Can political gridlock undermine checks and balances? A lab experiment

TL;DR

This paper uses a lab experiment to explore how political gridlock influences individuals' willingness to weaken checks and balances, revealing that people do so even when reforms are harmful.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence that political gridlock can lead to the weakening of checks and balances, regardless of reform benefits or harms.

Findings

Subjects more likely to weaken checks during gridlock

Weakening occurs for both beneficial and harmful reforms

Political gridlock influences decision rules in governance

Abstract

If checks and balances are aimed at protecting citizens from the government's abuse of power, why do they sometimes weaken them? We address this question in a laboratory experiment in which subjects choose between two decision rules: with and without checks and balances. Voters may prefer an unchecked executive if that enables a reform that, otherwise, is blocked by the legislature. Consistent with our predictions, we find that subjects are more likely to weaken checks and balances when there is political gridlock. However, subjects weaken the controls not only when the reform is beneficial but also when it is harmful.