usually makes very little difference in the reelection fortunes of politicians even when it is public knowledge.…”

“…However, as Johnson et al (2011), Chang et al (2010), and Golden (2006) point out, corruption exists even in advanced democracies. Worse yet, Costas et al (2011), Fernández-Vázquez andRivero (2010), Chang et al (2010), and Reed (2005) show, through Spanish, Italian, and Japanese examples, that such corruption usually makes very little difference in the reelection fortunes of politicians even when it is public knowledge. Welch and Hibbing (1997), Dimock and Jacobson (1995), and Peters and Welch (1980) provide similar evidence in the case of U.S. Chang et al (2010), Fernández-Vázquez and Rivero (2010), Manzetti and Wilson (2007) and Golden (2006) offer some explanations as to why this is so.…”

“…Only 11 percent of the legislators elected in 1999 made it to the 2002 parliament. Interestingly, the conditions listed by Chang et al (2010), Manzetti and Wilson (2007) and Golden (2006) as necessary for such a dramatic voter reaction to occur, materialized before the 2002 election. Two major earthquakes in 1999 and a severe economic crisis in 2001 played crucial roles in that regard.…”

“…In doing so, we hope to accomplish three goals. First, we would like to bring the case at hand to the attention of researchers investigating voter response to corruption, and to provide some supporting evidence for the assertions made by Chang et al (2010), Manzetti and Wilson (2007), and Golden (2006). We think that this case has not received the attention it deserves, even in Turkey.…”