Policy Attribution and Candidate Choice: Conjoint Experiments in Ghana and India

• In Event: The Political Economy of Service Delivery in Developing Democracies

Abstract

Building on recent work concerning the impact of attribution on accountability, we investigate whether policy attribution influences candidate choice. Choosing between candidates is a key component of electoral accountability, and selection of this type is incorporated in recent accountability models. Campaign promises provide information about potential future performance that can affect expectations about which policies will be chosen, and provide a benchmark for future performance evaluation. It is, therefore, reasonable to think that voters will be more likely to condition candidate choice on promises concerning attributable policy outcomes, for which effort in the office can be evaluated more effectively. Using conjoint experiments embedded in surveys run in Accra, Ghana, and Delhi, India, we investigate the quality of policy attribution, and measure the extent to which policy attribution influences the selection of candidates in local government elections. Contrary to the expectations of accountability models, we find that while the quality of policy attribution is high, there is at best only weak evidence to suggest that attribution influences candidate choice.

Authors

• Tanushree Goyal, Harvard University

• Robin Harding, University of Oxford