Political Selection under Economic Distress.

• In Event: Budgets, Bribes, and Local Political Survival

Abstract

Political selection rests on the ability of voters to elect high-quality candidates and to remove low-quality candidates. It is often observed that politicians invest in shortsighted policies that are not optimal for the long term welfare of their citizens. This is particular true in times of crises such as during natural disasters, where politicians invest in visible outcomes such as disaster relief payments, sometimes in the form of vote buying, instead of preparedness policies. However, it is not clear of these patterns are driven by supply by politicians or if they are demanded by voters. Therefore, this paper investigates if citizens have preferences for candidates that produce visible short term outcomes instead of candidates provide high effort and quality for preparedness policies. Using two novel survey experiments in combination with a natural experiment in Malawi, the paper investigates the preferences ordering of voters for different dimension of politicians quality and performance in a low-income context prone to economic distress. In a second step, the study identifies if and how voter preferences for different dimensions of political performance change due to economic distress in the wake of natural disasters. Preliminary results indicate that voters indeed value candidates that are visible after disasters and provide short term relief over candidates that invest high efforts to prepare for disasters or candidates that are highly effective in policy execution. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the study finds that voters that are primed for economic distress and that were also more affected by recent flood are more likely to punish corrupt candidates. The paper points to an informational mechanism in which those affected by the disaster learn about the negative effects of corruption and, therefore, become more dismissive of corrupt candidates and the practice of vote buying.

Author

• Felix Hartmann, University of Gothenburg