Asymmetric Accountability: An Experimental Investigation of Biases in Evaluations of Governments’ Election Pledges

• Author: Elin Naurin,Niels Markwat,Stuart Soroka
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414019830740
• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Date: 01 November 2019

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414019830740

Comparative Political Studies

2019, Vol. 52(13-14) 2207 –2234

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/0010414019830740

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Article

Asymmetric

Accountability:

An Experimental

Investigation of Biases

in Evaluations of

Governments’ Election

Pledges

Elin Naurin1, Stuart Soroka2, and Niels Markwat1

Abstract

Governments often fulfill election pledges to remain in power; yet, it is

unclear how pledge fulfillment and breakage actually affect public support

for government. This article explores the tendency for governments to be

penalized for unfulfilled pledges more than they are rewarded for fulfilled

pledges. In two large-scale highly realistic online survey experiments (N=

13,000, 10,000), performed at the beginning and middle of a government’s

term in office, respondents are presented with a range of (real) election

pledges. We find that broken pledges often are more important to

government evaluations than fulfilled pledges, and that pledge fulfillment can

produce decreases in support from nonsupporters that more than offset

the marginal gains among supporters. Findings provide valuable evidence

on asymmetries in political behavior, and a unique account of the “cost of

ruling,” the seemingly inevitable tendency for governments to lose support

during their time in office.

1University of Gothenburg, Sweden

2University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

Corresponding Author:

Elin Naurin, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg,

P.O. Box 711, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden.

Email: elin.naurin@pol.gu.se

830740CPSXXX10.1177/0010414019830740Comparative Political StudiesNaurin et al.

research-article2019

2208Comparative Political Studies 52(13-14)

Keywords

election pledges, accountability, survey experiment, negativity biases,

government evaluations

A central theme in representative democratic thought is that electorates will

reward governments that perform well, and punish governments that per-

form poorly. The classic account of this reward-and-punish dynamic assumes

that incumbents’ successes and failures are assessed symmetrically. There is,

nevertheless, a large body of work suggesting that governments may be

penalized for failure more strongly than they are rewarded for success (e.g.,

Lau, 1985; Soroka, 2014). Indeed, it often appears as if governments are

destined to experience decreasing popularity during their time in office,

more or less regardless of their performance. This widely acknowledged

tendency is sometimes referred to as the “cost of ruling” (e.g., Nannestad &

Paldam, 2002; Paldam & Skott, 1995; Palmer & Whitten, 2002; Stevenson,

2002; Wlezien, 2017).

The resulting aggregate-level dynamic has received a good deal of atten-

tion, but thus far, few contributions have directly exposed the individual-

level factors contributing to what we refer to here as “asymmetric

accountability.” This is the aim of the present article, drawing in particular on

previous research on election pledges, that is, promises made during electoral

campaigns. The extent to which governments fulfill these pledges is often

regarded as an important measure of their democratic performance; but, in

this instance, a focus on campaign pledges also offers an opportunity to study

a finite set of commitments made by a government, for which that govern-

ment may be rewarded or penalized by citizens. The central question below,

then, is whether broken pledges are more important to individuals’ evalua-

tions of government performance than fulfilled pledges. Narrowly viewed,

the results speak to the way in which the fulfillment of campaign promises

matter for government evaluations (see Elinder, Jordahl, & Poutvaara, 2015;

Thomson, 2011). More broadly viewed, they add to the literature that seeks

to understand why governments tend to see only very marginal rewards, if

any, for achieving positive (i.e., promised) outcomes during their reign, and

provide a unique perspective on why governments tend to lose support over

time.

The focus of our analysis is an online, survey-based experimental manipu-

lation in which 13,000 Swedish respondents receive one of 10 fulfilled or

unfulfilled pledges from the currently governing Social Democrats (vs. a null

treatment). The experiment allows us to compare effects of fulfilled and bro-

ken pledges on government evaluations. Results suggest that respondents’