We now turn to detail the logic of these hypotheses using the theoretical ideas related to cost of supply and demand. Order, timing, and historical context naturally matter for the evolution of complex sets of institutions (e.g., Mahoney 2001, Yashar 1997). Nevertheless, the literature on sequencing has three main shortcomings: (1) it often focuses on bivariate relationships such as the place and role of one specific institution in relationship to another (e.g., introducing competition before extending suffrage); (2) it has not had methods developed to identify series of variables related sequentially in longer chains; and (3) it usually analyses the de-jure introduction of institutions and not their de-facto effectiveness, in part because of lack of data.
Regarding the first issue, take for example studies on the timing of the introduction of de-jure multiparty elections (vertical accountability). Mansfield and Snyder (2007, pp. 6–7) hold that an “out-of sequence” push to hold competitive elections in culturally diverse societies without reasonably effective institutions is likely to fail and even lead to violence. Gandhi and Lust-Okar (2009) also suggest that multiparty elections may stabilize and legitimize dictatorships if introduced before full competition is institutionalized. Yet, Carothers (2007, pp. 20–21) claim that stable political institutions and accountability mechanisms are more likely to develop “as part and parcel” of the process of democratization rather than separate from it. Similarly, Howard and Roessler (2006) and Lindberg (2006) argue that even in authoritarian contexts, repeated elections are more likely than not to have democratizing outcomes. With regard to political parties, Shefter (1977) argues that relative timing of bureaucratization and the organizational origin of political parties explains to a large extent whether they choose programmatic appeals over clientelistic strategies.
In the area of diagonal accountability, establishing a robust civil society is often viewed as a condition for the subsequent fall of authoritarian regimes and building of a resilient democracy (Bernhard 1993). Carothers (2007, p. 20) points out that the development of strong grass root movements (e.g., Solidarity in Poland, the African National Congress in South Africa) have often been necessary conditions for democratic change. Yet, Keane (2009: xxvii) suggests that civil society developed their monitory role only after extensive historical experience with electoral democracy, and as part of their inclination to strive for more influence. They succeeded in part because after World War II, many influential actors saw the strengthening of institutions of diagonal and horizontal accountability as a recipe for preventing democratic breakdowns. (Keane 2009: 729ff) But we lack systematic, empirical tests of these claims.
Regarding horizontal accountability, Fish (2006) argues that a powerful legislature must develop first or else a concentration of power in the hands of the executive and underdevelopment of political parties inhibits democratization. Some case study work is supportive showing that even in weak democracies, opposition parties in a legislature can hold the executive somewhat to account (Herron and Boyko 2015, p. 132). Others find a risk that such conflicts between the legislature and the executive lead to democratic breakdown (Stepan et al. 1993).
The second issue is that while these and many other contributions are valuable, investigations of institutions affecting each other over longer sequential “chains” are still lacking. It is due to both previous shortage of detailed and comparable global data with long time-series, as well as to unavailability of fitting methods. We employ here a set of entirely new methods developed precisely to detail sequential relationships between a substantial number of indicators measured at a higher level than dichotomies and involving large number of observations (here 35 ordinal variables of accountability with typically five levels measured for about 17,000 country-years). The methods emerged in evolutionary biology to study parasite-host systems (e.g., Siixén-Tullberg 1993) and have been adapted to the study of political systems recently (Lindenfors et al. 2016, 2018).
Finally, most of the extant literature focuses on de-jure institutions. However, what really matters is how well such institutions are functioning in practice. We develop on this in the following section.
De-Jure vs. De-Facto Accountability
There is an important difference between the introduction of institutions of accountability de-jure and their de-facto effectiveness (Besley 2006: 37, Snyder 2006, p. 219), perhaps particular so in authoritarian regimes (Gandhi and Lust-Okar 2009): While almost 90% of countries now hold multiparty elections, less than half of these elections are substantially free and fair (Hafner-Burton et al. 2014, p. 152, van Ham and Lindberg 2016, 5f). Rulers use “the menu of manipulation” (Schedler 2002) to undermine two key preconditions for vertical accountability: procedural certainty and ex ante uncertainty (Przeworski 1986, pp. 56–57).
In terms of diagonal accountability, journalists are often severely restricted in practice even when freedom of expression and the media are constitutionally guaranteed, as for example in contemporary Russia (Besley et al. 2002, p. 720). Finally, most nations have legislatures with constitutionally guaranteed oversight functions. Yet, effective exercise such de-jure prerogatives are much scarcer (Salih 2005; Rakner and van de Walle 2009; Vliet 2014). Authoritarian governments use legislatures to co-opt elites and rather shield governments from criticism (Gandhi 2008) especially where one-party-dominance undermine the division between legislative and executive powers (Cranenburgh 2009, p. 64; Lindberg and Jones 2010).
Sequences in the Evolution of Accountability?
The advancement of de-facto accountability is not inevitable. As an approximation, it seems reasonable to assume that agents’ (governments) strategic interest is to remain as unconstrained as possible in order to stay in power, while principals (accountability actors) want to maximize the amount of control they exercise over agents, and hence seek to expand the reach of de-facto accountability mechanisms. The accountability actors include citizens, political parties, legislatures, high courts, ombudsman offices, and other oversight bodies, as well as media, journalists, and CSOs.Footnote 2 The government must decide to what extent they will concede to such demands in an iterative process balancing the costs of supplying accountability against the cost of suppressing the demand for accountability. This notion builds on Dahl’s (1971, p. 14f) famous axiom that the likelihood of democratization increases as the cost of tolerating opposition decrease and the cost of repression increase (Fig. 1).
Thus, the evolution of specific patterns of accountability is a function of (1) how costly governments calculate it would be to supply improved institutions of accountability—in particular to the extent it would affect continued hold on to power; and (2) whether governments perceive the cost of suppressing the demand for specific types of accountability as acceptable or not (cf. Lindberg 2009, p. 320).
The Cost of Supplying Accountability
We suggest that because vertical, diagonal, and horizontal accountability encompass distinct mechanisms to constrain governments, one should expect that they vary in how effective they are in the information and sanctions dimensions (Schedler 1999). Table 1 shows the pattern we expect.
Table 1 Effectiveness of the three sub-types of de-facto accountability in the information and enforcement dimension of accountability Vertical accountability has ultimately a sharp edge by voters’ power to “throw the rascals out” if governments perform poorly. The potential cost of immediately losing power is thus very high when the associated institutions are developed de facto, but considered a “long route” to accountability (World Bank 2004) since elections occurs only periodically. Citizens also face informational disadvantages restricting their ability to evaluate governments’ (Miller 2005, p. 207) even in established democracies (e.g., Achen and Bartels 2016; Brennan 2016; Evans 2004; Manin et al. 1999, p. 44), and ruling elites have multiple instruments to deceive the electorate (Schedler 2002) thus significantly lowering the costs of supplying vertical accountability. Hence, we consider the information dimension low for vertical accountability. In the absence of effective diagonal and horizontal mechanisms, the institutions of vertical accountability should be relatively little of a threat to rulers.
Conversely, the strength of diagonal accountability institutions when effectively in place is uncovering and providing information. Media and watch-dog CSOs are main sources of information for many citizens and therefore vital also for facilitating the effective exercise of vertical accountability. Nevertheless, CSOs and media have few direct means of sanctioning and depend on whether the institutions of vertical and horizontal accountability respond (Mainwaring and Welna 2003). Therefore, the potential costs of diagonal accountability in the dimension of sanctions are low, but high in the information dimension.
Finally, we argue that horizontal accountability when realized in practice carry high costs for the executive in both dimensions. First, it is difficult for governments to evade fully effective and independent horizontal oversight institutions. Legislatures, high courts, and other oversight bodies have both incentives and powers to monitor the actions of the executive on a day-to-basis, and impose costly sanctions (Laver and Shepsle 1999; Fish 2006). They are privy to even classified information and not easily deceived. For example, in countries such as Sweden (National Audit Office) or the USA (Government Accountability Office), independent audit offices have the right to thoroughly scrutinize records of public expenditure. Their reports are important tools for legislators and journalists to hold the government to account. Second, powerful legislatures—for instance through votes of non-confidence—and high courts through rulings have the power to directly sanction the government. The dual characteristics of effective information and enforcement make full de-facto horizontal accountability potentially very costly for governments and they should therefore seek to prevent it for as long as possible.
The Cost of Suppressing the Demand for Accountability
The cost of repressing demands for expanding the effective powers of accountability actors is the second aspect shaping the propensity of government concessions, and it seems reasonable to assume that a strong demand is costlier to repress than a weak.
There is evidence that institutions of vertical accountability—even if weak—build demand for more de-facto accountability of any kind. For example, introduction of de-jure multiparty elections lead African countries toward strengthening diagonal accountability (Lindberg 2006) perhaps because repeated participation in elections shape citizens to demand more democratic procedures and broader participation (Gandhi and Lust-Okar 2009, p. 415). At the same time, political competition and a minimum level of press freedom enables civil society to push for better quality of government (Grimes 2013). If elections prompt various actors to believe that democracy is “the new game in town” incentives to adhere to democratic norms increase (Lindberg 2009, p. 335), including holding the government to account.
Key actors in vertical accountability are voters. They are the principals of legislators—in contexts with clean elections—with few contingencies on other subtypes political accountability.Footnote 3 This makes their incentives and capacity to demand for more accountability less dependent on advancements in other areas. Disenchanted voters have a potent tool as potential mass protesters independent of other accountability actors. Therefore, many scholars (Markoff 1999, p. 189; Therborn 1997) single out mass protest as key driving force in democratization processes, while others emphasize the role of elites particularly (Huntington 1984). In recent history, we can find many examples for the important role of citizens in moving from de-jure to de-facto accountability. “Stolen” elections have triggered mass protests leading up to the color revolutions (Bunce and Wolchik 2010; Thompson and Kuntz 2009). In 2010, Nigerians took to the streets demanding free and fair elections and the replacement of the head of the Election Management Body (EMB) (Le Van and Ukata 2012). Responding to the protests, the government appointed a new EMB head, who organized the much-improved 2011 elections (Lewis 2011).
We then argue that improvements in vertical accountability should be expected to increase the demand for greater de-facto diagonal as well as horizontal accountability, thus making it costlier for governments to repress such demands. For instance, legislators facing clean elections are likely to insist that the legislature gains effective oversight powers. First, if legislators are to be reelected, they need to have achieved something during their tenure, such as getting the government to implement a certain policy. This is a strong incentive to demand more power to hold the executive to account de-facto, especially since legislators have genuine mandates from voters and do not depend on the government to manipulate elections in their favor, including provision of clientelistic goods (Lust 2009). Second, when elections are free and fair, a greater share of opposition candidates are typically elected, who are independent of government. Thus, clean elections increase the independence of legislators writ large. Due to both pathways, high levels of vertical accountability are likely to increase the demand for more horizontal accountability (Fig. 2).
An example of effective diagonal accountability facilitating stronger horizontal accountability is the campaign by Argentinian CSOs using the media to push for reforms in the judicial system. The non-profit organization Asociación Por Los Derechos Civiles (ADC) led a campaign resulting in public hearings for Supreme Court of Justice nominees. Similarly, CSOs spearheaded judicial reforms at provincial level in Argentina. As result, the selection of judges was removed from political control and moved to the Council of Magistrates under CSO monitoring (Fisher 2013, pp. 238–9). Thus, CSOs can push for more transparency and better oversight of governments that alongside independent media strengthens the demand for effective de-facto horizontal accountability. Therefore, we expect effective diagonal accountability to create a stronger demand for improved horizontal accountability.
Our central argument is that the cost of suppressing the demand for more de-facto horizontal accountability (in particular for the institutions of horizontal accountability at the national level with the sharpest teeth) is contingent on advancements in other sub-types of accountability. Conversely, the demand for vertical accountability is not conditioned as much on other sub-types and diagonal accountability occupies an intermediate position.