Competition and accountability in congressional elections.

In a representative democracy, electoral incentives are supposed to ensure political accountability. I examine whether constituents who oppose their legislators' positions are more likely to have an unfavorable opinion of the incumbent and are more likely to vote her out of office. To do so, I utilize multi-level modeling techniques with data that directly capture whether a citizen agrees with the position his representative has taken across a wide range of policy debates. I find that incumbents are sanctioned by voters who disagree with their positions, but that sanctioning is stronger when electoral competition is robust and varies by the type of policy at stake. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]