At the academic level and in political practice, participatory and evidence-based political processes are increasingly recognized as mechanisms that guarantee more efficient political decisionmaking. However, no theoretical framework that allows a clear definition of participatory and...

Electoral competition is a democratic mechanism to guarantee high governmental performance. In reality, however, it often leads to policy failure due to Government Capture and Government Accountability. An understanding of both phenomena has to be based on voter theory and nowadays the...

Electoral competition is considered a control mechanism to guarantee a good performance of the government. However, in real life it often leads to a distorted policy implementation due to Government Capture and low Government Accountability. Therefore, the analysis of voter behavior is a key...

In democratic systems, elections are considered a mechanism to ensure that efficient policies seeking the wellbeing of the population are implemented by the government, although the reality often reflects the opposite. Governments usually act inefficiently due to problems of government...

Even in countries with well functioning democracies, not all people with the right to vote in a presidential election decide to cast a vote. In order to study the importance of abstention in presidential elections in Africa and Latin America, data from Senegal and Honduras was analyzed. These...

The seminal papers of Persson and Tabellini have brought increasing interest in analyzing the effects of formal political institutions on economic policy choices. In contrast, the role of participatory policy processes in formulating efficient policies in developing countries has not been...