What do voters want from their legislators? Evidence from Ghana
Legislators make trade-offs when allocating their time and resources to their multiple tasks of representation, legislation, executive oversight, and constituency service. Furthermore, they must decide how much effort to exert or the balance to strike when undertaking a specific function. Existing research provides limited insights into citizens’ preferences over these multifaceted officeholder decisions in sub-Saharan Africa. I offer novel insights on citizens’ preferences using a conjoint survey experiment of Ghanaians to address this knowledge gap. My findings are threefold. First, I find that citizens put more weight on constituency-related activities than parliamentary work. Second, in the constituency, citizens value political representation activities more than constituency services. Third, they weigh public-good-oriented constituency services higher than private ones. The research contributes to our understanding of citizen-legislator accountability relationship in sub-Saharan Africa.
African Affairs 123(491), 2024.
Citation
@article{k._ofosu2024,
author = {K. Ofosu, George},
title = {What Do Voters Want from Their Legislators? {Evidence} from
{Ghana}},
journal = {African Affairs},
volume = {123},
number = {491},
date = {2024-06-01},
url = {https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/123/491/165/7705414?login=false},
langid = {en},
abstract = {Legislators make trade-offs when allocating their time and
resources to their multiple tasks of representation, legislation,
executive oversight, and constituency service. Furthermore, they
must decide how much effort to exert or the balance to strike when
undertaking a specific function. Existing research provides limited
insights into citizens’ preferences over these multifaceted
officeholder decisions in sub-Saharan Africa. I offer novel insights
on citizens’ preferences using a conjoint survey experiment of
Ghanaians to address this knowledge gap. My findings are threefold.
First, I find that citizens put more weight on constituency-related
activities than parliamentary work. Second, in the constituency,
citizens value political representation activities more than
constituency services. Third, they weigh public-good-oriented
constituency services higher than private ones. The research
contributes to our understanding of citizen-legislator
accountability relationship in sub-Saharan Africa.}
}