Voter Preferences for Politicians’ Funding Sources

• In Event: Corruption and Elite Capture in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Vote buying is a key dimension of African electoral campaigns. In order to enhance partisan loyalty and increase turnout, politicians must dole out goods to target constituencies prior to election day. Research on the topic, however, treats recipients as willing participants who are unquestioning of the politician’s financing sources. Whether African voters actually care about a candidate’s financing sources and to what effect remains an empirical puzzle. In this paper, I assess the extent to which a candidate’s source of campaign financing guides individual vote choice. The analysis is based on data gathered from a conjoint survey experiment that presented Kenyan voters with two candidate profiles that randomly varied funding sources and several other characteristics. I find that the type of funding source does indeed determine a candidate’s electability and credibility. Candidates who rely on their savings are elected at higher rates than those who take out loans or receive assistance from the party or friends. The latter two sources of funding are perceived as providing candidates with incentives to engage in corruption once in office– cronyism, for instance – as they must repay debts incurred in the course of campaigning. The findings have implications for our theories of corruption and democratic consolidation in developing and multi-ethnic states.

Author

• Matthew K Gichohi, University of Bergen