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Does Political Oversight of the Bureaucracy Increase Accountability? Field Experimental Evidence from a Dominant Party Regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2022

PIA J. RAFFLER Open the ORCID record for PIA J. RAFFLER [Opens in a new window]
PIA J. RAFFLER*
Affiliation:
Harvard University, United States
*
Pia J. Raffler, Assistant Professor, Department of Government, Harvard University, United States, [email protected].
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Abstract

Concerned with poor service delivery, a large literature studies accountability of politicians to voters. This article instead considers accountability relationships within governments—the ability of politicians to implement policies by holding bureaucrats responsible for their actions. In collaboration with the Ugandan government, I conducted a field experiment across 260 local governments. The objective of the reform was to empower local politicians to exercise closer oversight over the bureaucracy through training and the dissemination of financial information. Lowered oversight costs increase politicians’ monitoring effort and the quality of services, but only in areas where the political leadership is not aligned with the dominant party. In areas under ruling-party control, politicians fear uncovering mismanagement of funds. In contrast to scholars arguing that insulating bureaucrats allows them to do their jobs more effectively, these findings imply that increased political oversight can improve government responsiveness in settings with a modicum of party competition.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 116 , Issue 4 , November 2022 , pp. 1443 - 1459
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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