Replication Data for: Political Responsiveness, Information Provision, and Capacity Gaps

To investigate whether lack of information is one reason politicians may be unresponsive to voter preferences, we conduct a randomized control trial with senior politicians in Pakistan that collects citizen preferences using Interactive Voice Response (IVR). IVR allows politicians to script questions for citizens and allows the latter to respond on their cell phones. There is strong politician interest in soliciting opinions via IVR; additionally, response rates by citizens are relatively high. Nonetheless, politicians fail to use the new information to modify on-the-ground engagement with voters or service delivery. Nor do we observe improvements in citizen evaluations of politicians or in their electoral support for them. A forecasting exercise shows that experts find these null outcomes unexpected. Our findings reveal that even eager and informed politicians may be unable to respond to citizen preferences due to institutional capacity constraints, highlighting limits of information-centric theories of accountability.

为探究信息匮乏是否为政客对选民偏好响应不足的成因之一，我们针对巴基斯坦资深政客开展了一项随机对照试验（randomized control trial），该试验借助交互式语音应答（Interactive Voice Response，IVR）采集选民偏好信息。交互式语音应答系统支持政客为选民编制问卷问题，并允许选民通过手机完成作答。政客们对通过该系统征集民意表现出极高的兴趣；此外，选民的应答率也相对较高。尽管如此，政客们并未利用此次新获取的信息调整其针对选民的实地对接工作或是公共服务供给方案。我们也未观察到选民对政客的评价有所提升，亦未发现选民对这些政客的选举支持率出现增长。一项预测分析显示，专家群体认为这类零结果完全出乎意料。本研究结果表明，即便积极性高昂且掌握相关信息的政客，也可能因制度能力约束而无法响应选民偏好，这凸显了以信息为核心的问责理论存在的局限性。