“Playing Defense” to Keep Public Services Off the Agenda: Evidence From Water in Mexico City

Theories of accountability predict that when governments underperform, voters and electoral challengers will hold incumbents accountable. Yet governments frequently fail to deliver on essential responsibilities like public service provision without electoral consequences. I propose that incumbents, knowing how hard problems like public service quality are to solve, proactively “play defense” to keep those issues off the electoral agenda. Local incumbents fear visible protest and viral events. As a consequence, they invest time and resources to prevent negative events from drawing public attention to hard-to-solve issues. Incumbents “playing defense” may even prioritize responding to demands from opposition groups, if those groups wield sufficient public influence. I illustrate this logic with a multi-method case study of piped water provision in Mexico City, using qualitative fieldwork and survey-, administrative-, and social media data. I show how local borough mayors monitored and intercepted disaffected actors to keep piped water off the agenda.