Political Accountability and the Distortion of Law Enforcement

ABSTRACT Citizens may derive personal benefits from new technologies while remaining uncertain about their potential social harm. Consequently, citizens may delegate the decision of legal prohibition to politicians, but conflicts can arise because politicians may have self‐interested motivations. How does the interaction of uncertainty regarding social harm and politicians' incentives affect the legal prohibition of new technologies? To answer this question, we develop a two‐period political agency model combined with a law enforcement model in which citizens endogenously determine whether to become law‐breaking or law‐abiding citizens. We then demonstrate that (i) when uncertainty regarding social harm is low, politicians tend to opt for under‐enforcement, while (ii) when uncertainty is high, politicians are inclined toward over‐enforcement. Additionally, we show that as politicians have greater motivation to hold office, expected welfare is enhanced when future uncertainty about harm exceeds current uncertainty although this may result in distorted law enforcement.