Leonard Wantchekon - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Leonard Wantchekon

Does information about rampant political corruption increase electoral participation and the supp... more Does information about rampant political corruption increase electoral participation and the support for challenger parties? Democratic theory assumes that offering more information to voters will enhance electoral accountability. However, if there is consistent evidence suggesting that voters punish corrupt incumbents, it is unclear whether this translates into increased support for challengers and higher political participation. We provide experimental evidence that information about copious corruption not only decreases incumbent support in local elections in Mexico, but also decreases voter turnout, challengers' votes, and erodes voters' identification with the party of the corrupt incumbent. Our results suggest that while flows of information are necessary, they may be insufficient to improve political accountability, since voters may respond to information by withdrawing from the political process. We conclude with a discussion of the institutional contexts that could allow increased access to information to promote government accountability.

American Political Science Review, Dec 4, 2023

T he article provides experimental evidence of the effect of candidate-citizen town-hall meetings... more T he article provides experimental evidence of the effect of candidate-citizen town-hall meetings on voters' political behavior. The intervention took place prior to the March 2011 elections in Benin and involved 150 randomly selected villages. In the treatment group, candidates held town-hall meetings where voters deliberated over their electoral platforms. The control group was exposed to the standard campaign-that is, one-way communication of the candidate's platform by himself or his local broker. We find that town-hall meetings led to a more informed citizenry and higher electoral participation, which diverged little along socioeconomic lines. We also observe a lower effectiveness of vote-buying attempts where town halls took place. This is consistent with town-hall deliberation promoting what we call more "ethical" voters.

PS: Political Science & Politics, 2019

works in the areas of event history, time series and network methodologies. Statement of Views: A... more works in the areas of event history, time series and network methodologies. Statement of Views: APSA is the preeminent body for advancing the profession and engaging in the myriad issues facing higher education, the nation, and the world. The study of political science has immense collective value for understanding and addressing the major issues of our time and those of an enduring nature. It is vital that our members and their work are supported and celebrated as they strive to understand and solve complex problems while communicating potential solutions to peers, decision makers, and the public. It is our collective advantage to do so as a discipline that embraces pluralistic methodologies. APSA is uniquely positioned to make an impact by embracing, welcoming, and more deeply engaging political scientists from a variety of backgrounds who are pursuing academic, industry, and public service careers and fostering those relationships for the benefit of all in our research, teaching, and service. As the leading organization for the study of political science, it is critically important to foster both community and the diversity of ideas as well as personal diversity in our profession.

This paper provides experimental evidence on the effect of town hall meetings on voting behavior.... more This paper provides experimental evidence on the effect of town hall meetings on voting behavior. The experiment took place during the March 2011 elections in Benin and involved 150 randomly selected villages. The treatment group had town hall meetings where voters deliberated over their candidate's electoral platforms with no cash distribution. The control group had the standard campaign, i.e. one-way communication of the candidate's platform by himself or his local broker, followed (most of the time) by cash distribution. We find that the treatment has a positive effect on turnout. In addition, using village level election returns, we find no significant difference in electoral support for the experimental candidate between treatment and control villages. However, post-election individual surveys suggest a positive treatment effect on electoral support. Finally, we find that the positive treatment effect is driven in large part by active information sharing by those who attended the meetings * Very preliminary and incomplete. I would like to thank Jan Toerell, Miriam Golden, Kosuke Imai, the participants of the Juan March conference on clientelism, the Political Economy seminar at Princeton University for comments and suggestions. I would like to thank the research staff of the IERPE (Benin), especially Azizou Chabi, Assouma Kassim, Cyriaque Edon, Richard Houessou, Damase Sossou, as the campaign management teams of President Yayi Boni, Me Houngbedji and Mr Bio Tchane for helping implement the experiment. Jenny Guardado, Pedro Silva provided excellent research assistance. The usual caveat applies

WIDER Working Paper

This study has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project Clientelist politics and economic devel... more This study has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project Clientelist politics and economic development-theories, perspectives and new directions.

Using a unique dataset on students from the first regional schools in colonial Benin, we investig... more Using a unique dataset on students from the first regional schools in colonial Benin, we investigate the effect of education on living standards, occupation and political participation. Since both school locations and student cohorts were selected with very little information, treatment and control groups are balanced on observables. We can therefore estimate the effect of education by comparing the treated to the untreated living in the same village, as well as those living in villages where no schools were set up. We find a significant positive treatment effect of education for the first generation of students, as well as their descendants: they have higher living standards, are less likely to be farmers, and are more likely to be politically active. We find large village-level externalities-descendants of the uneducated in villages with schools do better than those in control villages. We also find extended family externalities-nephews and nieces directly benefit from their uncle's education-and we show that this represents a "family-tax," as educated uncles transfer resources to the extended family.

Afrobarometer publications report the results of national sample surveys on the attitudes of citi... more Afrobarometer publications report the results of national sample surveys on the attitudes of citizens in selected African countries towards democracy, markets, civil society, and other aspects of development. The Afrobarometer is a collaborative enterprise of Michigan State University (MSU), the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), and the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD, Ghana). Afrobarometer papers are simultaneously co-published by these partner institutions and the Globalbarometer.

This paper provides experimental evidence on the eect of town hall meetings on voting behavior. T... more This paper provides experimental evidence on the eect of town hall meetings on voting behavior. The experiment took place during the March 2011 elections in Benin and involved 150 randomly selected villages. The treatment group had town hall meetings where voters deliberated over their candidate's electoral platforms. The con- trol group was exposed to the standard campaign, i.e. one-way communication of the candidate's platform by himself or his local broker. We …nd that the treatment has a positive eect on measures of turnout and voting for the treatment candidate. The results also suggest that the positive treatment eect on vote share is driven in large part by active information sharing by those who attended the meetings.

Political Science Research and Methods, 2021

Are individuals in violent contexts reluctant to tackle corruption for fear of future violence? O... more Are individuals in violent contexts reluctant to tackle corruption for fear of future violence? Or does violence mobilize them to fight corruption? We investigate these questions looking at the effects of fear and violence stemming from the Mexican Drug War on attitudes toward corruption. We conducted two surveys before the 2012 Mexican presidential election. First, as part of a nationally representative survey, we find a positive correlation between fear of violence and willingness to accept corruption in exchange for lower levels of violence. To disentangle causal effects, we conducted a follow-up survey experiment in Greater Mexico City where we manipulated fear over the Drug War. We find that individuals within this context are not easily scared. Those who received a common fear-inducing manipulation do not report higher levels of fear and are less willing to tolerate corruption. Conversely, we find strong evidence that individuals who have been victims of crime are more likely ...

American Journal of Political Science, 2020

In a randomized experiment in cooperation with two national parties competing in a congressional ... more In a randomized experiment in cooperation with two national parties competing in a congressional election in the Philippines, we estimate the causal effect on voting behavior of a town‐hall style campaign in which candidates discuss their campaign platform with small groups of citizens. Keeping the parties' platform fixed, we find that town‐hall meetings have a positive effect on parties' vote shares compared to the status quo, in which voters play a passive role. Consistent with the parties' advocacy for underprivileged groups, we observe heterogeneous effects by income, education, and gender. Deliberative campaigns increase voters' awareness on the issues parties campaign on, affecting the vote of the direct beneficiaries of the parties' platform.

Electoral Studies, 2018

The literature on vote-buying often assumes a complete transaction of cash for votes. While there... more The literature on vote-buying often assumes a complete transaction of cash for votes. While there is ample evidence that candidates target certain voters with cash handouts, it is unclear whether these actually result in higher turnout and vote shares for the distributing party. Empirically, using different matching techniques and accounting for district-level factors, we find that cash handouts have little to no effect on either turnout or vote shares during the 2011 presidential election in Benin. We cross-validate these results with additional surveys from four other African countries (Kenya, Mali, Botswana, and Uganda). Results suggest that vote-buying is better explained as an incomplete transaction between candidates and voters and that handouts from multiple parties as well as district-level traits (e.g. patronage, public goods) may account for the null effects observed.

Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 2014

Corruption is usually depicted in one of two ways: as stemming from a lack of government accounta... more Corruption is usually depicted in one of two ways: as stemming from a lack of government accountability, or from a lack of capacity. Neither depiction predicts that the structure of institutions meant to control corruption should vary across autocratic regimes. If corruption results from moral hazard between politicians and citizens, then all unaccountable governments should eschew anticorruption bodies. If rent-seeking stems from moral hazard between politicians and bureaucrats, all governments should create anticorruption bodies. We offer an explanation for why unaccountable governments vary in their willingness to create anticorruption institutions. Autocrats create such bodies to deter ideologically disaffected members of the populace from entering the bureaucracy. Anticorruption institutions act as a commitment by the elite to restrict the monetary benefits from bureaucratic office, thus ensuring that only zealous supporters of the elite will pursue bureaucratic posts. We illustrate these arguments with case studies of South Korea and Rwanda.

The Journal of Politics, 2015

Retrospective voting models assume that offering more information to voters about their incumbent... more Retrospective voting models assume that offering more information to voters about their incumbents' performance strengthens electoral accountability. However, it is unclear whether incumbent corruption information translates into higher political participation and increased support for challengers. We provide experimental evidence that such information not only decreases incumbent party support in local elections in Mexico, but also decreases voter turnout and support for the challenger party, as well as erodes partisan attachments. While information clearly is necessary to improve accountability, corruption information is not sufficient because voters may respond to it by withdrawing from the political process. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for studies of voting behavior.

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2014

Using a unique data set on students from the first regional schools in colonial Benin, we investi... more Using a unique data set on students from the first regional schools in colonial Benin, we investigate the effect of education on living standards, occupation, and political participation. Since both school locations and student cohorts were selected with very little information, treatment and control groups are balanced on observables. We can therefore estimate the effect of education by comparing the treated to the untreated living in the same village, as well as those living in villages where no schools were set up. We find a significant positive treatment effect of education for the first generation of students, as well as their descendants: they have higher living standards, are less likely to be farmers, and are more likely to be politically active. We find large village-level externalities—descendants of the uneducated in villages with schools do better than those in control villages. We also find extended family externalities—nephews and nieces directly benefit from their unc...

for valuable comments. We also thank Sayon Deb and Katherine Wilson for excellent research assist... more for valuable comments. We also thank Sayon Deb and Katherine Wilson for excellent research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2000

We study elections in which one party (the strong party) controls a source of political unrest; e... more We study elections in which one party (the strong party) controls a source of political unrest; e.g., this party could instigate riots if it lost the election. We show that the strong party is more likely to win the election when there is less information about its ability to cause unrest. This is because when the weak party is better informed, it can more reliably prevent political unrest by implementing a "centrist" policy. When there is uncertainty over the credibility of the threat, "posturing" by the strong party leads to platform divergence.

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1999

This article investigates voting behavior and policy outcomes when violence can occur after the e... more This article investigates voting behavior and policy outcomes when violence can occur after the election. The author finds that under complete information, voters will prefer the weak party—that is, the party that is the least capable of controlling violence. Under incomplete information, however, violence might occur, and voters could prefer the party the most capable of controlling violence. Finally, the author shows that despite this likely voting outcome, the weak party will choose to participate nonaggressively in the election, providing legitimacy to the new democratic process.

Journal of African Economies, 2013

This background paper has been prepared for the UNDP's first African Human Development Report. We... more This background paper has been prepared for the UNDP's first African Human Development Report. We are grateful to Martin Heger and Marshall Burke for assistance with data. We would also like to thank Ricardo Fuentes and an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier draft. Thanks to the participants at the 36th plenary session of the African Economic Research Consortium's (AERC) Biannual Research Workshop in Arusha, Tanzania. Any mistakes are our own.

Journal of African Economies, 2011

This paper explores how the combined use of Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) and Structural Mo... more This paper explores how the combined use of Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) and Structural Models can improve the study of politics. We posit that randomized controlled trials can benefit from the insights provided by structural models, particularly for the type of questions posed in Political Science. Although structural models have been utilized scarcely in politics, the close relationship between theory and empirics required by structural models would help solving many of the current pitfalls of RCTs in political science. For instance, this approach can alleviate concerns of external validity often associated with experimental evidence. We finally present a real political science example to illustrate the implementation of this approach.