Do Endorsements by Traditional Leaders Affect Voter Attitudes?

• In Event: The State and Traditional Governance Nexus: Empirical Evidence from Africa

Abstract

Chiefs act as important intermediaries between voters and politicians in many democracies, particularly in countries in sub-Saharan Africa. During election campaigns, politicians often court chiefs to encourage them to endorse them as candidates. In spite of legislation that bans chiefs from active political campaign or mobilization, it is common to see chiefs publicly declare their support for particular politicians. Do chief's endorsements affect voter attitudes and vote choice? We answer this question using data from Ghana. We combine a field experiment with a panel survey of voters (N=1,700) conducted pre- and post- the country’s December 2020 presidential election. Voters assigned to the treatment group heard news bulletins that contained clips of actual endorsements made by their local paramount chief during the campaign period. Our preliminary results suggest that the effect of endorsements is conditional on prior partisanship: endorsements have strong and significant effects on unaligned voters. We also use our data to investigate the mechanism that explains our results.

Authors

• Sarah Brierley, London School of Economics

• George Kwaku Ofosu, London School of Economics and Political Science