Does War Crowd Out Politics? Newspaper Coverage and Electoral Outcomes

• In Event: International Political Behavior

Abstract

How does information provision about candidate quality affect electoral outcomes? We consider the period surrounding World War I where local news coverage was crowded out by wartime coverage. The variation in the amount of political information in newspapers during this time offers a test of whether information about candidate quality affects voter’s decisions. To measure candidate quality, we introduce data on endorsements made by the Illinois Legislative Voter’s League, an interest group that featured actively in Illinois’ legislative politics. Notably, the League made endorsements in both the state’s primary and general elections, across party lines, based on legislative effort. We combine this measure of candidate quality with electoral returns, roll call votes of incumbents, and the relative availability of local and state political information in newspaper coverage during 1908 - 1924. We analyze whether voters elect retain high quality candidates and vote out low quality candidates both when their information is covered by newspapers, and when that information is crowded out by of war coverage. In doing so, we test how the provision of political information shapes electoral accountability.

Authors

• Pamela Ban, University of California, San Diego

• Shiro Kuriwaki, Harvard University

• Daniel J. Moskowitz, Harvard University

• James M. Snyder, Harvard University