Accountability in American Legislatures

Our core understanding of democracy suggests that officeholders should be electorally punished when they perform poorly or fail to represent their constituents. My book manuscript – Accountability in American Legislatures – evaluates the extent to which theories of political accountability apply to state legislatures by addressing the question: do elections hold state legislators accountable for their own performance? Building upon the work from my award-winning dissertation, my analyses of candidate decision-making, voter knowledge, and election outcomes show that rather than being a referendum on how state legislators perform, state legislative elections are dominated by national politics. A full copy manuscript can be found here with versions of chapters below: