The Politics of Potholes: Service Quality and Retrospective Voting in Local Elections
Journal of Politics (2017, Vol. 79, No. 1): pp. 302-314
54 Pages Posted: 14 Aug 2015 Last revised: 22 Jun 2017
Date Written: July 20, 2016
Abstract
By conditioning their support for political incumbents on observed performance outcomes, voters can motivate elected officials to represent their interests faithfully while in office. Whether elections serve this function in sub-national U.S. government remains unclear, however, because much of the existing research on retrospective voting in these contexts focuses on outcomes that are not obviously salient to voters or over which the relevant government officials have limited influence. In this study, we examine one outcome -- the quality of local roads -- that is both salient and unquestionably under the control of city government. Our analysis leverages within-city variation in the number of pothole complaints in one of America's largest cities and shows that such variation can explain neighborhood-level differences in support for incumbents in two political offices -- mayor and city council -- across several electoral cycles.
Keywords: city and urban politics, retrospective voting, municipal services, service quality, voting behavior
JEL Classification: H40, H41, H70, H72, H79, R40
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation