Can Politicians Police Themselves? Natural Experimental Evidence From Brazil’s Audit Courts
To enhance government accountability, reformers have advocated strengthening institutions of “horizontal accountability,” particularly auditing institutions that can punish lawbreaking elected officials. Yet, these institutions differ in their willingness to punish corrupt politicians, which is ofte...
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| Format: | Article |
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SAGE Publications
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/118650 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0237-5060 |
| _version_ | 1826188535261036544 |
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| author | Canello, Júlio Hidalgo, Fernando Daniel Lima-de-Oliveira, Renato |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Canello, Júlio Hidalgo, Fernando Daniel Lima-de-Oliveira, Renato |
| author_sort | Canello, Júlio |
| collection | MIT |
| description | To enhance government accountability, reformers have advocated strengthening institutions of “horizontal accountability,” particularly auditing institutions that can punish lawbreaking elected officials. Yet, these institutions differ in their willingness to punish corrupt politicians, which is often attributed to variation in their degree of independence from the political branches. Taking advantage of a randomized natural experiment embedded in Brazil’s State Audit Courts, we study how variation in the appointment mechanisms for choosing auditors affects political accountability. We show that auditors appointed under few constraints by elected officials punish lawbreaking politicians—particularly co-partisans—at lower rates than bureaucrats insulated from political influence. In addition, we find that even when executives are heavily constrained in their appointment of auditors by meritocratic and professional requirements, auditors still exhibit a pro-politician bias in decision making. Our results suggest that removing bias requires a level of insulation from politics rare among institutions of horizontal accountability. Keywords: Latin American politics, corruption, accountability |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:01:12Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/118650 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:01:12Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | SAGE Publications |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1186502022-09-30T01:43:59Z Can Politicians Police Themselves? Natural Experimental Evidence From Brazil’s Audit Courts Canello, Júlio Hidalgo, Fernando Daniel Lima-de-Oliveira, Renato Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Hidalgo, Fernando Daniel Lima-de-Oliveira, Renato To enhance government accountability, reformers have advocated strengthening institutions of “horizontal accountability,” particularly auditing institutions that can punish lawbreaking elected officials. Yet, these institutions differ in their willingness to punish corrupt politicians, which is often attributed to variation in their degree of independence from the political branches. Taking advantage of a randomized natural experiment embedded in Brazil’s State Audit Courts, we study how variation in the appointment mechanisms for choosing auditors affects political accountability. We show that auditors appointed under few constraints by elected officials punish lawbreaking politicians—particularly co-partisans—at lower rates than bureaucrats insulated from political influence. In addition, we find that even when executives are heavily constrained in their appointment of auditors by meritocratic and professional requirements, auditors still exhibit a pro-politician bias in decision making. Our results suggest that removing bias requires a level of insulation from politics rare among institutions of horizontal accountability. Keywords: Latin American politics, corruption, accountability 2018-10-22T17:12:36Z 2018-10-22T17:12:36Z 2016-03 2018-10-17T16:33:47Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0010-4140 1552-3829 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/118650 Hidalgo, F. Daniel, et al. “Can Politicians Police Themselves? Natural Experimental Evidence From Brazil’s Audit Courts.” Comparative Political Studies, vol. 49, no. 13, Nov. 2016, pp. 1739–73. © 2016 The Authors https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0237-5060 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0010414015626436 Comparative Political Studies Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf SAGE Publications MIT Web Domain |
| spellingShingle | Canello, Júlio Hidalgo, Fernando Daniel Lima-de-Oliveira, Renato Can Politicians Police Themselves? Natural Experimental Evidence From Brazil’s Audit Courts |
| title | Can Politicians Police Themselves? Natural Experimental Evidence From Brazil’s Audit Courts |
| title_full | Can Politicians Police Themselves? Natural Experimental Evidence From Brazil’s Audit Courts |
| title_fullStr | Can Politicians Police Themselves? Natural Experimental Evidence From Brazil’s Audit Courts |
| title_full_unstemmed | Can Politicians Police Themselves? Natural Experimental Evidence From Brazil’s Audit Courts |
| title_short | Can Politicians Police Themselves? Natural Experimental Evidence From Brazil’s Audit Courts |
| title_sort | can politicians police themselves natural experimental evidence from brazil s audit courts |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/118650 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0237-5060 |
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