Hierarchical Control

Theories of political accountability typically focus on voter-politician relationships. However, overall government performance depends on both elected politicians and unelected bureaucrats. Politicians are agents of voters while serving as principals to bureaucrats. We develop a model of electoral accountability in governance hierarchies, treating it as a chain of relational contracts. The problem of optimizing electoral control reduces to a classic static consumer problem, and we illustrate how voter welfare and governance quality respond to changes in the political-economic environment