Endogenous Benchmarking and Government Accountability: Experimental Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic

British Journal of Political Science (Forthcoming)

69 Pages Posted: 23 Feb 2022 Last revised: 8 May 2023

See all articles by Michael Becher

Michael Becher

IE University

Sylvain Brouard

Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) - Center for Political Research (CEVIPOF)

Daniel Stegmueller

Duke University - Department of Political Science

Date Written: March 27, 2023

Abstract

When do cross-national comparisons enable citizens to hold governments accountable? According to recent work in comparative politics, benchmarking across borders is a powerful mechanism for making elections work. However, little attention has been paid to the choice of benchmarks and how it shapes democratic accountability. We extend existing theories to account for endogenous benchmarking. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a test case, we embedded experiments capturing self-selection and exogenous exposure to benchmarked information in representative surveys in France, Germany, and the UK. The experiments reveal that when individuals have the choice, they are likely to seek out congruent information in line with their prior view of the government. Going beyond existing experiments on motivated reasoning and biased information choice, endogenous benchmarking occurs in all three countries despite the absence of partisan labels. Altogether, our results suggest that endogenous benchmarking weakens the democratic benefits of comparisons across borders.

Keywords: information choice, benchmarking, blame attribution, accountability, motivated reasoning, COVID-19

JEL Classification: D72, D91, H12

Suggested Citation

Becher, Michael and Brouard, Sylvain and Stegmueller, Daniel, Endogenous Benchmarking and Government Accountability: Experimental Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic (March 27, 2023). British Journal of Political Science (Forthcoming), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4039939 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4039939

Michael Becher (Contact Author)

IE University ( email )

Paseo de la Castellana, 259
Madrid, 28046
Spain

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.ie.edu/university/about/faculty/michael-becher/

Sylvain Brouard

Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) - Center for Political Research (CEVIPOF) ( email )

98 rue de l'Université
Paris, 75007
France

Daniel Stegmueller

Duke University - Department of Political Science ( email )

140 Science Drive (Gross Hall), 2nd floor
Duke University Mailcode: 90204
Durham, NC 27708-0204
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.daniel-stegmueller.com

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