Trust in Political Institutions and Electoral Accountability: A Political Agency Approach

Ben Lockwood and Minh Tung Le
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Ben Lockwood: University of Warwick
Minh Tung Le: University of Warwick

The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics

Abstract: We analyze the implications of three stylized facts about trust in political institutions for the role of elections in improving discipline, constraining pandering, and improving selection of politicians. First, trust in political institutions (politicians, political parties, and the legislature) has declined in recent years. Second, within countries, there is heterogeneity across citizens in their level of trust in institutions, and third, at the individual level, trust is malleable, especially when young. We add these features to an otherwise standard model of electoral agency. Unlike the standard model, where the quality of the candidate pool is assumed known, citizens are born with imprecise and heterogeneous priors over the quality of the pool, so young citizens learn not only about the incumbent, but also about the pool quality. An increase in precision increases both the discipline and selection effects of elections, whereas an increase in heterogeneity of prior beliefs has the opposite effect. The effect of changes in average trust in the population is generally ambiguous. When candidate entry is modelled, these findings extend to endogenous pool quality. The implications for citizen welfare and civics education are discussed.

Keywords: elections; discipline; pandering; selection; trust in political institutions; civic education JEL codes: H11; C72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-soc
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wrk:warwec:1620

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