Public Commenting and Accountability
Abstract: Public participation in local policymaking is often dominated by small groups of residents who are unrepresentative of the larger population. Why do politicians grease the squeaky wheel? One possibility is these members of the public, who tend to be highly informed and engaged, are some of the few voters able to hold their politicians electorally accountable. We investigate this possibility by recontacting commenters at public meetings, testing whether commenters meet the conditions necessary for accountability. First, we show how often commenters make explicit threats of withholding support to politicians. Second, we measure how often commenters recall their past positions on projects, the resulting policy action, whether the policy action aligned with their position. We further test whether opinions of incumbents and intention to vote in the upcoming election are related to whether policies were out of step with commenters' preferences.