A central normative justification for representative democracy is that elections allow citizens to exercise control over the actions of their representatives. In this course we will examine to what extent and under what conditions elections give citizens control over their leaders. The seminar will combine methodological sessions introducing the design-based approach to causal inference with substantive sessions introducing students to the basic concepts, theoretical frameworks, and recent empirical papers from the field of electoral accountability.
Substantively, the course will cover important barriers to accountability in democratic polities: (1) access to information, (2) institutional barriers, (3) the availability of strong competence signals, and (4) behavioral constraints.
In addition to its substantive content, the first part of the course provides an introduction to the design- based approach to causal inference that will be used to evaluate whether citizens are able to hold politicians accountable. Topics include (1) randomised experiments, (2) matching, (3) regression, (4) difference-in-differences, and (5) regression discontinuity designs. The course encourages students to think about the assumption necessary to make causal claims, to become a critical consumer of causal claims in the social sciences, and equip them to conduct their own research.
Prior knowledge of hypothesis testing and linear regression is required, knowledge of the statistical software R is an advantage.
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Felix Hartmann