Do citizens demand transparency from co-partisans? Evidence from a pre-registered experiment in Mexico

Abstract

Government transparency is vital for democracy because it serves as a tool for citizens to engage in oversight over and hold accountable government officials. In the absence of procedural rules requiring government transparency, politicians' actions are unobserved and cannot be easily rewarded (punished) in response to fulfilling (failing) constituent demands. Additionally, transparency eases the transition of power between political parties by giving non co-partisans a tool to monitor the party in power. Government transparency is important, however its integrity as a procedural tool is dependent on it being demanded by government officials regardless of co-partisanship. If citizens allow co-partisans to undermine government transparency, it ceases to be a tool for the perpetuation of democracy. In this article I utilize a novel pre-registered survey experiment among Mexican respondents to better understand under which contexts citizens demand transparency. Surprisingly, Mexican respondents demand for transparency from co-partisans and non-co-partisans is statistically indistinguishable. This is a meaningful result because it suggests that, at least in the case of Mexico, partisanship does not always undermine support for democratic procedures. Additionally, I find that citizens demand greater transparency about their representatives’ political activities compared to private activities. Surprisingly transparency is not dependent on the level of political office.