Sublime

22 Monica Martinez-Bravo, Gerard Padro-i-Miquel, Nancy Qian, and Yang Yao, “Accountability in an Authoritarian Regime: The Impact of Local Electoral Reforms in Rural China,” Yale University (2010), manuscript.

Another lever was accountability. As the governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton was confronted early on with an impossible equation whereby his constituents wanted more public spending, but they hated any politician that raised taxes to finance that spending. Clinton experienced the bitter results: after becoming governor in 1978, he lost his reelectio

The election of public officers, or the inalienability of their functions, the absence of a gradation of powers, and the introduction of a judicial control over the secondary branches of the administration, are the universal characteristics of the American system from Maine to the Floridas.

All elective functions are inalienable until their term is expired. In fact, the elected magistrate has nothing either to expect or to fear from his constituents; and when all public offices are filled by ballot there can be no series of official dignities,

When Tiberius persuaded them to vote out of office the tribune who opposed him, his argument went along the lines of ‘if the people’s tribune no longer does what the people want, then he should be deposed’. That raised an issue still familiar in modern electoral systems. Are Members of Parliament, for example, to be seen as delegates of the voters,