A theory of policy sabotage
| Author | Alexander V. Hirsch,Jonathan P. Kastellec |
| Published date | 01 April 2022 |
| Date | 01 April 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/09516298221085974 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
A theory of policy sabotage
Alexander V. Hirsch
Division of the Humanities, Social Sciences, California Institute
of Technology
Jonathan P. Kastellec
Department of Politics, Princeton University
Abstract
We develop a theory of policymaking that examines when policy sabotage—the deliberate choice
by an opposition party to interfere with the implementation of a policy—can be an effective elect-
oral strategy, even if rational voters can observe that it is happening. In our model, a potential
saboteur chooses whether to sabotage an incumbent’s policy by blocking its successful implemen-
tation. A voter then decides whether to retain the incumbent, who is of unknown ability, or to
select a challenger. We find that the incentives for sabotage are broadly shaped by the underlying
popularity of the incumbent—it is most attractive when an incumbent is somewhat unpopular. If
so, sabotage may decrease the probability the incumbent is reelected, even though sabotage is
observable to the voter. This is because while the saboteur knows that sabotage will improve
the incumbent’s reputation, he fears that absent sabotage a policy success will improve that
reputation even more.
Keywords
Accountability; sabotage; elections; policy
A central tension in democratic theory concerns how imperfectly informed voters can
either select representatives who act in their best interest, or sanction representatives
who do not (Fearon 1999). To address this tension, scholars have developed an extensive
literature that employs the theory of political agency to understand how and why
Corresponding author:
Alexander V. Hirsch, Division of the Humanities, and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology.
Email: avhirsch@hss.caltech.edu
Article
Journal of Theoretical Politics
2022, Vol. 34(2) 191–218
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/ 09516298221085974
journals.sagepub.com/home/jtp
reelection-minded representatives may choose to act in the best interests of voters, even if
voters can only imperfectly observe whether representatives are actually doing so.
1
While the nuances of various theories differ, a ubiquitous theme of models of selection
and accountability is that voters condition their retention choices on the observable
actions of politicians. This makes perfect sense, as voters should use all available infor-
mation at their disposal—in particular, policy outcomes. Given this, in a world in which
one party seamlessly controls policy (such as in a parliamentary system with a sizable
majority party), we would expect that party to avoid observable actions (as opposed to
hidden ones) that decrease the chance of a successful policy outcome.
However, in a context where power is more fragmented, either because of
institutional-based gridlock and/or party-based polarization, the motivations of compet-
ing parties are more complicated. In particular, the current era of partisan polarization
in the United States has seen an apparent increase in the incidence of politicians engaging
in “policy sabotage”—the deliberate effort to hinder the implementation of a policy
enacted by the opposition party. For example, since 2010 Congressional Republicans
have sought to undermine the implementation of the Affordable Care Act
(“Obamacare”)—an effort joined with full gusto by President Trump when he took
office in 2017—and have not been shy about their intentions.
2
More generally, Lee
(2016) argues that the increase in competitiveness for control of Congress has disincen-
tivized minority parties from working on policy in a bipartisan fashion, and has instead
encouraged a focus on activities that hurt the reputation of the party in power, such as
“messaging”legislation.
3
From the perspective of theoretical models of accountability, policy sabotage poses a
puzzle: why is sabotage a (potentially) effective strategy for damaging a party’s electoral
prospects when voters can see it and update on its deployment as a strategy? In this paper
we present a formal theory of policy sabotage that examines this question. We develop a
two-period model in which a voter chooses to either reelect an incumbent or replace him
with a challenger. Incumbents and challengers are each associated with an ideology, and
can be either low or high ability. This ability, which is not known to the voters, affects the
probability that a policy they generate will translate into a successful outcome.
The key innovation of the model is that there is a potential “saboteur”who can inter-
fere with implementation of the current officeholder’s policy. The saboteur can be con-
ceptualized as a bureaucrat or an out-party, depending on the context. Specifically, the
saboteur can choose to let the policy be implemented, which means that it will
succeed with some positive probability that is based on the incumbent’s ability.
Alternatively, the saboteur can sabotage the policy, which will ensure failure.
Importantly, unlike standard agency models with effort (e.g. Ashworth and Bueno de
Mesquita (2017)), we assume that both implementing and sabotaging the policy are cost-
less; this means the decision of whether to engage in sabotage is not one related to costly
effort. In addition, the act of sabotage is perfectly observable to the voter, as was arguably
the case for the Affordable Care Act.
4
The voter and the saboteur are the strategic players in the model. For simplicity, we
assume that the incumbent and challenger are non-strategic, and passively committed
to generating the best possible policies that align with their personal ideologies. Thus,
the likelihood of a policy success depends on the officeholder’s intrinsic ability, rather
192 Journal of Theoretical Politics 34(2)
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