Does Performance Information Receive Political Attention?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Does Performance Information Receive Political Attention?

AU - Hansen, Jesper Asring Jessen

PY - 2023/7

Y1 - 2023/7

N2 - This study examines whether performance information affects the political agenda. I offer and test two hypotheses on performance information in politics—the attention-allocation hypothesis, suggesting that politicians leverage performance data to devote attention to problems in service delivery, and the politicization hypothesis, stating that political concerns alter elected officials focus on performance information. I examine the hypotheses by gathering administrative data on pupils' standardized test scores combined with more than 6000 min of meetings in Danish municipal school committees, on which I leverage two-way fixed effects models. The results show that performance shortfalls receive political attention, regardless of the politicization of the environment. In contrast to a vast literature stating how the political context alters attention to performance information, these results demonstrate that political entities leverage performance data to discover problems in need of attention in ways similar to those of other types of organizations.

AB - This study examines whether performance information affects the political agenda. I offer and test two hypotheses on performance information in politics—the attention-allocation hypothesis, suggesting that politicians leverage performance data to devote attention to problems in service delivery, and the politicization hypothesis, stating that political concerns alter elected officials focus on performance information. I examine the hypotheses by gathering administrative data on pupils' standardized test scores combined with more than 6000 min of meetings in Danish municipal school committees, on which I leverage two-way fixed effects models. The results show that performance shortfalls receive political attention, regardless of the politicization of the environment. In contrast to a vast literature stating how the political context alters attention to performance information, these results demonstrate that political entities leverage performance data to discover problems in need of attention in ways similar to those of other types of organizations.

U2 - 10.1111/puar.13646

DO - 10.1111/puar.13646

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0033-3352

VL - 83

SP - 763

EP - 774

JO - Public Administration Review

JF - Public Administration Review

IS - 4

ER -