Looking Beyond the Incumbent: The Effects of Exposing Corruption on Electoral Outcomes

Does information about rampant political corruption increase electoral participation and the support for challenger parties? Democratic theory assumes that offering more information to voters will enhance electoral accountability. However, if there is consistent evidence suggesting that voters punis...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNBER Working Paper Series p. 17679
Main Authors Chong, Alberto, Ana L De La O, Karlan, Dean, Wantchekon, Leonard
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc 01.12.2011
Subjects
Access to information
Accountability
Corruption
Corruption in government
Democracy
Development banks
Economic models
Economic statistics
Economic theory
Election results
Incumbency
Local elections
Political behavior
Political ethics
Political science
Political systems
Politics
Seminars
Studies
Voter behavior
Voters
United States > US
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Summary:Does information about rampant political corruption increase electoral participation and the support for challenger parties? Democratic theory assumes that offering more information to voters will enhance electoral accountability. However, if there is consistent evidence suggesting that voters punish corrupt incumbents, it is unclear whether this translates into increased support for challengers and higher political participation. We provide experimental evidence that information about copious corruption not only decreases incumbent support in local elections in Mexico, but also decreases voter turnout, challengers' votes, and erodes voters' identification with the party of the corrupt incumbent. Our results suggest that while flows of information are necessary, they may be insufficient to improve political accountability, since voters may respond to information by withdrawing from the political process. We conclude with a discussion of the institutional contexts that could allow increased access to information to promote government accountability.
ISSN:0898-2937
DOI:10.3386/w17679