Term limits and voter turnout in presidential democracies:an empirical analysis

Korzi, Michael J.; Hoddie, Matthew

doi:10.1057/s41269-017-0052-2

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…U.S. research has uncovered many drawbacks of term limits: They erode legislators’ professionalism and cause poor myopic fiscal decisions (Cummins 2012; Feher 2015; Kousser 2005), complicate complex relations between administrators and legislators, and cause suboptimal spending levels (Sarbaugh-Thompson et al 2010), divert budgets from health and education to highways and aid to local governments (Yakovlev, Tosun, and Lewis 2015), encourage shirking by legislators barred from reelection (Clark and Williams 2013), curb bipartisan legislation (Swift and VanderMolen 2016), and discourage voter participation (Korzi and Hoddie 2018). In other countries, term limits negatively impacted mayors’ functioning (Klasnja and Titiunik 2017; Veiga and Veiga 2016).…”

Section: Current Solutions Their Drawbacks and Alleviation Effortsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Roosevelt in 1940 and 1944, and reinstated in 1951 as the 22nd Constitutional Amendment (Sobel 1975). After World War II more democracies adopted the U.S. two-term limit (Korzi and Hoddie 2018) and Portugal and some Latin American states similarly limited mayors’ tenures (Klasnja and Titiunik 2017; Veiga and Veiga 2016). As cited, many states limit the term of civil servants but not that of leaders, explainable by recognizing that even an eight-year limit often prunes successful leaders who are at their peak effectiveness in their ninth year or later after learning many lessons of experience, enjoying vast followers’ trust that empowers them to solve major problems by radical innovations, overcoming entrenched tenured conservative powerholders.…”

Section: Current Solutions Their Drawbacks and Alleviation Effortsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Leaders’ Timely Succession: Neither Term Limits nor “Golden Parachutes,” Rather Periodic Tests of Trust Ascendance

Shapira

2019

Journal of Applied Social Science

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Successful leaders tend to reach a dysfunction phase and to become conservative self-serving oligarchic. Polities and large organizations try to prevent this by term limits despite many drawbacks, while corporations use “Golden Parachutes,” a costly measure with major drawbacks as well. Despite much research, the timely succession of leaders in large organizations remains a recalcitrant problem demanding a solution. A review of current solutions points to the plausible use of intangible rewards rather than tangible ones by offering leaders possibility of multiple terms with each reelection requiring a higher majority in a proper constituency. This will reward leaders by plausible tenure prolongation, prestigious higher majority reelection, and plausible creative innovation due to long time horizon, while barring dysfunctional oligarchic continuity. Suggestions for practicing this solution and for further study of the problems it entails are offered.

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Section: Current Solutions Their Drawbacks and Alleviation Effortsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Current Solutions Their Drawbacks and Alleviation Effortsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leaders’ Timely Succession: Neither Term Limits nor “Golden Parachutes,” Rather Periodic Tests of Trust Ascendance

Shapira

2019

Journal of Applied Social Science

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Democratizing urban governance through mayoral term limits: Quasi-experimental evidence from a reform in Chilean municipalities

Kouba

Došek

2023

Cities

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Understanding the effect of term limits on voter turnout: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in Costa Rica based on a registered report

Kouba

2024

Research & Politics

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Imposing term limits on elected officials is expected to increase turnout due to enhanced competition by one theoretical perspective, while another predicts depressed turnout as a result of clientelist turnout buying. These puzzling contradictory predictions are examined by a quasi-experiment (using a difference-in-differences approach) based on a 2022 reform which introduced term limits for Costa Rican mayors that were applied for the first time in the 2024 municipal election. Over one half of mayors suddenly faced retroactive term limits, while the remaining ones were eligible for reelection. This analysis was pre-registered following the 2022 reform but before the 2024 election, that is, at a time when treatment assignment already occurred but the post-treatment outcomes were not known and the analysis could still not be performed. The analysis could only be completed after the February 2024 election. The results suggest that the adoption of term limits reinvigorated electoral competition but that its participatory gains were only modest, fostering turnout only in the largest cities. The analysis contributes by advancing the—still uncommon—practice of pre-registering observational research after the treatment assignment but prior to the release of the data (and even prior to the processes that produce that data).

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Term limits and voter turnout in presidential democracies:an empirical analysis

Cited by 3 publications

References 29 publications

Leaders’ Timely Succession: Neither Term Limits nor “Golden Parachutes,” Rather Periodic Tests of Trust Ascendance

Leaders’ Timely Succession: Neither Term Limits nor “Golden Parachutes,” Rather Periodic Tests of Trust Ascendance

Democratizing urban governance through mayoral term limits: Quasi-experimental evidence from a reform in Chilean municipalities

Understanding the effect of term limits on voter turnout: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in Costa Rica based on a registered report

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