Chiefs’ endorsements and voter behavior

Brierley, Sarah ORCID: 0000-0002-0902-6763 and Ofosu, George K. ORCID: 0000-0003-4112-0749 (2023) Chiefs’ endorsements and voter behavior. Comparative Political Studies. ISSN 0010-4140

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Abstract

Traditional leaders can influence electoral outcomes. We designed an experiment to investigate why public endorsements by chiefs affect voters—and which types of voters they influence. Chiefs have incentives to prefer politicians who will promote local development, and can use endorsements to sway elections accordingly. We argue that voters often interpret chiefs’ endorsements as a signal of candidate quality. To assess this argument, we exposed voters to real endorsements made by chiefs during Ghana’s 2020 presidential election. We show that endorsements impact the vote choice of undecided voters. Consistent with a signaling mechanism, respondents exposed to chiefs’ rationale for endorsing a candidate were no more likely to vote for the endorsed candidate than those who only heard chiefs’ approval of a candidate. Further, treated respondents hold higher evaluations of the endorsed candidate on multiple dimensions of candidate quality. Our results suggest that chiefs influence voters through a non-coercive mechanism, which has positive implications for accountability.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://journals.sagepub.com/home/CPS
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Authors
Divisions:	Government
Subjects:	J Political Science J Political Science > JF Political institutions (General)
Date Deposited:	01 Aug 2023 10:12
Last Modified:	20 Dec 2024 00:49
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/119888

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