Leadership and Pandering: A Theory of Executive Policymaking

Abstract

We develop an informational theory that analyzes conditions under which a reelection-seeking executive will act in the public interest. The theory considers factors such as executive competence, challenger quality, and the likelihood that voters will learn the consequences of policy decisions before an upcoming election. We ...nd that an executive who has information suggesting that a popular policy is contrary to voters’ interests may or may not pander to voters by choosing it; under certain conditions, the executive can actually increase his probability of reelection by choosing an unpopular policy that is in the public interest. However, we also show that an executive will sometimes face electoral incentives to enact a policy that is both unpopular and contrary to voters’ interests. We illustrate our model with examples involving President Abraham Lincoln, California Governor Earl Warren, and President Gerald Ford. ¤For helpful comments we thank Steve Ansolabehere, David Austen-Smith, Dan Carpenter, Cary Covington, Patricia Conley, Daniel Diermeier, Tim Fedderson, Fred Greenstein, Keith Krehbiel, Dan Kryder, Jim Snyder, Craig Volden, and seminar participants at Berkeley, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, NYU Law School, Princeton, Stanford, and SUNY Stony Brook. yAssistant Professor of Political Science, MIT. zAssistant Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University. xCorresponding author. Assistant Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University, 601 University Place, Evanston IL 60208-1006. Email: [e-mail]. Phone: [phone]. Fax: [phone]. “There are some who would be inclined to regard the servile pliancy of the Executive to a prevailing current...as its best recommendation. But such men entertain very crude notions, as well of the purposes for which government was instituted, as of the true means by which the public happiness may be promoted...When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests.” Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper 71