A Lack of Accountability
Nation-state democracies lack sufficient accountability mechanisms to ensure that elected representatives perform their job well. Re-election is only partially effective since, in many cases, a bad representative can inflict large quantities of damage to the state treasury before their term has expired.
A large part of the problem is that elections are heavily influenced by factors that have little to do with a representative’s job performance. These include the timing of the economic cycle, the gravity of the political pendulum, the campaigns of marquee candidates of the same political party, the amount of money spent on a campaign, demographic shifts, clever marketing campaigns, and other factors. If some combination of these factors are favorable for a bad representative, they are re-elected despite their poor job performance.
Another component of the accountability problem is that few metrics or performance indicators exist to measure an elected representative’s performance. When a voter goes to the election booth, what statistics do they have to help inform their decision? What data and metrics are available? The only broadly public data available on the candidate are sound-bytes from the campaign trail.
In an era where we are data rich, we are information poor. As a result, most voters make their decision based on political party affiliation or promises made by candidates on the campaign trail. Accountability is severely lacking in current government systems — let’s fix this.
Sources: Voting Behavior| https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/instructors/setups2008/voting.html