> Disentangling Accountability and Competence in Elections: Evidence from U.S. Term Limits
> We exploit variation in U.S. gubernatorial term limits across states and time to empirically estimate two separate effects of elections on government performance. Holding tenure in office constant, differences in performance by reelection-eligible and term-limited incumbents identify an accountability effect: reelection-eligible governors have greater incentives to exert costly effort on behalf of voters. Holding term-limit status constant, differences in performance by incumbents in different terms identify a competence effect: later-term incumbents are more likely to be competent both because they have survived reelection and because they have experience in office. We show that economic growth is higher and taxes, spending, and borrowing costs are lower under reelection- eligible incumbents than under term-limited incumbents (accountability), and under reelected incumbents than under first-term incumbents (competence), all else equal. In addition to improving our understanding of the role of elections in representative democracy, these findings resolve an empirical puzzle about the disappearance of the effect of term limits on gubernatorial performance over time.
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/9639960/Alt_Dise...
B: Elected officials are supposed to be the overseeing representatives, rather than functional executives.(think board vs C-suite). Elected executive is overall a poor idea.
It's a shame. I like the idea of not concentrating power.
Three countries with fairly open and competitive elections, and very high levels of corruption and high levels of incumbency:
https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/india
https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/turkey
https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/hungary
Then there are these least corrupt countries, that elect new people all the time:
https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/finland
https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/new-zealand
Oh... and let's not forget, that the study is about how efficient the governors are... not about corruption at all.
Term limits are best implemented where someone must take on a different job every x years. This doesn't solve the problem of entrenched vampiric bureaucrats entirely, but it at least pushes them towards the chopping block.
Liquid democracy is a type of democracy where people give their voting power for particular issues to whoever they trust most for that topic. Then that person may pass the cumulative votes onto someone they trust and believe in. The point of liquid democracy is to empower people who are actual experts in a subject. Rather than having laymen vote in ways that just empower the most socially adept.
The entire skillset involved with gaining power is so time-consuming, it's incredibly rare for someone to have it and an actual technical skill at the same time.