IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aop/jijoss/v13y2024i1p13-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Democracy Tax - Politicians' Ignorance and Voters' Lack of Information in a Democratic Contest, a Case Study from the Czech Republic

Author

Listed:
  • Vilem Cap

    (Prague University of Economics and Business)

  • Marek Feurich

    (Prague University of Economics and Business)

  • Martin Lukavec

    (Prague University of Economics and Business)

Abstract

This paper highlights an important and neglected democracy limitation: voters make decisions based on incomplete information. This leads to inefficient or irrational decisions and applies to elections at all levels of the political system in the Western world. This paper shows that voting with incomplete information leads to the election of incompetent politicians. Testing of the Prague representatives has shown their lack of knowledge to perform their duties. The regression analysis performed does not show a statistically significant relationship between the representatives knowledge and their education or political experience. A possible solution is a sophisticated training system for elected candidates.

Suggested Citation

  • Vilem Cap & Marek Feurich & Martin Lukavec, 2024. "The Democracy Tax - Politicians' Ignorance and Voters' Lack of Information in a Democratic Contest, a Case Study from the Czech Republic," International Journal of Social Sciences, European Research Center, vol. 13(1), pages 13-32, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:aop:jijoss:v:13:y:2024:i:1:p:13-32
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://eurrec.org/ijoss-article-117094
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://eurrec.org/ijoss-article-117094?download=2
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Breton, Albert & Wintrobe, Ronald, 1975. "The Equilibrium Size of a Budget-maximizing Bureau: A Note on Niskanen's Theory of Bureaucracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(1), pages 195-207, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roger Congleton, 2009. "On the political economy of the financial crisis and bailout of 2008–2009," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 287-317, September.
    2. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    3. Roger Congleton, 2001. "On the Durability of King and Council: The Continuum Between Dictatorship and Democracy," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 193-215, September.
    4. Samarth Vaidya, 2004. "Bureaucratic Provision: Influencing vs. Lying," Econometric Society 2004 Australasian Meetings 251, Econometric Society.
    5. Breton, Albert, 1995. "Organizational hierarchies and bureaucracies: An integrative essay," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 411-440, September.
    6. Marta Curto-Grau, 2017. "Voters’ responsiveness to public employment policies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 143-169, January.
    7. Blaeschke, Frédéric & Haug, Peter, 2014. "Does Intermunicipal Cooperation Increase Efficiency? Evidence from the Hessian Wastewater Sector," IWH Discussion Papers 11/2014, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    8. Fearon, Gervan & Busch, Lutz-Alexander, 2006. "Auditing and competitive bidding in the public sector," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 657-678, May.
    9. Miltos Makris, 2003. "Administrative Bureaus with Standard Operating Procedures," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 03/062, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    10. Roger Congleton, 2007. "Informational limits to democratic public policy: The jury theorem, yardstick competition, and ignorance," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 333-352, September.
    11. Haug, Peter, 2013. "Grant Dependence, Regulation and the Effects of Formula-based Grant Systems on German Local Governments: A Data Report for Saxony-Anhalt," IWH Discussion Papers 2/2013, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    12. R. Congleton, 1982. "A model of asymmetric bureaucratic inertia and bias," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 421-425, January.
    13. Antonis Adam & Manthos Delis & Pantelis Kammas, 2011. "Public sector efficiency: leveling the playing field between OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 163-183, January.
    14. Dieter Schmidtchen & Bernard Steunenberg, "undated". "European Policymaking: An Agency-Theoretic Analysis of the Issue," German Working Papers in Law and Economics 2002-1-1040, Berkeley Electronic Press.
    15. Gervan Fearon, 2001. "Endogenous public sector budgeting: to centralize or not?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 34(2), pages 504-524, May.
    16. Aleksandar Vasilev, 2013. "On the cost of rent-seeking by government bureaucrats in a Real-Business-Cycle framework," Working Papers 2013_20, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    17. Stephen L. Mehay & Rodolfo A. Gonzalez, 1987. "Outside Information and the Monopoly Power of a Public Bureau: An Empirical Analysis," Public Finance Review, , vol. 15(1), pages 61-75, January.
    18. Balaguer-Coll, Maria Teresa & Prior, Diego & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2007. "On the determinants of local government performance: A two-stage nonparametric approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 425-451, February.
    19. José Casas-Pardo & Miguel Puchades-Navarro, 2001. "A Critical Comment on Niskanen's Model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 107(1), pages 147-167, April.
    20. Thomas McGuire & Michael Coiner & Larry Spancake, 1979. "Budget-maximizing agencies and efficiency in government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 333-357, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    democracy; limits of democracy; competence of politicians; inefficiency of governance; rational choice; information asymmetry; education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • K10 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - General (Constitutional Law)

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aop:jijoss:v:13:y:2024:i:1:p:13-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jiri Rotschedl (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://ijoss.eurrec.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.