Discipline by turnout

This paper explores the possibility that voter turnout induces subsequent performance from the elected official, in a two-period signaling-game model of political agency. An election is held in each period to delegate a policy decision to a politician whose policy preferences are private information. A representative voter decides, in each election, whether to vote for a politician or abstain, and voting incurs a cost which is private information. With ex-ante identical politicians, turning out in the first election is statically not optimal for the voter. However, she may still do so to signal her willingness—low cost—to punish a wrong policy in the following election.