Information Provision, Voter Coordination, and Electoral Accountability: Evidence from Mexican Social Networks

How do social networks moderate the way political information influences electoral accountability? We propose a simple model in which incumbent malfeasance revelations can facilitate coordination around less malfeasant challenger parties in highly connected voter networks, even when voters update fa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe American political science review Vol. 113; no. 2; pp. 475 - 498
Main Authors ARIAS, ERIC, BALÁN, PABLO, LARREGUY, HORACIO, MARSHALL, JOHN, QUERUBÍN, PABLO
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.05.2019
Subjects
Accountability
Beliefs
College professors
Computer networks
Coordination
Departments
Election results
Elections
Evidence
Government (Administrative Body)
Graduate Students
Human subjects
Incumbency
Individual differences
Information sharing
Local elections
Political parties
Political science
Politicians
Politics
Presidential elections
Social Influences
Social networks
Transfer Programs
Voter behavior
Voters
Voting
Mexico
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Summary:How do social networks moderate the way political information influences electoral accountability? We propose a simple model in which incumbent malfeasance revelations can facilitate coordination around less malfeasant challenger parties in highly connected voter networks, even when voters update favorably about incumbent party malfeasance. We provide evidence from Mexico of this mechanism by leveraging a field experiment in a context where the provision of incumbent malfeasance information increased support for incumbent parties, despite voters continuing to believe that challengers were less malfeasant than incumbents. Combining this experiment with detailed family network data, we show that—consistent with the model—the increase in incumbent party vote share due to information provision was counteracted by coordination around less malfeasant challengers in precincts with greater network connectedness. Individual-level data further demonstrate that networks facilitated explicit and tacit coordination among voters. These findings suggest that networks can help voters coordinate around information to help remove poorly performing politicians.
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ISSN:0003-0554
1537-5943
DOI:10.1017/S0003055419000091