Institutional Origins of Incumbency Advantage

• In Event: Natural Experiments in Africa

Abstract

Unlike their counterparts in advanced democracies, legislative incumbents in emerging democracies are disadvantaged. Existing research attributes this to endemic voter discontent on account of the preponderance of venal and low quality incumbents. This paper provides a different, albeit complementary, explanation for the observed incumbency disadvantage in emerging democracies. With new data comprising 13,932 candidate-level observations from Kenya and Zambia, and employing a regression dis- continuity design, I show that legislative strength conditions the electoral impact of incumbency. In short, strong legislatures produce electorally strong incumbents. These findings shine new light on the electoral implications of legislative weakness in emerging democracies.

Author

• Ken Ochieng' Opalo, Georgetown University